Be Yourself

October 23rd, 2005 Print Tip E-mail Tip

Lucky you. There is only one of you on the planet. And when you play guitar, no-one else can play quite like you (and I mean that in a positive way). Every person who picks up the guitar re-invents the instrument. I've often wondered what would happen if you put ten people on ten different desert islands who had never seen a guitar before. You'd leave them each with a permanently in-tune (riiiiiight!) guitar and come back in a year. It would be very interesting to compare their playing styles and the type of music they were playing.

When you think of the guitarists you really admire, most of them (like Carlos Santana, Eddie Van Halen, Dimebag Darrell, etc.) have a signature style as unique as their fingerprints and their individual sound shines through no matter what type of guitar they happen to pick up.. So while it's good to absorb and integrate all kinds of music, the truth is if you play from your heart and soul, not only will you be playing the music that's most personally satisfying, but you're also most likely to get acclaim from others for your original music.

So, when you pick up a new guitar riff (and you know how we all love to play riffs), find out what makes it work and then take that technique and put your personal stamp on it. A little twist here and there and you might come up with the next "Enter Sandman" riff.