7 Ways Music is Like Design

Having sung both in choruses and as a soloist for decades, my primary focus in college led me into a long-time career in interior design—yet music kept calling me back. Over the years, I began to notice that the skills I perfected in one area seemed to reveal themselves in the other, and I became more and more curious as to why or how that was happening.
The first time I realized the correlation between design and music was a simple habit I’d fallen into—a thing called discipline. I repeatedly shared with colleagues and students how all the years I spent singing in the San Francisco Opera chorus had really taught me how much discipline played into a successful career. There was no showing up late, not knowing your music, your words, or your blocking. I had taken a few years away from my design career when I was hired by the San Francisco Opera. It was truly a full-time job that required intense concentration— every day! My AGMA contract gave me 36 hours off every fourteen days. Besides sleep, there was housekeeping, laundry, grocery shopping, and meal prep, not to mention voice lessons, coaching, and trying to get ahead of music memorization. But one got into the rhythm of things.
 
When I returned to design, everything seemed easier. I was more goal-driven, more deadline-oriented, and more successful in actual design solutions. Client meetings, research, drafting, design selections, and follow-up meetings all stayed on schedule. Even the product ordering —or fabrication— was most always delivered as promised, largely dependent upon constant and consistent communication. And clients were wildly happy, resulting in repeat business over a forty-five-year career.
 
But a second correlation was revealing itself to me. In design, we study and follow the fundamental principles of classic design: emphasis, balance and alignment, contrast, repetition, proportion, movement, and white space. We use these seven principles to solve problems, and to create beautiful and functional spaces. When we’re stumped with a design solution, we can literally check off how each principle was addressed and utilized to identify where we went wrong and how to ‘right’ our design solution.
 
Interestingly enough, those principles can be found in music. In composition, and in singing over and over again, one sees where the principles are utilized and underutilized. Perhaps appearing in a different order, but paying attention to these principles can really impact one’s performance, — and ultimately, one’s career. Let’s look at those principles more closely as they apply to music.

1. EMPHASIS

While all musicians train similarly, by learning to read music or scales, at some point, we begin to identify with a particular area of emphasis. Perhaps we find we have an affinity for a particular style of music, or a particular composer, or a particular time period. We find that although we study a broad assortment, we find ourselves most drawn to something specific and return again and again to that specific thing. And it informs our development. As a young singer, I found it easy to sing melismatic passages and high notes, so I began to learn and perform a lot of coloratura pieces, leading me to sing a lot of Handel and then Bellini. Even though I sang in musical theatre productions prior to opera, my greater success came from emphasizing the use of coloratura. Later on, my skills obtained through the study of acting and theatre, and working with great artists and directors, shifted my emphasis to character development and finding the drama through music. And that informed most of my music choices thereafter.

2. BALANCE AND ALIGNMENT

Particularly in voice, this is the constant in your training and maintaining your instrument as well as your performance. Balance in your registers, in your air— both speed and pressure. The alignment of your spine and your head is often addressed through body work using Alexander Technique or Feldenkrais. But it also requires balance in your life. Learning to hold time for friends and family within your music practice and training, and ultimately your music career. Learning to take care of your health, both physical and mental, is equally important to knowing your notes and your words. And alignment with healthy and positive mentors, coaches, and teachers with whom you share values and goals is essential.

3. CONTRAST

Whether exposing yourself to music that may not be your favorite, many wonderful discoveries can lead you to new ways of listening and new ways of performing. Certainly, programming a concert of all Baroque music can benefit from a few contrasting pieces to display the very details that made you fall in love with Baroque music in the first place, and they can demonstrate how those details developed, influenced, and informed contemporary music. Contrasts almost always improve. You find singing high notes is easy? Then develop and practice your low notes to discover how much easier those high notes can actually be. Even your confidence is improved by practicing and expanding other areas of your instrument/voice, or your music knowledge, or your skills.

4. REPETITION

Isn’t that what we do anyway? But why? Because repetition increases strength. We repeat warm-up scales over and over to first remind our bodies what we want, to wake up our voices (and our minds with purposeful repetition), and to build strength and good technique so that our instrument is ready for what we ask of it. To rehearse, we first repeat and repeat our rhythms, our entries, our pitches, our words - all so that we can trust our memory and our body to actually reach a performance-ready stage. Then repeat music we know so that we discover and rediscover all that we can, building on and enriching our performances with new insights. Repetition is the fundamental building block.

5. PROPORTION

This can be anything from time management to a career definition. This can be a powerful tool in building a recital or concert program. This can be a decision on how much you employ your instrument at any time. Do you sing at full volume, or do you always mark to save your instrument? Do you only sing contemporary music or do you only sing early music? Do you only sing with others, or do you only sing solo? Do you phone it in, or do you actually study your music thoughtfully? Do you study regularly or only occasionally - or not at all? Think about the time you commit, and the quality of your attention or effort you commit to music. Think about how that proportion, that is, the allocation of time, energy, or resources you have to give, will impact the music you wish to experience, or make. Then make the adjustments you can or need to make to reach your goal.

6. MOVEMENT

Physical movement improves our health, plain and simple. If you’re a singer, your entire body is the resonator of your voice. Holding, tension, stiffness, freezing any part of your body stops or inhibits your sound from resonating. As a musician, rhythm and movement facilitate forward movement of the motifs, the development or journey, and the emotions and atmosphere of the composition. Programs and concerts are successfully built with the consideration of movement from one musical era to another, or the movement of a theme from one iteration to another, or the movement of one mood or emotion to another.

7. WHITE SPACE

For the visual, as in design, or the aural, as in music, the importance of white space cannot be underestimated. Humans need to have resting spaces to capture, contemplate, and understand what they have experienced. It may seem that the ‘emptiness’ is a void that reveals or holds nothing, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Stimulus can be overwhelming and profound, and without a moment to process what we’ve seen or heard, it would be easy for our brains to shut down. That’s a device that’s built in from time immemorial. We all need our white space, so don’t forget to take it.

As a singer, the principles I first recognized through design—discipline, emphasis, balance and alignment, contrast, repetition, proportion, movement, and white space—have become powerful tools for shaping my craft. Discipline keeps me prepared, reliable, and able to sustain the long hours and focus needed for a career in music. 

Knowing my emphasis helps me hone my strengths while continuing to grow in new directions, guiding repertoire choices and performance style. Balance and alignment protect my instrument and ensure I can sing with health and longevity, while contrast pushes me to explore unfamiliar territory and expand my expressive range. Repetition builds the muscle memory and technical consistency that make performance secure. 

Proportion teaches me to allocate time, energy, and attention wisely so I can develop fully without burnout. Movement keeps my voice free and my performances alive, and white space reminds me to rest, reflect, and let the music—and myself—breathe. Together, these principles not only shape my artistry but also help me sustain a fulfilling, long-term singing career.

Are there other professions or disciplines that offer principles that have helped you as a singer or in this field? Share in the comments below!