Is there something in your playing you can call your own?

[jeremyb]

I like making cool noises and harmonically dissonant chords

[Polar Bear]

My thing:
- not really being able to play
- not practising to remedy this
- awful repetitive pentatonic noodling

Starting to think I'm doing it wrong...

Pretty much covers most of us to varying degrees.

[Hot_Grits]

One trick to fooling others into thinking you have a thing going on is to borrow extremely widely and reassemble in interesting ways. You'll know where the bodies are buried but others may find it fresh.

Another trick is to dig into a style that isn't big in your town. There are certain things I do that interest kiwi players that I'm pretty certain dudes in Nashville or New Orleans wouldn't blink an eyelid at.

[Rog]

My thing is to still love the music I play even though I've been playing it for 53+ years.
I've never strived to be better than anyone else, my musical (in fact my life) ethos is very simple ~ if it ain't fun, it ain't worth doing. I never take myself too seriously, I laugh at most mistakes when I play.

[Lawrence]

Im with Rog
the one thing in my playing thats totally my own is.......my mistakes! No one screws up quite like I do!!

[Slowy]

I heard someone describe their distinctive and impressive style as, " Trying very hard to copy my heroes and failing completely."

Always liked that.

[sirvill]

My thing:
- not really being able to play
- not practising to remedy this
- awful repetitive pentatonic noodling

Starting to think I'm doing it wrong...

My thing too!

[Danger Mouse]

My thing:
- not really being able to play
- not practising to remedy this
- awful repetitive pentatonic noodling

Starting to think I'm doing it wrong...

My thing too!

I've been doing much the same, but because I've been doing it for over 25 years, point 1 has remedied itself just through the length of time I have been playing. Somewhere along the line I picked up a couple of other scales, but as a metal guitarist all I really need is the minor and minor pentatonic scales.

[The Scarecrow]

http://youtu.be/tiBzcFrXPqs

This is a jam of one of the tracks in my pop-rock band. I cam out pretty predominantly in the recording due to the phone we were using being on the front of my amp.

I didn't really think I had much in the way of signature stuff, but looking back, I find I throw in a few things to mix it up a bit as opposed to the singer/guitarist who plays the song very straight, with deviation from the way he wrote it. There are little things that I hear I've thrown in without realising like the ascending octave run on the later two choruses and the change in the D Major barre chord which I alternate into into minor (or something like that - I have zero theoretical knowledge most of my stuff comes from playing around) on the chorus.

My leads are pretty sloppy, but I like to think they're at the very least, catchy.

[Scooter13]

I can probably tell where everything in my playing came from, a Sabbath drone note there, an Adrian Smith blues lick there, a metallica Palm mute chunck here, Paul Gilbert in to Jimmy page pentatonic here. When I slop it all together it sounds like me...a massive thief

[calling card]

There's nothing original in what I do but it really sounds like me.

[druz15]

One trick to fooling others into thinking you have a thing going on is to borrow extremely widely and reassemble in interesting ways. You'll know where the bodies are buried but others may find it fresh.

Another trick is to dig into a style that isn't big in your town. There are certain things I do that interest kiwi players that I'm pretty certain dudes in Nashville or New Orleans wouldn't blink an eyelid at.

very well put.

Too bad what was big in my town was playing badly and singing out of tune, no way anything was gonna impress most of those hipsters.