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

Its all in the fingers, or is it?

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Molly
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Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by Molly »

I'm still trying to find something I can call my own (in part because I find it more enjoyable than trying to get my fingers to play other people's stuff) but it's like a bloody vortex. The more I pursue it the more constrained it seems to become. The less of 'it' (that thing I can maybe think of as mine) there seems to be.

So, when somebody has a style of their own does it require that there isn't much to it? If there was would it make the style less identifiable?

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by Single coil »

I do lots of bends and vibrato. I used to have trouble tuning because I’d be sustaining the note. :lol:
I tend to pick with more digits than I need to also. Curious percussive sound.
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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by HackSaw »

My mistakes, shit phrasing, and shocking lack of timing. Apart from that it’s just lawyer blues pentatonics I nicked from all the other chino wearing bellends.

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by jeremyb »

Massive wall (effects x 10) of simple notes that sounds awesome (IMHO)
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by Single coil »

HackSaw wrote:My mistakes, shit phrasing, and shocking lack of timing. Apart from that it’s just lawyer blues pentatonics I nicked from all the other chino wearing bellends.
Shot bro taking one for the team hah
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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by calling card »

Back to that blues shuffle in E. I found that bastard all by myself a very long time ago while I was still very ignorant of all things electric guitar. Not my own at all but I found it like stumbling into a muddy hole :D
Last edited by calling card on Thu Feb 22, 2018 6:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by calling card »

jeremyb wrote:Massive wall (effects x 10) of simple notes that sounds awesome (IMHO)
2024; I have explored the extent of the perimeter dome, there is no escape. I am become Morpheus

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by griff »

HackSaw wrote:My mistakes, shit phrasing, and shocking lack of timing. Apart from that it’s just lawyer blues pentatonics I nicked from all the other chino wearing bellends.
That's not your own sorry , cause I do that too :D

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by jeremyb »

calling card wrote:
jeremyb wrote:Massive wall (effects x 10) of simple notes that sounds awesome (IMHO)
I'm quick to admit I'm not a guitar player, sonic architect is more my kind of thing :mrgreen:
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by Danger Mouse »

I've yet to hear another guitarist that solos like I do, I never had the patience to sit down and learn other peoples solos, or study their styles and try and emulate. I just wanted to play as fast as possible, so I learned how to play as fast as possible within the constrains of my hand/finger size and what techniques I found the easiest.

Unfortunately while potentially being somewhat unique, that doesn't mean what I play is worth listening to.
The older I get, the more disappointed in myself I become.

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by null_pointer »

Playing in one-guitar originals bands in my formative years, plus the grunge era, means I tend towards lots of fragmented chords, octaves and the like in my lead/motif playing as opposed to single note runs. I’ll play other people’s leads in the manner they were written but my own not so much.

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by slash-ed »

Danger Mouse wrote:I've yet to hear another guitarist that solos like I do, I never had the patience to sit down and learn other peoples solos, or study their styles and try and emulate. I just wanted to play as fast as possible, so I learned how to play as fast as possible within the constrains of my hand/finger size and what techniques I found the easiest.

Unfortunately while potentially being somewhat unique, that doesn't mean what I play is worth listening to.
You seem to say this a lot about how you're not influenced by anyone... I have to call a cheeky BS hahaha.

Consciously or not, we all absorb from our influences, even if it's just phrasing and timing without realising it.

From memory your playing is high octane and pretty damn fast (technique I could never dream of haha) and use of scales runs etc seemed well within the wheelhouse of the music you like to listen to.

Please note that I am NOT dissing your playing in ANY way at all - it's fantastic, and well beyond me - just saying, we are all in some way the sum of our influences, conscious or not :)
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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by kwhelan »

nope, complete copycat, hear something I like and have a desire to learn and emulate it then get half way there realize its too hard without applying the same amount of time and gear as the person who played it, so fudge it close enough then move on to the next shiny thing and completely forget how to play it within two weeks.
rinse and repeat
if asked to jam a solo it would be a mishmash of pannicked cliches

and 4am good god man,

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by Scooter13 »

I do little things that I tend towards that I don't recall ever picking up from anywhere, and I've learnt lots of music note for note. But I'd hardly call those things original....they're wholly representative of blues based rock as part of a DNA profile.

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Re: Is there anything in your playing you can call your own?

Post by Danger Mouse »

slash-ed wrote:
Danger Mouse wrote:I've yet to hear another guitarist that solos like I do, I never had the patience to sit down and learn other peoples solos, or study their styles and try and emulate. I just wanted to play as fast as possible, so I learned how to play as fast as possible within the constrains of my hand/finger size and what techniques I found the easiest.

Unfortunately while potentially being somewhat unique, that doesn't mean what I play is worth listening to.
You seem to say this a lot about how you're not influenced by anyone... I have to call a cheeky BS hahaha.

Consciously or not, we all absorb from our influences, even if it's just phrasing and timing without realising it.

From memory your playing is high octane and pretty damn fast (technique I could never dream of haha) and use of scales runs etc seemed well within the wheelhouse of the music you like to listen to.

Please note that I am NOT dissing your playing in ANY way at all - it's fantastic, and well beyond me - just saying, we are all in some way the sum of our influences, conscious or not :)
I guess it depends on your definition of influence and how you differentiate it from the natural confines of the style of music you play. I'm a shredder and a metal guy, that in itself will provide a natural gravitation towards certain scales, techniques and expressions. It creates a framework for me to play within, which I do. I'm not breaking any new ground with my playing, certainly.

What I mean is my style of playing isn't a development of me learning and playing other people's music, stealing licks or studying how my favourite guitarist uses particular scales. I bought the old tab books when I was a kid, but never got any further than a few bars into any song before I lost interest, as learning someone else's solo was just not something I could stick with. So as a result, while I have always had guitar heros, Nuno, Slash, Satch and many others, they all inspired me to play, but didn't really impact what I play directly, especially as in the most part, my guitar heros are the guys who can do the things I want to be able to do, but can't.

I would be the happiest guy in the world if I could write just one solo as cool as Get the Funk Out, but it's not in me. So while Nuno is definitely an inspiration, I don't credit him as an influence in terms of my style, because I sound nothing like him.
The older I get, the more disappointed in myself I become.

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