How to sound original on the guitar.
Sounding original on the guitar is easier than you think.
Now and then a guitar student will tell me that they want to sound original. They want to have their own style and want to be unique from every other guitar player. Characteristically, these students are resistant to learning the tendencies and licks of the great players who came before them. So they may want expand their musical knowledge, but they are very superstitious about learning licks from Brent mason, or joe pass, or whomever.
I think these students believe that learning a couple things from a master will make them sound like a clone, or a copy cat, or just cookie cutter. But even if a player never copies anyone’s licks and has a totally unique sound, that doesn’t mean mean they will sound good. “Hey this lick has never been done before! …. And now we know why!” Vice versa, if a player sounds very similar to someone who came before them, that doesn’t mean that they automatically sound bad. Or that they necessarily sound unoriginal. Furthermore, even if you obsessively study one musicians style, and quote them in your playing, and live and breath that musician, you are still not going to sound just like them. You aren’t going to think what they think, or feel what they feel. So inevitably you won’t be able to do what they do. Your personality is going to come out in your playing whether you like it or not.
Eddie van haven was in a cream cover band. Does he sound like Eric Clapton? Stevie Ray Vaughan was probably the best Albert king emulator. Does Stevie’s mimicry take away from his great playing on ‘the sky is crying?’.
Kobe Bryant copied every move Michael Jordan every made. Kobe was a total mimick. But he was a great player. He played against different players, under different circumstances. You will be playing withe different players and music is not played in a vacuum - it was played with others.
I think students sometime don’t realize that your guitar playing is a composite of all the different artists you have heard and like, whether or not you have transcribed their work or are trying to sound like them. Personally, I make every attempt to copy artists that I love. Blatantly. Because no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be them, I’ll never sound like them. I’ll sound like myself, and maybe some of my influences will be apparent. When I transcribed Jimi's rhythm guitar playing on "the wind cries mary", I felt like I was playing the guitar with Jimi's hands. It felt like a personal guitar lesson from Jimi himself. So I chose to learn it the way he played it as closely as I could. It helped me get inside his head. But I’ll never be Hendrix.
Mimicry is the ultimate form of flattery. Remember – Good artists copy ; great artists steal.
Also remember -There is more than one way to skin a cat. And When in Rome. And two wrongs don’t make a right.
The point I’m trying to make is that you are going to sound like you, and no one will ever be able to copy you and sound exactly the way you do. You are unique already. So learn as much as you can from wherever you can, and only be concerned about making good sounds. Not original sounds. Unless you're Greta Van Fleet. In which case you should be ashamed of yourselves.
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