Changing your style

[Jx2]

Do you guys even change up your style of playing maybe completely drop what you was doing all together? When I started playing it was mostly Nirvana tunes and then I found a guy that taught me alot and turned me onto the blues, followed by punk/ska, and then metal. For a long time Id get with a group of friends and just play whatever they was playing or Id find some new guys wanting to put say a metal band together and start really focusing on that. As Ive said a few times already, after a few years lay off I had already decided when I got back into it. I was going to let the guitar or my soul however you want to put it lead the way. And since that time Im finding myself wanting to play some very bluesy licks even though my skills arent up to the task. So even though Ive had a few guys say hey lets do this or do that. Im going to avoid the temptation of putting a band together at least for a few months to a year and see where this goes. Has anyone else every experienced something like this? Heck I was driving home today and was listening to SRV/Albert King in session disk and got caught up in the music and almost went in the ditch....kept closing my eyes so I could watch em play in my mind....totaly lost in the music.....maybe listing to the blues and driving should be against the law.

[marnold]

I've always been a metalhead but when I was in college a bunch of my friends formed a bluegrass band and they needed a bass player so I joined up. It gave me a chance to play with friends, which is awesome in and of itself. Bluegrass is dead simple on bass, so I could feel free to roam about the stage and let the banjo players do their thing.

[Jx2]

You ever heard Yonder Mountain String Ban cover crazy train? Musically its great, vocal....well not everyone can sing Ozzy. lol

[Katastrophe]

Yep, tastes change, no doubt about it. Growing up, I was exposed to every kind of music imaginable... I went from outlaw country, to blues, to classic rock (Led Zep, Hendrix, et al), southern rock, hard rock, pop metal, shred/neoclassical, to thrash. I've played in hard rock, country, and industrial bands.

I listen to everything I can get my hands on these days!

Changing tastes will make you a better, more diverse player. What's cool is you can take elements from other styles and apply it to whatever style you're playing now.

Got a real cool jazz lick? Throw it in your next metal solo for some variation. It keeps the music fresh and interesting!

[deeaa]

What I listened to:

0 to 6 yrs : Classical, mostly Bach, Dvorak, etc.
6 to 9 yrs : Jazz/Swing etc, Ella Fitzgerald to Motown
9 to 11 yr : Pop, Abba, Michael Jackson, classical again
11 to 18 y : Heavy metal, maiden, priest etc. NWOBHM then Metallica et al.
19 to 22 y : Clapton, Dire Straits, Buddy Holly, Beatles, old blues, grateful Dead
23 to 27 y : Grunge, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Hammerbox etc.
27 to 32 y : Classic rock, from Heep to Fleetwood Mac, some metal, Black Crowes, Faith No More
32 to 40 y : back to 80's metal, but mostly modern rock bands like Foo Fighters, Danko Jones, Scandinavian sleazerock (Turbonegro, Gluecifer etc.) and an eclectic mix of all I ever dug from iPod, except I can't stand Jazz and blues no more, at least in larger doses.

What I mostly played:

around 18 - Metallica, Maiden, Priest etc.
around 20 - Beatles, CCR, rock ballads, blues, grunge
around 30 - pop-rock, rock, post-grunge
around 40 - rock-metal, grunge

[R_of_G]

I've used this quote from Marc Ribot in my signature previously because I think it perfectly expresses my views on styles...

"I don't think musicians should have styles. I think they should just try to work with somebody and try to make sense. Sometimes that means playing tonally, sometimes that means playing atonally, sometimes with a sound from the fifties, sometimes with a sound from the sixties. Sometimes it means playing with a sound nobody's ever heard before. The main thing is the music makes sense."

My listening tastes are about as varied as it gets and I draw influence from all of it.

[sunvalleylaw]

I have been playing but a few years now. In the initial lessons, it was mostly classic rock stuff that got my feet wet. I joined a student band that played such songs. I also started trying to jam on blues backers and such here. I

Since then, I have been part of an acoustic jam that was really more bluegrass and folk oriented. I have also learned to lay some jazz chords and songs, and some melodies that go along with those songs. So those songs and the bluegrass were completely different from the above. However, if I am jamming or improvising, especially over a blues or blues oriented track, and am not copying a melody, I still sound kinda the same. I have not learned and mastered enough to vary it much yet.

[Jx2]

I figured it was the norm but this time it really just feels diffrent. Normaly my playing will be largly influenced by whatever Im listening to. And I have been playin Back to Cali and By the Sword from Slash's solo album as well as some old Guns' stuff. As well as working on a few riff's from Sexy Little Thing by Chickenfoot. When I try to create my own its like the guitar or something else is wanting to play alot more bluesy stuff than Ive ever played before. Ive never played leads might dab with one here and there. But when I play now Im spending alot of time in areas of the fretboard I know nothing about nor ever really played in before. Even my friends have noticed something diffrent about my playing. One told me while those licks Im realling off are a little boring but they contain alot of "soul". Ive been watching Roberts vid's as well as another guys and think Im going to pick up some other theory and blue learning materials(books, dvds) and see if maybe it taken me 15+ years and a few years away to find my true direction and connection on the guitar without being influence by those around me or solely by whats in my radio.

Does that make sense?

[jpfeifer]

I think that changing your style is a natural thing that happens if you're really getting into the music that you're exposing yourself to. Listen to everything, and when you find something you like, listen to more of it. Music is kind of like food in that way. I don't like eating the same kind of food all the time, I like different styles of food depending on my mood, etc.

I find that I can pickup new things all the time from various things that I listen to. When I was younger I listening to classic rock sorts of things as a teenager, and tried to copy as much as I could from stuff I'd heard on the radio, etc. I used to listen to alot of the bands with really great guitar playing (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Johnny Winter, Rick Derringer, ...)
But then there were several players who I stared to hear on records that were more Jazz/Blues influenced (Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, etc) , so I started listening to more of that thing and tried to learn from that. THis prompted me to find a Jazz guitar teacher and spend several years going down that path. I started listening to a lot of George Benson, Pat Metheny and guys like that.
In recent years I've started to listen to more country, bluegrass, and rock-a-billy styles and I'm finding myself trying to absorb more of those sounds into my style.

Overall your playing style is kind of like a stew, with ingredients from everything that you've learned or listened to over the years. Everyone's stew is a little different, depending on who you listened to and absorbed over the years.

The best thing that you can do is find those styles that you gravitate to, and go with them, even if they are leading you down a new path. This is what will make you enjoy music more and ultimately make you a more unique player.

--Jim

[sunvalleylaw]

Overall your playing style is kind of like a stew, with ingredients from everything that you've learned or listened to over the years. Everyone's stew is a little different, depending on who you listened to and absorbed over the years.

--Jim

Hmm, I might like to think of mine as a chili, or even a gumbo!

"I will play for gumbo! . . ."

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