How original are you as a guitarist ?

koneguitarist

My influences are Chuck Berry, Dave Edmunds, status Quo, Albert Lee etc, yet I don't think I sound like any of them no matter how hard I try. Not sure if that makes me sound distinctive in my own style, or just somebody who cannot play like his hero's. What about yourself, analyse your playing and your influences, have you copied a hero and developed your own sound from that, or are you still trying?

Lixarto

Aren't we all still trying?[1]

I think almost all of us started off trying to sound like someone in particular, or to make a specific sound. As time goes by more influences sneak into that and become a melting pot.

The main guitar players I wanted to be like when I started[2] obviously, but also other guitarists whose records one heard[3] add a more subtle influence (eg, I played that chord in that song using a voicing Lifeson would have used).

Add time (lots of it in my case), and it "becomes" my style.

I suppose I'm original because nobody else has assimilated quite those mixture of influences and, of course, nobody else has the exact same (very small) talent that I do have.

Hmm.


[1] Apart from the complacent?

[2] Keef, Blackmore, Moody & Marsden, Young, Reed.

[3] In my case Rossi/Parfitt, Gilmour, Bolin, Lifeson, Rothery, Torme.

EricTheWeary

I am highly original. Just sounds like shit.

ICBM

I am an original mixture of completely non-original influences .

I don't play exactly like anyone else I've ever seen, but I certainly don't have any illusions that anything I do is actually 'original'. I'm not deliberately trying to be either - although I certainly don't try to copy anyone else. I just do what I do and whether it is or isn't original doesn't really matter.

I have written a song with what I think may be a completely original chord progression - in that it's *just* possible that no-one has ever done it before, because it's so odd - but on the other hand there have been a lot of guitarists before me and there only a limited number of chords and rhythms...

DulcetJones

When I played in cover bands I was striving to play each song note for note but gradually drifted into improvising in the same sort of style.  It wasn't until I got into playing solo guitar and learning to read music that I started to get more original.   I describe some of my writing/recording process in a blog post http://www.dulcetjones.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-writingrecording-process.html .  Recently I used a persian scale in a guitar solo to break away from all the standard pentatonic riffs I had been falling back on lately.  The scale is "1 -flat2 - 3 - 4 - flat5 - flat6 -7".  I don't exactly shred, never have actually, but just provide an atmospheric solo,(with a few notes that are outside of the scale here and there) It's the outro of this track and starts at 1:32  

http://dulcetjones.bandcamp.com/album/more-halloween-im-afraid

digitalscream

EricTheWeary said:

I am highly original. Just sounds like shit.

This is how I feel about my playing. My main influences - if you can call them that - are Nuno and Satch. The thing is, while I strive for Nuno's bounce and feel when riffing, I get all of the boring bits without any of the bits that make his playing so unique. I can do passable Satch-like stuff, but it just sounds very flat to me.

That said, a lot of people have said that they can't draw any comparisons when listening to my songs and solos, so I'm going to take that as "original", if not "good"

mellowsun

I think I'm more influenced by pianists than guitarists. I don't like playing solos, I'm more interested in coming up with nice chords. Probably not very original!

koneguitarist

Nice amount of honesty here so far. So many guitarists have influenced me, yet I don't sound like any of them, but I have always tried to steal borrow and assimilate their licks without success into my armoury of sounds. The only thing that I feel I have succeeded in copying in a way is the attitude and (possibly) the sensibility of Robbie Robertson of the band, in knowing when the song needs something or not!

richardhomer

I think there are certain aspects of my playing which are distinctive. I believe I have my own vibrato (the sonic 'fingerprint' of a player for me).

I have a melodic sense that probably comes from listening to Gilmour and Knopfler - though I don't think I sound particularly like either of them.

I like extended chords - this probably comes from listening to a lot of John Martyn, whose use of open tunings resulted in some very wide intervals, which are not heard often is standard tuning. Andy Summers also played a part is this - his avoidance of thirds, add 9 voicings, etc.

That said, many lead players have much wider harmonic knowledge that I have (I improvise using straight major/minor scales, the melodic minor and Dorian - anything I play outside of these is a happy accident...)

I think @Lixarto is spot on; you become a melting pot over (a very long) time.

mike_l

Considering the main influences who made me want to learn guitar are Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, kirk Hammett etc I don't sonsider myself a "lead guitarist" per se. I prefer riffing like Hetfield/Iommi and think I'm far better at that side if things than going widdly-widdly at 1,000 MPH.

 

Having said that, it might just be a confindence thing, and I need more confidence when out jamming. 

GuyBoden

We're all standing on the toes of giants.

Phil_aka_Pip

I've wanted to sound like many different guitarists, at various times, but rarely have I tried to ape them except in a covers band.

I recorded something at a mate's place once, then we sat back and listened to it. He was going "That's a Clapton lick ... bit of Gilmour there .. hey that was a Mark Knopfler lick ... Andy Latimer would have been proud of that ..." etc. I wasn't consciously doing it but I guess if you listen to some guitarists for long enough there will be things they've done that influence you.

not_the_dj

All the notes I play have been played before....and possibly in the same order.

monquixote

I don't think I'm especially original. 

I'm not sure who I especially sound like, but I have a fairly funk influenced approach to rhythm guitar and my lead style leans a bit too hard on double stops and the dorian mode. 

I find it very hard to break out of my box and play anything outside of the what I've been doing for years. It doesn't really trouble me now, but I went so far as to give up for a while at one point because I was so bored of everything I played. I suppose you might as well try and tickle yourself as play something that makes you surprise yourself.

viz

I'm staggeringly unoriginal and yet I completely fail to sound like the heroes I try to emulate

mellowsun

monquixote said:

I'm not sure who I especially sound like, 

A white Nile Rodgers?

monquixote

mellowsun said:

monquixote said:

I'm not sure who I especially sound like, 

A white Nile Rodgers?

In my dreams perhaps

Drew_TNBD

I'm not.

octatonic

Originality is a tricky concept in music because unless you are trying to do something entirely knew in terms of technique then really all you have is a set of tools that other people have used before and you try to recombine them in a way that hasn't been previously heard.

That is a tricky thing to do and can be a fool's errand- the main thing is- are you any good?

You can't be original by playing random shit on the instrument- that is just copping Derek Bailey, isn't it?

I try not to focus on the question of 'how original is this' and concentrate on listening to a wide variety of music, implementing stuff I hear and like in a way that makes logical sense to me and try to be the best version of me I can.

I'll let other people make an assessment of its originality.

EricTheWeary

Originality is often a measure of how little the listener knows about music. One of the nice things about YouTube interviews with people like Jim Campilongo or Greg Koch or even Joe Bonamassa is that they explain where they nicked their stuff from.

steamabacus

I think far too much emphasis is placed on notes and structure when it comes to 'originality'. Music has been around for tens of thousands of years - there's very little that hasn't been played by somebody at some time - and if it hasn't, it's probably closer to noise than music.

I believe originality lies not in what you play but rather in how you play it. Music is a language - you might have the widest vocabulary, the cleverest use of grammar or whatever but if you've got nothing to say, it's all irrelevant.

We all (hopefully) develop a 'style' accrued from our influences, whether consciously or unconsciously. Originality comes from an authentic expression of our artistic 'self' using whatever tools, techniques and contexts that are available and meaningful to us.