Do you have a style? Is it a blessing or curse?

Open_G

No matter what type of stuff I try to play, and I’m not great technical virtuoso. I always sound like me. I’m playing David Gilmour or Mark Knopfler licks in the style of “me”

Im trying to emphasise the blessing side but but it’s annoying when trying to play something accurately 

merlin

Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. I think it's better to sound like an individual rather than a clone. 

HAL9000

I’m sure that’s true of most of us. The reason that people like Knopfler, Robert Cray, Keef, Clapton, etc are instantly recognisable is precisely because they sound like themselves.

So, like @merlin says, be yourself (unless of course you can be David Gilmour - then be David Gilmour).

axisus

I think I do have something of a style, the basis of which comes from not using a plectrum. If I use a plec it sounds less like me, plus also doesn't feel 'right'. 

In some ways it feels like a curse as I can play faster and more accurately with a plec, but I definitely choose not to use one overall.

tanihhiavlt

Bruce Lee described his martial art as an accumulation of all styles - a style-less style.

For unrelated reasons, I have no style  

thecolourbox

Yes, I think so. I can pick certain things up very quickly that fit with that style, and I can make arrangements and versions of other music in that style also very easily and relatively effectively. And unfortunately that style is largely and consistently at odds with the music I actually like, hence I'm stuck in a perpetual battle between playing what I can do but don't like when others are listening, to playing what doesn't suit me but I enjoy when nobody is listening