Is It Better to Stick to One Style or Be Musically “All Over the Place”?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about style.

Most days, I live in the world of cinematic and orchestral scores. But it’s not just my hard drive that’s mixed: my released songs and the artists I’ve worked with are all over the map too. I’ve done pop songs, synth-driven tracks, trap or gospel vibes, and I still do them alongside my orchestral work.

As a composer or producer, I often feel like genres are "fake" borders. At the end of the day, it’s just music. But the industry doesn’t always see it that way.

So I wanted to open this up as a discussion here: Is it better to focus on one main style your whole career, or is it okay to split yourself across many?

There are solid reasons people say “pick a lane”:

Clarity for clients & listeners: If you’re “the orchestral guy” or “the dark synth person,” people know when to think of you. It’s easier to market, easier to pitch, easier to brand.
Deeper mastery: Sticking to one style lets you go really deep. You learn every nuance of that sound world: voicings, tempo ranges, sound design tricks, what works emotionally, what doesn’t.
Stronger signature: When you live in one style long enough, your fingerprints start to show in a recognizable way. That “oh, this sounds like X” effect is powerful.

I totally get this. When I do cinematic scores, I feel like I’m coming my home. That language is natural to me now.

But here’s the other side: I don’t only want one home.

When I’m writing pop, or sculpting a synth track, or building a trap-gospel groove, I’m using different parts of the same musical brain. And those experiences bleed into each other in useful ways:

Cross-pollination of ideas: A synth arpeggio might become a strings ostinato. A gospel chord move might sneak into a moody game score. A pop topline might teach you how to write stronger main themes.
More emotional colors: Different genres are like different emotional toolkits. If you write for games, movies, or stories, being able to move between “epic,” “intimate,” “modern,” “retro,” “spiritual,” etc. is a huge advantage.
Creative sanity: Staying in one style 100% of the time can become a cage. Jumping into another genre for a while can reset your ears and keep you excited about music in general.

For me, doing all these different things doesn’t feel like cheating on my main style also it feels like training different muscles in the same body.

This is where my own belief comes in.. I don’t think style and genre are the same thing. Genre is the box the industry understands: “orchestral,” “pop,” “trap,” “synthwave,” etc. Style is how you think and feel musically, your sense of melody, harmony, rhythm, sound choice, and emotion. Two people can both write “orchestral” but sound completely different. And one composer can write in four genres, but you can still hear the same soul under all of them.

That’s what I’m aiming for: not “I only do X,” but “whatever I touch, you can tell it’s me.”

The confusion, I think, isn’t inside us; it’s in how we present ourselves. f your catalogue looks like this a game dev or director might wonder, “So… what are you actually offering?” or they may thins "This composer has so many colors in the hand, good to have so many choices!"

Maybe the key is not to hide the diversity, but to organize it. A clear sentence to describe it can be like:

“I’m mainly a cinematic & orchestral composer, but I love blending in pop, synth, and trap-gospel influences when the project calls for it.” That way, people know your core lane, but also see the extra colors you bring.

Right now, this is where I stand, I don’t want to lock myself into one genre forever , I do want a clear core identity as cinematic or orchestral storytelling, but on the other hand around that core, I want freedom to bring in pop, synth, trap-gospel, and whatever else makes the story stronger. I’m just saying: this is my main language, but I’m fluent in a few dialects.

Sorry for long writing, I’m really curious how other composers here see this. Drop your thoughts below, I’d love to hear how you navigate this?

13 comments