Playing - Do you have your own style?

HAL9000

A couple of years back I’d have said not. Lately though (since playing more in public) I’ve upped my game somewhat and find myself coming up with different (and hopefully vaguely original) licks rather than relying on pentatonics - but they’re always there to fall back on when it all goes tIts up. So now I’d say yes, I have my own reasonably distinctive style. Not claiming to be original but certainly recognisably me.

darthed1981

I'd say overall, my playing is recognisable anywhere.

Fishboy7

Interesting. I do have some moves, licks and phrases that I don't think I've heard anyone else do.  Could be because everyone else thinks they sound shit though, 

Wazmeister

Yes, I have.

I've always been less  interested in playing other peoples stuff.

Mind you, I've spent loads on gear, and strangely (for good or ill), I always sound like me !

viz

Not really. 

slacker

Sort of,mainly because I fingerpick due to inability to use a plectrum properly.

Supportact

Yes, I think so. It's probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style' but there's definitely an approach that I think of as my way of playing. Also partly it's to do with what you learned first e.g. Learned classical, arpeggios, double stops, fingerstyle, rhythm type stuff, never got in to shredding or high gain type stuff. So that makes you into a certain type of player. 

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Yup, I do, and I think a lot of people don't realise that about themselves either.

Unlike many players, I don't use a plectrum at all; I either fingerpick, or strum using my finger and thumbnail as though I were holding a plectrum, or for more acoustic-type strumming I'll use all nails, as most people do.  I'll switch between these techniques all the time too. I do a lot of combined left hand and palm muting for stuff too.

Not using a plectrum at all means things are less clicky and treblish, so straight away that's a bit of a different sound regardless of anything one plays, and then there is the fact that I'm much more interested in rhythm playing than lead stuff, so there is a lot more syncopation going on in typical stuff I do. To fit in with my singing voice I have to do stuff a bit out of the ordinary too sometimes as well.

For a long time I used to think I was a fairly average-ish player, that was until I started getting out there and playing gigs; it was then that I found that a fair few players I bumped into who'd watched me, would say they wished they could play like I did; it surprised me at first when hearing people say that because I'd never considered myself to be particularly good. On balance I see  it is true that I do have a style which I don't see many other people doing and it makes me fairly original a lot of the time, but it's just the way I play, so it doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me personally.

Having said that, I think it's true to say that all players could say that kind of thing about another player who is doing something they can't, or don't typically do. We tend to admire stuff we can't, or at least haven't tried to do and forget that other players will be thinking that about us too when they see someone doing something they can't, or don't do.

Tannin

Absolutely. I have never played anyone else's songs, at least not since I learned The House of the Rising Sun at age 13. Don't think I've ever learned to play another song all the way through in the 50+ years since (other than ones I wrote myself, co-wrote, or another player in the band wrote).

I start learning stuff quite often. I get a few bars in and discover a nice sound. "Hmmmm .... what If I repeat that lick starting on the Bb?" ... "Yes, and play it in triplets, with a rest on beat 1 of the second bar?" Ten minutes later, I've completely forgotten about the song I started to learn and I'm miles away.

I'm a vastly better player than I was years ago, but unquestionably the same player, still forever lost somewhere in that wonderful world half-way between noodling and songwriting, still always playing things a little bit too hard for me, still practicing something until I'm 90% good at it and actual mastery of the song is within sight - at which point I lose interest and  don't bother playing it again for months or years.

(I'm excluding my bass playing days here. Bass is a different world, I was doing it for the money, and the only thing I played was covers.) 

octatonic

That isn't for me to say, really.
But I do try.

thecolourbox

My playing and harmony vocabulary has a few common phrases and shapes that pop up a lot, I also don't use a pick even when playing heavier stuff so that sounds different. I can use a pick I just choose not to. I guess that makes my style, when I'm playing I hear it like I'm doing "a bit of jeff/jimi/Jack" etc but when I listen back I do hear a kind of consistency of style in a lot of my playing. I'm not saying I make original sounds necessarily but I think what we each combine from the different parts are what make our own styles

Danny1969

There's a school of though that suggest if you go your own way and don't copy anyone else, then your style will be original and I get that.
I also think though that if you spend 40 years in different kinds of covers bands from heavy rock to RockaBilly then you will absorb bits of everything and that will come out in a unique style anyway. That's what I think my style is, bits of everything from Hank Marvin, Van Halen, Knopfler, The Edge, Brad Paisley. 

Roland

Everyone has their own style to some extent. As @Danny1969 says, we each absorb things from the music we play. It can be phrases, finger positions, chord shapes and positions, approaches to bending and sliding and vibrato … a long list. To these we add our personal style, particularly our phrasing. It can include how we want it to sound, what our capabilities allow, but also what our individual limitations are. Playing anyone else’s song, especially in a covers band, requires you to balance how close to the original artist you want to be vs playing in you own style.

Your own style can add excitement and flavour to the performance. On the other hand it has the potential to make each song sound the same.

There was a time when my style was clearly audible. I played almost everything with fingers. Working with covers bands over the last 15 years I’ve grown to use a plectrum more and more because that’s what the writers and performers of the songs used. As a result the personal style of my earlier playing is less audible than it used to be.

Danny1969

One thing I realised when I started teaching  is you may as well teach them hybrid picking from the start because that way they can play in both styles comfortably

I use the claw technique more than anything else in my own compositions because it all tends to be played as solo pieces rather than band pieces. 

viz

Supportact said:

Yes, I think so. It's probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'

I like this. I guess all of us are unique in this way and could recognise our own playing accordingly in a audio line-up.

Lestratcaster

I don't know, I'm a tutor so have to learn other people's music half the time but I have written and performed my own compositions too. I think I'm just a dull generic player, can do the basic all-round things well but nothing unique about my playing.

jpfamps

viz said:

Supportact said:

Yes, I think so. It's probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'

I like this. I guess all of us are unique in this way and could recognise our own playing accordingly in a audio line-up.

Chris Scruggs, who is a fabulous musician, made an interesting comment in this regard.

He said that as a guitarist you are defined by your limitations.

A lightbulb moment for me (and there haven't been many.......) in playing the guitar is the realization that the great stylists don't try to change their playing style to fit the music they are playing, but they make their style of playing work in the musical context they are in.

A prime example of this is one of my all time favourite players Steve Cropper.

Another great example is Eddie Van Halen's solo in Beat It. He didn't change his style to fit the song, he made his style fit the song.

Chris Scruggs makes another great point; he said he wanted to get to the point where he would be hired because the producer want him to play guitar on a track not be cause the producer wanted a guitar on the track.

HAL9000

^ Some interesting points there. I’d never thought about the ‘defined by your limitations’ thing but that makes complete sense. I’ve always tried to play to my strengths which, I guess, is an arse-about-face of saying the same sort of thing. When playing a solo or a fill. I definitely try to make what I already do work for the song rather than changing what I do and forcing it to fit.