Developing a Distinct Guitar Playing Style

After you've been playing guitar for some time, you will have developed some basic guitar skills and you'll in all probability be interested in developing your own signature style. Can you imagine anyone not wanting to express themselves in a way that is uniquely "them"? Learning the proper method to play involves more than just copying. No one is like you. Don't you suppose it's time to dig in and unleash your individual sound and guitar playing style on the world?

We Say "There's No One Like Him" for a Reason

Striving to develop your own style is something you actually should try to do, no matter what style you currently identify with the most (blues, country, jazz, classical, metal, slide, finger-style, and so on). In fact, one huge tip for uncovering your own guitar playing style is to sample other guitarists across a variety of genres. Don't just keep on listening to your most-loved albums regardless of how super-fantastic you think they are! They say "Variety is the spice of life" for a reason, you know.. Every guitarist should be listening now and again to legends like B.B.King, Chet Atkins, and Andre Segovia. Those guys are giants in their chosen styles (blues, country, and Spanish classical, respectively), and had a large influence across other styles, too.

Other more contemporary legends with their own guitar playing style are Eric Clapton and Tommy Emmanuel, just to mention two almost at random. These two can be playing with a wall of amps behind them or unplugged and you instantly know who it is. They both have an incredibly distinct sound all their own. And the one approach for you to develop this type of sound is by educating yourself on everything that has gone before. Soaking it all in and letting it get under your skin; letting it become part of you.

If you would like to be an amazing guitarist with your own personal, distinct guitar playing style that people immediately recognise, you, too, need to think about doing something different. Being totally different and fresh and unique is something we all attempt as musicians (or artists, on the whole), and if you want it, it's possible for you to have it. To do this, though, you have to "stretch your ears" and soak up some tunes beyond the confines of your regular radio-listening and CD collection.

More Than The Sum of Its Parts

Only by overcoming the resistance to soak up and play different things (and to essentially feel it) will you start to discover and draw out your own and unique style. Of course, don't play stuff you don't like! But I do advocate that you have a go at various things: borrow different guitars and pay attention to (really learn to hear) how they sound, shuffle your pedal rack (or just unplug it!), string your guitar with some different gauge strings and pay attention to the differences in tone and whether you prefer it, and so on... Never lose sight, however, of this one necessary truth: you're the only one able to express what it is that you want that guitar to express. It's coming from you and the guitar and all the gear, well, that's all just the channel for the expression.

At first it won't seem particularly "you." However, if you let it all swirl around inside, a sound new and fresh and different will ultimately emerge. A sort of "synthesis" will happen. You'll take all the little "snippets" you've been accumulating and stick them together in combinations that no one has ever achieved before! And right about then you'll begin to really feel you're "in the zone." The goal that most guitarists hope to one of these days achieve, and which most, sadly, never do, will be yours: your personal, distinctive guitar playing style.