Seal is one of the most original songwriters in the world, but everyone has to start somewhere. The singer’s blend of pop, R&B, and rock all started in his head and with his voice. He shared some insight on the evolution of his musical journey in a new video interview with Reverb.
“When I first started writing songs, I was writing from my voice,” he explains. “The type of songs I was writing varied in style and identity from one song to the next.”
That proved to be a problem for landing a record deal, as executives couldn’t figure out how to market him. The creative power was there, though, and he composed his biggest hit before he even played any instruments.
“One of the first sort of decent songs I wrote before I could play anything was ‘Kiss From a Rose,'” he explains. “And I wrote that from the voice… basically me trying to emulate what an orchestra would do… all of those bits… they’re all string parts or orchestral parts and it’s me trying to imitate what an orchestra would do.”
In order to get some structure and identity into his music, Seal decided he needed an instrument. “Because the voice can be such an unbridled instrument, it can be difficult to define a sound or have a consistency from one song to the next, which is why I picked up an instrument: the guitar. It would ground me in some way.”
Seal learned the E and A chord shapes, which are movable in the form of barre chords up and down the fretboard. A friend told him that after learning those two shapes, he could play nearly any chord he’d need to write a song. A spark of inspiration hit him instantly, and he wrote his first song with a guiar. His friend’s insight led to Seal’s breakthrough hit, ‘Crazy.’ Those simple shapes gave structure to his melodic ideas and ultimately focused his musical voice.
“When I wrote ‘Crazy’, it didn’t sound like any of the artists I was trying to emulate,” Seal reflects. “For the first time, I’d written a song that sounded like me… I attribute that to the guitar allowing more of my identity to step forward.”
Ultimately, Seal leaves us with important advice on songwriting. “Trust in yourself more. Trust in what you naturally do,” he said. “There’s always going to be that work ethic and integrity, but there does need to be a certain element of trust where you just trust in the process.”
Get into Seal’s creative use of simple chords with the score for “Crazy.”
