May 11, 2012
No matter how technically advanced you are as a guitarist, that doesn't necessarily make you a great musician. What's important is to listen to all your favourite bands/artists/musicians and listen to all the leads and rhythms and figure out what you like about the way they play. Developing your own style often comes from wearing all your influences on your sleeves (or as patches on your denim battle jacket, figuratively or literally) and taking all the best aspects of your favourite players to shape your sound. You have to emote, work on the feel of your playing, make use of phrasing and vibrato, develop an ear for rhythms and melodies, and use all that to develop your own style.
Thou shalt not steal they say; sure it's important that you find your own niche and set yourself apart from other players. You shouldn't be a clone of your favourite player unless you want to spend the rest of your career in a Van Halen cover band. That said, there is a second commandment; thou shalt steal as much as he/she sees fit from each player they listen to. If you can mimic several guitar players playing styles and tones, you develop versatility in your own playing style. You can even go as far back as to listen to players who influenced your influences for even more licks.
Find a guitar you love. More specifically, find a guitar that suits your playing style and makes you want to play. There are many factors to look into when buying a guitar, such as electronics, hardware, and tonewoods, but overall, you want a solidly constructed guitar that plays well and feels good in your hands. What you like may be different than what others like as well. For example, I can play bolt on necks, set necks, and neck through, so I have no real preferences for neck joints. Lots of fast players like thinner tapered neck shapes, yet I prefer a neck shape with some chunk to it, though I still like being able to smoothly and quickly transition up and down the neck. I use fairly light strings because I like to bend a lot, though others prefer heavier strings because they sound chunkier. The string height or action also makes it easier or harder to play depending on your style and grip. The size of the frets may be a factor as well. The scale length of the neck can benefit your playing style. For example, a Gibson Les Paul has a shorter scale length than a Fender Stratocaster. The Gibson scale neck may provide easier bending ability, though the Fender scale length may provide more accurate bending. The weight to the guitar may increase tone and sustain as well. I come from the Jimmy Page school, where I tend to play Les Paul style guitars with lots of weight to them because I find them easy to play and get a good sound out of them, whereas some, like Richie Blackmore and lately Jeff Beck, may play a Stratocaster style guitar because they like to put up a fight with them. Either way, the guitar itself becomes part of your playing style.
Vibrato is very important. What you want to remember is to slow your vibrato down to a point as to where you can hear the pulse of the note. Slow and wide is good for sustained notes, fast and thin is okay for short notes, but if your vibrato sounds too fast and wide, it loses all sense of control. Also note, not every note needs vibrato, just the emphatic ones. Phrasing is also very important in creating melodic and memorable solos and lead lines. Proper phrasing should sound like a breath if fresh air or a pause for effect in the middle of your playing. Say you're playing a fast lead lick, then you end it off with a sustained note, and you end the phrase by giving that last note a slow and wide vibrato, or maybe the vibrato starts of slow and gets faster or wider the longer the note is sustained. Then you move on to the next lick and do the same basic thing. Slowing your playing down is another thing you can do to emphasize notes and melodies.
Remember, back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was no such thing as guitar techniques. Everything played on guitar was part of these influential players' individual styles. Think of guitar techniques as phrasing tools or melodic motifs instead, and you want to learn to integrate these motifs and phrasing tools into your playing.
Thou shalt not steal they say; sure it's important that you find your own niche and set yourself apart from other players. You shouldn't be a clone of your favourite player unless you want to spend the rest of your career in a Van Halen cover band. That said, there is a second commandment; thou shalt steal as much as he/she sees fit from each player they listen to. If you can mimic several guitar players playing styles and tones, you develop versatility in your own playing style. You can even go as far back as to listen to players who influenced your influences for even more licks.
Find a guitar you love. More specifically, find a guitar that suits your playing style and makes you want to play. There are many factors to look into when buying a guitar, such as electronics, hardware, and tonewoods, but overall, you want a solidly constructed guitar that plays well and feels good in your hands. What you like may be different than what others like as well. For example, I can play bolt on necks, set necks, and neck through, so I have no real preferences for neck joints. Lots of fast players like thinner tapered neck shapes, yet I prefer a neck shape with some chunk to it, though I still like being able to smoothly and quickly transition up and down the neck. I use fairly light strings because I like to bend a lot, though others prefer heavier strings because they sound chunkier. The string height or action also makes it easier or harder to play depending on your style and grip. The size of the frets may be a factor as well. The scale length of the neck can benefit your playing style. For example, a Gibson Les Paul has a shorter scale length than a Fender Stratocaster. The Gibson scale neck may provide easier bending ability, though the Fender scale length may provide more accurate bending. The weight to the guitar may increase tone and sustain as well. I come from the Jimmy Page school, where I tend to play Les Paul style guitars with lots of weight to them because I find them easy to play and get a good sound out of them, whereas some, like Richie Blackmore and lately Jeff Beck, may play a Stratocaster style guitar because they like to put up a fight with them. Either way, the guitar itself becomes part of your playing style.
Vibrato is very important. What you want to remember is to slow your vibrato down to a point as to where you can hear the pulse of the note. Slow and wide is good for sustained notes, fast and thin is okay for short notes, but if your vibrato sounds too fast and wide, it loses all sense of control. Also note, not every note needs vibrato, just the emphatic ones. Phrasing is also very important in creating melodic and memorable solos and lead lines. Proper phrasing should sound like a breath if fresh air or a pause for effect in the middle of your playing. Say you're playing a fast lead lick, then you end it off with a sustained note, and you end the phrase by giving that last note a slow and wide vibrato, or maybe the vibrato starts of slow and gets faster or wider the longer the note is sustained. Then you move on to the next lick and do the same basic thing. Slowing your playing down is another thing you can do to emphasize notes and melodies.
Remember, back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was no such thing as guitar techniques. Everything played on guitar was part of these influential players' individual styles. Think of guitar techniques as phrasing tools or melodic motifs instead, and you want to learn to integrate these motifs and phrasing tools into your playing.
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