Who here has their own style of playing?

[baritone]

I use weird chords and lots of muted strings and pick scrapes and palm mutes. And using a baritone guitar, I jump around to different octaves a lot. Any song I play, I totally make into my own. Also, I occasionally go crazy with effects; for example, if a song uses a light delay, I may substitute a sharp tremolo or even a step phaser. If I ever feel like my playing is getting too mechanical (like after practicing lead techniques like scales and sweeps), I sit back and listen to Nirvana. Kurt Cobain's sense of groove is one thing I consciously try to emulate.

[drew_half_empty]

well pretty much no one i meet feels they can really accurately describe my band

but that being said I feel that I have a ways to go to really have a signature sound, but I'm workin on it

[LesStrat]

I'd like to be able to blame someone else for my sound.

[Mars Hall]

The biggest compliment I ever received was at a guitar show in Villa Park Il near Chicago, I was trying out an amplifier, among all the chatter and other musicians playing, my buddy, who was somewhere else in the building, identified my playing. He knew it was me.

Well, maybe that's not the compliment I thought it was. I was either that bad or that good...

[SamusChief]

I tend to swing my whole arm on rhythm sections, in a punkish style. I play metal, mostly, though. It's not really original, just sloppier and more fun for me.

[jcthejester13]

I did for a while with different octaves and delays and loops, but lately I have tried returning to the fundamentals. Lately I have been getting back into going acoustic with some folk or finger picking. It's felt really good and it feels like that is where I need to be.

My tone used to be a gritty deep punch in the face, but now it's more melodic and soft.

[Mincer]

I think Mincer is more original than any of us - but I don't about style. I can tell his music from anyone elses -

But could i tell him vs Warren DeMartini vs Lynch vs whoever....I don't know.

Thanks Ace! Sometimes it is good to have your 'own sound' whatever that means. But it is useless when someone is asking you to sound like something else for a band or a recording, etc.

It also makes guitar buying rather joyless, since no matter what guitar I use (Tele, Steinberger, Strat, LP, Dean V which I still am waiting for), I get 1 sound out of.

[Bludave]

To develop your own style & sound.... play what you feel. I can recall practicing with my band and we were working on Same Old Blues(a Don Nix tune done by Freddie King) we had gone over it 4 or 5 times trying to get the timing & changes right. Each time I played the solo I played it different not for the sake of playing it different but attempting to find the sound we were after. Once I nail down a tune I try to stay true to the way we want to play it.

[ratherdashing]

Yes I do.

It took a long time to develop it, and it's still developing, but I definitely have a distinctive voice on the instrument.

[sosomething]

It would be hard to say for sure if you had your own style or not.

I think that's for other people to think about.

[Agileguy_101]

I think I do - Im not saying Im particularly GOOD but I think when I play a lead it sounds a little different to anyone else.

Amen.

The way I think of it, I don't play songs and I don't play specific instruments. I am just a musician, whatever the style or whatever the instrument. I know music in general, and because of that, I know several instruments and play a variety of styles. Because of the fact that I come at songs in this way, as a person thinking music, rather than as a person thinking guitar or bass or whatever, I basically learn the basic structure of a song and then write a part for it. I don't think I am particularly technically proficient, original, or stylistically individual, but I definitely play my own part, and play exactly what I want to play every time.

See, when I pick up another instrument, I still tend to play the same kind of music as I do on the guitar. In that way, I sound like me no matter what I play. Not so much in my tone, or how I play the notes I play, but actually what notes I play.

And while I'm on the subject, that applies to different guitars too. The tone totally changes when I switch between, say, a Les Paul and a Strat, but you can still tell it's me just because of what I play. I don't get the people that say "I sound like me no matter what I play." Yeah, true, but you'll sound like you playing a Strat or a Les Paul if that's what you're playing. You can't pick up one guitar, then pick up a totally different guitar, and say you sound the same. It's just not true.

[ratherdashing]

It would be hard to say for sure if you had your own style or not.

I think that's for other people to think about.

Your mom has her own style.

[Lazarus1140]

There might be some elements of my style that are original since I actually listen to very little guitar based music intentionally. I know, I know ... it's blasphemy.

[ImmortalSix]

kevlar3000

[TheLivingDead]

Your mom has her own style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLXfyjrAcTo#t=1m17s

[GoldenVulture]

Other people who know me tell me I have my own style.
I know where all my influences come from so I can't really hear it myself.
I did spend years not learning other peoples songs and trying to develop my own original music.
Check my Myspace site for some original tracks.
It's circa 83 when my mates in MAW were making Down Under and stuff.

[sosomething]

Your mom has her own style.

Oh yeah, well, your mom... has... um

my pubes in her teeth!

[viewaskew2k5]

by bass player can't make up his mind if I sound more like Robert Smith or Stone Gossard/Keith Richards. Depends if i'm playing the Fender VI, the Tele, or, The tele in Open G. :P

[JollyRoger523]

If you want to see a forum member with a unique style check out THIS THREAD

[youngthrasher9]

Even though I kind of suck, I do have an odd approach to playing. Like whenever I try to create a metal solo, it sounds very... bluesy due to my left hand technique. My main riffs sound very thrash metal-esque though. Think Dave Mustaine gone Mark Morton. Sloppy, but enjoyable.