Something I've always struggled to reconcile is that on the one hand, I really like heavier, more modern* styles of guitar - When I was younger, bands like Tool, Incubus, Deftones etc were big influences on my guitar playing, so I enjoy playing through high gain amps, palm muting, dissonance, drop tuning etc.
But on the other, I'm also really into things like Sigur Ros, the Flaming Lips, textural stuff, clean playing, leaving space, funky riffing, effects-driven stuff that is more often done through a clean amp. And I go through phases as to which "kind" of guitarist I am - it influences everything about how I approach the instrument, what gear I lust after, the kind of songs I'm writing at that moment.
It just struck me today that instead of trying and failing to reconcile two different kinds of guitar playing, it might be easier to just think of them as two different instruments - like acoustic guitar and electric guitar are just fundamentally different, or banjo and ukulele - it's just that in this case it's my mindset and not the instrument that changes.
Anyone else have something like that in their music life?
* "modern" being a relative term that grows more tenuous with each passing year
Comments
Never could settle.
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
I've done country licks, blues and acoustic pop ballad's which make up a portion of some of the styles I have to teach. These require different types of guitar, amps and techniques as opposed to the above. Learner's see several sides to my playing, the heavier drop tuning metalcore side and the softer cleaner effects laden (reverbs, delays) standard tuning side.
I remember when Top of The Pops was "live", - there was a period when artists had to perform with a band/orchestra in the studio providing the backing, and the result was usually disappointing, frequently embarrassing. Not because the musicians were incompetent, but because they mostly couldn't adopt the right attitude for the songs.
It's the reason why session guitarists like Chris Spedding were (are..?) in great demand - it's not just about playing the dots, it's being able to slot into the genre and be totally convincing.
I love metal music, but if I want to hear the subtleties and nuances of a guitar it's back to a broken clean sound and tired old 12-bar licks that I should really know more of at this point.
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