Your playing style?

[Riff Addict]

I want to hear about YOUR playing style and are you a Theory junkie and do you play for a living?

I've been playing for 16 years and I have very little theory knowledge. I hate learning theory and scale modes. There's too damn many and it just confuses me to no end. [img]images/smilies/wutblau.gif[/img] I used to play for a living but not at the moment. Home recording is my outlet. I play totally by ear , playing along to popular metal songs with backing tracks and I program my own drum tracks to work on original stuff. I often just sit and do speed picking exercises to a drum beat by "connecting the notes" all over the fret board in no particular key. I can tell right away when a note doesn't connect and I come up with some cool lead runs by trial & error. I might just practice "Hammer-ons/Pulls" one day, "speed picking" the next, and a cover song the next and rotate . This has vastly improved my speed when trying to play solos off cover songs. Honestly, I really don't play many shredding solos or want to. I love solos that have alot of feeling even if they're simple! An example would be Whitesnake solo on "Here I go again" or Dokken "In my Dreams". They sound simple but are very tough and challenging to copy due to the original playing style!! I love that.

The only way I can play a solo though is to "Memorize" it since I usually have no clue what key or scale I'm playing! [img]images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif[/img] I play by the seat of my pants mostly and I'm happy with that. I have been heavily complemented by other musician's and audience members at how well I can play cover songs whether it be rhythm or leads. I love playing covers and recording them at home. I lack original ideas when writing so thats why I stick mostly to covers. I've been in about 8 different Metal cover bands and where I live, if you don't play covers, you won't have an audience no matter how good your originals are.

If you know Theory and a million scales, thats cool and very impressive to me [img]images/smilies/icon_bowdown.gif[/img] but I just don't have the patience. I've tried to learn scale modes and it makes my brain hurt. [img]images/smilies/icon_ball.gif[/img]

[wahwah]

A good friend has been trying to explain modes to me and I said, 'can't get it'. He said you should...you play 'em all the time'! I see things in terms of major, minor, pentatonic, harmonic minor and diminished. The last two I rarely use. I've always worked by 'ear' as I feel that if you train your ear to register 'where' things should be, you'll know (as you wrote above) when they are wrong. I hate to approach a piece of music and think, 'ok F# Dorian here into Amaj mixylodian...I just can't play that way. Much respect to those that can but then I'd NEVER class myself as a 'shredder'...I'm a rocker, pure and simple. I can't shred to save my life. I'd say the most important things to me as a player are:

.Dynamics
.Feel
.Melody
.Emotion
.Great natural vibrato
.Pure bends that go where they're meant to

thats it for me...interested to find out what other peoples thoughts are. [img]images/smilies/icon_thumb.gif[/img]

How would i explain my style? Kinda weird. I dont pick very much. I use lots of hammers, pulls, and slides. I also have a angular style. Meaning, i slide all over the neck. Im not in 1 position all the time. Im all over the place. I know a decent bit of theory, and it has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Theres also a lot more to theory then just scales and modes. Its practically endless. In a sense i guess i am a theory junkie, because i know what scale or mode im playing as i play it. But ive always been a by-ear player as well. I just know the chords and modes by what they sound like. I like what things sound like, but i'll also sit there and tell you exactly what it is.
I think what wah wah said about. what he says is the most important things, is pretty dead on. Dynamics is one thing a lot of players arent even concious of. You can invoke a lot of emotion by accenting things, and getting real soft or hard. All the great classical works wouldnt sound right without all those dynamics under it. One thing i might add to that is: A sense of rythm. To me, most "shredders" dont really have a snese of rythm. This is a big part of my playing style, because i was a drummer first. when i solo, i always am emphasizing lots of different rythmic ideas. A lot of people dont seem to realize; that your melody HAS a rythm. My style is quite rythmic in that sense. I like odd time signatures, and odd note groupings (5, 7, 9, etc.). I think too many players today dont develope their own style, because they are too busy learning someone else's licks. I absolutely hate the concept of people who have guitar teachers who dont really teach them about music. They teach them their licks, and as a result their students have no individuality in what they play. They play what someone showed them in a video. Ive never been into that.

[eternal]

I Cant Really Explain my style. Everyone has there own style. Its Developed over time, Once u start getting Good and start learning. I guess the best explaination of my style is Neo-Classical-SpeedMetal. I Like Exotic Scales like the Persian and HiroJoshi and melodic Scales. I Use alot of Tremolo Picking and Tapping. Example like 3,4,5 and 6 String Arpeggio Tapping, Scale and Mode Tapping, String Skipping with Taps. I also like Major and Minor and Harmonic Minor Scales. if i used an Artist to compare my style it would be a cross between Jason Becker, Marty Friedman and Michael Romeo from Symphony X. Thats what my Style mostly sounds like and those guys are my Influences. when i first started playing i wanted to be the fastest Guitarist out there. in the 6 yrs that ive played i can say i can play as fast as anyone out there but thats not what its about. i learned that you have to be diverse. so i started learning tapping and Classical. I believe i have mastered tapping and tremolo picking. but there is alot more out there that id like to learn. I just started playing classical again. started listening to Bach and Motzart again. thats what i first started playing. im starting to get back into classical cause its my fav style of music.

