After you have been playing guitar for a while, you'll have mastered some basic guitar skills and you will most likely be thinking about developing your own personal signature style.
You do want to express yourself, don't you? There's a great deal more to learning to play guitar than just copying all your favourite artists.
There's nobody like you in the whole world.
Don't you suppose it's time to dig in and unleash your personal sound and stylistic brilliance on the world? Sailing Into the Wind and Winning It doesn't matter what you play (classical guitar, jazz guitar, finger-style, slide blues, heavy metal, etc.
) you can - and you should - attempt to develop your own style.
Actually, listening to different guitarists or even just music in general from a spread of various styles is going to enable you to uncover the flavours and rhythms and licks that will form the basis for your own style.
Don't restrict your listening habits to just your most-played bands and artists.
Listen to classic albums from some of the greats like B.
B.
King, Chet Atkins, or Andre Segovia.
These guys are masters to be studied.
Legends of blues, country, and Spanish classical, respectively, and they've had a really large influence on guitarists all over the world.
Other more modern legends with their very own guitar playing style are Eric Clapton and Tommy Emmanuel, simply to mention a couple almost at random.
It makes no difference whether or not they're playing electric guitars or acoustic guitars, you just know it is them.
And the one approach for you to develop this type of sound is by educating yourself on everything that has gone before.
Soaking all of it in and letting it get beneath your skin; letting it become part of you.
You can arrive at your own personal, distinct guitar playing style by not following the herd.
There's only so many covers you're able to play.
There's only so many songs you can write that sound like all your influences in an obvious way.
There's no explanation for why you can't.
However, if you decide to keep listening to the same old CDs you have been listening to your whole life, your chances of unleashing your own personal guitar playing style are, I am sorry to say, slim to none.
When the Factors All Combine to Make Something More than the Parts Alone You'll only begin to build your own style when you step out of the box and start playing different pieces.
Of course, don't play stuff you don't like! I do think it is a good idea, however, to experiment with things: change your strings, learn how to use the tone controls on your guitar, experiment with different combos of pick-ups, learn totally different methods (such as tapping or unorthodox tuning), try playing with more down-strokes, like Johnny Ramone; the possibilities go on and on...
The secret is to listen carefully and observe what grabs you and what doesn't.
Never lose sight, though, of this one vital fact: you're the only one in a position to express what you would like that guitar to express.
It's coming from you and the guitar and all the gear, well, that's all just the channel for the expression.
When you first begin this kind of experimentation (especially if you've been playing for some time already), it won't feel like "you" and "your style," but the reality is that if you had already developed a unique style of your own, you'd know it.
And then you would just be looking for things to enhance it.
If not, you're still copying to a greater or lesser degree.
So take it all in and over time it should start to bubble and churn around and turn into something fresh and new.
And yours.
What will occur is that all the sounds you've been consciously and unconsciously accumulating will "synthesise" in a way that has never been pulled off before and you will suddenly start playing in a way that makes people turn their heads.
And if you start to feel it, like an athlete "in the zone," you'll know you've nailed it.
The goal that nearly all guitarists hope to sooner or later achieve, and which most, sadly, never do, will be yours: your own, distinctive guitar playing style.