Once you have been playing guitar for some time and built up some basic guitar skills and techniques, you'll in all probability wish to start developing your own guitar playing style. You do want to express yourself, don't you? There's more to learning how to play guitar than just copying all of your favourite artists. There's no one like you in the whole world. It's time to uncover your own style and discover the methods to express it!

THE RESULT OF BEING UNIQUE

Striving to develop your own style is that thing you actually should set out to do, regardless of what style you currently identify with the most (blues, country, jazz, classical, metal, slide, finger-style, and so forth). Actually, listening to other guitarists or even simply music generally from a spread of various styles will provide assistance to taste the flavours and rhythms and licks that can be the foundation to your own style. Don't restrict your listening habits to just your favourite bands and artists. Every guitarist should be listening on occasion to legends like B.B.King, Chet Atkins, and Andre Segovia. The influence that these guys have had on other genres is hard to measure, but it's fairly clear, I believe, that the impact of their trademark sounds wasn't restricted to just the blues, country, or classical styles.

Or take guitarists like Tommy Emmanuel and Eric Clapton. These guys could be playing with a wall of amps behind them or unplugged and you know right away who it is. They each have an incredibly distinct sound all their own. They clearly learned all the fundamentals laid down by the masters after which they delved deep to uncover their own style. By learning "to really feel" the music. By learning each and every technique in the book for accurately expressing what's in their heads.

You can arrive at your own, distinct guitar playing style by not following the herd. There's only so many covers you're able to play. There's only so many songs you can write that sound like all of your influences all tossed together. There isn't any explanation for why you can't. However, if you keep on listening to the same CDs you have been listening to your entire life, your chances of developing your own guitar playing style are, I'm sorry to say, slim to none.

A PERSONAL STYLE IS BIGGER THAN THE INFLUENCES BY THEMSELVES

It's essential for locating your own style to push yourself to play totally different things. Having said that, I don't recommend gritting your teeth and trying to play a bunch of songs that don't speak to you in any way whatsoever. I do believe it's a good suggestion, though, to play around with things: change your strings, study how to make use of the tone controls on your guitar, experiment with completely different combos of pick-ups, learn totally different techniques (such as sweep-picking or alternate picking), have a go at playing with extra down-strokes, like Johnny Ramone; the suggestions go on and on... The secret is to listen carefully and make a note what you like and what you don't. The most vital thing, however, is to never forget that you are you and no one else can be you or express what you wish to express.

An odd type of "that's not me" feeling will likely come over you at first. Do not worry. Just let it wash over you and proceed with your exploration. Over time it will all go into an enormous melting pot in your head and start to come out as something contemporary and new and different. And yours. What will occur is that all of the sounds that you've been consciously and unconsciously collecting will "synthesise" in a manner that has never been done before and you will suddenly start playing in a manner that makes people turn their heads. That's when you'll have finally achieved it. You'll have unfurled your very own distinctive guitar playing style.