[thefallenangel]

How would i explain my style?
crap

[thefallenangel]

I used to have really good vibrato and bends and now ive lost them I dont know what happened

[Riff Addict]

I guess if i were to describe what my style would be if i were improvising any cover tune or original at a band practice, it would be like Angus Young mixed with a little Ace Frehley. I tend to naturally play more bluesy-string bending metal licks. I never shred when improvising, only if I've sat down and learned a cover solo that is has shredding in it.

[blahblah]

i'm a novice

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[C_P_W]

I have an ever evolving leech type style. I play (at this point) because I enjoy tackling the techniques and styles of lots of different players. My style would be very similar to how Steve Morse released a couple solo albums of himself playing in a similar modes to his favorite guitarists. That's the way my style kinda works as well. Depending on whom I'm learning from currently, you can hear bits and pieces of scale types or vibrato that you would recognize from that player. Plus, as I'm not a kid anymore, I like to spend time helping the youngsters learn to play all their favorite riffs. They briing me the cd's and I figure out all the playing, and teach it back to them. I don't charge money for it, I find I really enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out whatever gets handed to me. Plus my daughter loves the fact that all the guys she thinks are cute from school, come over to her house, because they think her dad rules for teaching them how to play like their heros hahahahaha

Learning how seriously shred in the eighties, definetly makes learning todays modern players as easy as hitting my guitar with shoe. Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, Korn, give me a break...

Yet how come alot of guitar teachers dont teach their students about music? Why teach them your own licks, or licks from songs they like? They should figure out their favorite songs licks on their own. Either way, they should be learning about music. They'll never get a sense of indivuality if all they learn is covers.

[Plstrcast]

my style is pooled from basically every guitarist i've ever listened to more then once. From Angus to Zappa. I take what i can from each & attempt to assimilate it into my style (call me "The Borg of Guitar"... ). I'm a rocker through & through, but I'd have to say my biggest influence has always been my older brothers & they are heavy in to Bluegrass! I know what your thinking.. "Bluegrass"??.. Let me tell you this, they are talented as all hell & I respect them and their abillities as much as I respect Edward himself.
I took theory in college & while i know my shit, I tend to throw caution to the wind & just go for it most of the time. I've turned in to a real "feel" type of player over the years & having that theory thang in the back of my head keeps me somewhat grounded, while my inner child just goes nuts.
Brainpolice, I cant agree with you enough man! I used to teach (years ago) & gave up the ghost because those little shits only wanted me to show them how to play the friggen lead to whatever bullshit garbage was on K-rock (NYC hard rock station) that week.
I learned by the numbers & then let myself roam freely about the cabin. Dont get me wrong, ear development is CRUCIAL to being able to improvise & I can safely say that I rely on my ears more then anything else at this stage in the game. But as a teacher I would insist that my students learn the basics with me before we ventured in to "charted" waters. [img]images/smilies/icon_jam.gif[/img]

[Stiglar]

my style .. bloody hard to say .. jazz is my most favourite kind of music to listen to but i would not say i'm a jazz guitarist i can play jazz but not very well lol

i began playing nothing but dire straits they will prolly always be my main influence ..

i learnt classical guitar for many years before only in the last few years picking up the electric guitar .. i loved the classical guitar and i think it comes through in my song writing alot .. i write alot of chord melodys and then change them to fit wiith guitar bass drums melody etc ...

i also love van halen ! .. so that sticks in there somewhere so really my playing style is a mixed bag i try and play different styles all the time even lately i've been wanting to get into country style lead playing so that'll be fun !

i will never know what my playing would be like if i didn't know theory .. it's a speed thing for me .. i hear a song i think automatically what scales to use and where the changes etc are i guess that's just how i play and was taught ...

i like to think i have a good ear i can pick things up quite quickly but to be honest i felt theory really opened up the guitar neck for me ... i realised recently that before i learnt that stuff it was just a complete mystery i really did not know where i was going ..

i have pretty average technique .. my picking hand is quite shit lol .. i need to improve it .. but i just get frustrated it's something i really should work on .

anyway phew that took it outta me ! hehe

[mab8485]

I dont really have a soloing style of my own. Generic pentatonic noodling is the name of the game [img]images/smilies/icon_lol.gif[/img]

[CanyonCarver]

I would let others define my style. I certainly can list my influences (Rhoads, EVH, Sykes, Wylde, Jake E Lee, Aldrich, Petrucci, Alvin Lee, Leslie West) but I don't know if I actually do have a specific style. [img]images/smilies/dunno.gif[/img]