The most memorable guitarplayers are the ones who play one note and upon hearing that note you know who they are. For this article I want to give you a few ideas about how you can do to create you own guitarstyle.

Creating your own identity on the guitar does not come overnight. It does help if you can identify other guitarplayer by their sound and choise of notes. Once you are aware of what makes certain players sound the way they do, you can start to play with your own sound and tailor it towards what you like.

                      Identity through “Sound” or “Choise of Notes”:

When it comes to the electric guitar, players have a choise over sound and notes. Some guitarplayers may find it easy to play particular notes which stand out, notes which are not that obvious in the way they are being used. Other people may prefer to work with a particular sound which becomes part of their identity. Sometimes players may even combine sound and choise of notes. Someone like Dave Gilmour may be an example of such a guitarplayer.

Overal, what you see is that the older guitarplayers of the 1930s up and till the early 50s usually had their style based on the choice of notes. Sometimes the type of guitar they used may have been part of their identity as well, Django Reinhart is one of those who comes to mind.

Once we have come into the early 1960s technology starts to play a bigger part in guitarplayers style, players like Jeff Beck started to build up their identity through the use of effects and usual sounds.

                  What Can You Do?

When you read any of this you may wonder what you can do for yourself in this maze of guitarplayes and their own, unique style? Being aware of what is going on is one thing, study as many guitarplayers as you can, listen to various recordings from different periods in their lives and try to understand why they sound the way they do.
When it comes to your own playing, it is good to be able to mimick other guitarplayers, but you need to walk a balance between what you copy and what you feel is your own. Once you are aware of what it is that makes your own sound you need to embrace it and make it stronger and better, and be able to do it at will at any time of the day, within any song you play.

                Songwriting and Style:

Sometimes a unique style of playing can come through songwriting, particular songs will ask for particular ways of playing the guitar. Again, it is possible to combine the two of them: The more unique your own guitarplaying is, the easier it will be to create unique songs.
The overal idea is to work on your own guitar playing and your songwriting all the time. Once you get into the zone most of what I mentioned above will second nature.

Happy Playing and hope to see you soon again,
Eddie