Musical maturity:

We emulate our guitar heroes, then we may start to begin to develop a fusion of multiple heroes, then somewhere along the way we find our own
material.

These stages of musical maturity occur only when pursuit inspires persistance. We all will have spent our time trying to play like so and so, but after we have gotten the idea of what they are doing, we find ourselves at the crossroads of copycat imitation and originalty. Which way do we go? The more we distance ourselves from our heroes, the more original material will become and that's what needs to be played and heard.

Reminds me of a verse in the song "The Makin's Of A Song"


It's ok to emulate/imitate if you can do it with mean authority. Just don't get caught doing it all the time. You'll become a statistic and find yourself imprisoned in someone else's music.

So, imitation and originality are diametrically opposed to each other.
We have to ask ourselves "which is more important to me?"

I find it harder to imitate than it is to come up with original material.
Sometimes. it's the other way around.
When I cannot think of something original, something else may "kickstart"
my train of ideas and away we go.

What is your experience?

Quote: "I find it harder to imitate than it is to come up with original material."

So true. The original stuff usually requires less thought, and less thought = better playing. But, unless you are Robert Johnson, all of our licks are copied from someone.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

This is just my opinion of course... I find nothing wrong with trying to imitate my guitar heroes. I'm not doing it to impress anyone and most of the time I'm doing it at home or at a jam, I'm not really a pro musician. There are certain tunes that I just love and it brings me so much joy to be able to play them myself, it's a satisfying feeling, whether I copy them note by note or not.

I'm not out to become the next SRV or Hendrix, I just love the sound of the guitar and love the way my guitar heroes sound, so to be able to put the two together with my own two hands is good enough for ME. The main reason I picked up the guitar was to play like these heroes who I love listening to... I'm sure if you're a pro and trying to make it big then you should have your own style or else people will start talking...

Over the years I have sort of developed my own style, a combination of all my Blues heroes but I have no problem reaching in to find some of my favorite Blues licks from Albert, BB, Freddie, SRV... and playing them, as long as they sound good.

Here's an example of me copying one of my biggest heroes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoUrJZLfUa0

Bah I thought this may be about

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No no and no

As did a lot of forum members I spent many years playing covers of other band's music such as The Beatles,Stones,Troggs etc. and always did a lot of Hendrix covers.It's because of the Hendrix covers I was branded as "that Hendrix guy"usually in an unflattering connotation and usually by other guitarists.I tried to play the lead breaks of all the songs as close as I could to the originals-that's what people usually want to hear instead of improv.-anyway it was extremely hard to try and nail every nuance of every note and needless to say especially so with Jimi's songs.We also threw in a few original songs and they were much easier to get off. Good emulation is way more difficult than being original.When I play the Hendrix influence is clearly evident but that is also due to the fact that I had the same influences he did especially Albert King,Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Nice playing!

I try to find my own style, but I find myself stealing turn arounds and other bits and pieces once in a while. I think thats only natural though. I think even with that I definitely have my own sound.

Nicely said Cedar, I feel exactly the same way.

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Tune Low, Play Hard & Floor it!

I'm on the railway of J. ramone and K. Cobain. i need to back off a bit, mix some more of my guitar heroes in there.
But I am still developing my sound, and I can garuntee your everyone sounded like there no 1 guitar hero at one point

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riley

After all these years I sound like me.
Which I'm sure is a combination of lots of other guitar players....
I sat in on a guitar clinic taught by Jack Pearson last Sat.,if I could play like anyone,it would be Jack.

Imitation is the first step to originality. After a while of imitating your favorite people they end up being incorporated into your own original style of playing. Not even Hendrix was above that, in fact he's actually a very good example of it. He blended different styles and genres until what came out was totally his.

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Even Robert Johnson got his licks from Son House and Skip James. Son House is the one who taught how to play a slide.

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Blues with a feeling.

GUILD GUITARS: MADE TO BE PLAYED!

I was thinking the same thing.


Though a different figure, Lead Belly would be an interesting early influence as well.



There's no doubt in my mind that everyone's got an influence on their own style. The true originals are the ones who really don't have an influence.
Most of the stuff we hear today can trace it's deepest roots to folk and classical instrumental music from around the world.
The genres of today are merely branches that have grown from a common trunk.

There's only 12 notes........... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

if i could come close to sounding anything remotely close to any of my heroes, i'd be a happy guy.
i'm usually lucky enough to find a pentatonic pattern to fit the chord progression and run with it.

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I know I was most defintely a copycat for the first few years of trying to play original music. I think my style is something that came from hearing other musicians and watching them play to learn the techniques, and then once the mechanics were down and I was comfortable playing my instrument, that's when "my" style started finding it's way to the surface so to speak. I'm sure every riff I've ever written has been done somewhere else before, but my goal is to always push myself and find ways to use old notes in a new context and with different textures.

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