How to Deveop your own Style

[GTison]

are you trying to develop your own style? I have been giving this more and more thought lately. I guess if you are just learning the mandolin it might be a moot question. Though I think it's important even at that point.

What would be the signature of your style? How do you make your playing uniquely yours. With so much copying going on in bluegrass it seem dificult to establish a style . The masters of the instrument: Monroe, Mc Renolds, Osborne,Compton, Grisman, Bush, Ronnie, Thile, Benson, to name a few all are recognisable. Does it just come natural or is it planned?

[AlanN]

Try to come up with your own licks and moves. I have a few I've done over the years that I don't hear otheres do - good or bad? Who cares...

[plunkett5]

Not by looking for it. Play and play some more. Find what you like and listen to everything. Work out how players you like do what they do, then adopt it to your needs. After playing guitar for 25 years I learned mandolin 100% to play Irish Music. I worked on tunes and more tunes. I played in a bar band that did 80/20 Irish/Rock stuff. I found more cool, original stuff to do on the Rock stuff because I had to. I worked less on it and found a personal style there that has lead to more jobs and gigs in Rock than in Irish music. I still practice more Irish than anything else, but my style emerged from the pressure of stagework. Just my 2 cents.

[Scotti Adams]

..you try to take in every note of music you hear in the world each day...not just mando music..then you incorporate that into your sound.

[johnwalser]

AlanN,
"Good or Bad? Who Cares?" DUH.....Maybe you should care. Just stringing endless streams of notes togeather that no one else does might not be the best idea.
John

[AlanN]

You miss the point, my friend. I was suggesting coming up with some siganture moves that sound unique and pleasing to the ear, thereby branding your playing. This is what Dawg, Stiernberg, Emory Lester, Wakefield et al. have done.

[johnwalser]

It finally dawned upon me a few months ago that the style I have been pursuing IS Don Stiernberg. Maybe I can just become a "poor man's Stiernberg". You know, kind of a Stiernberg without talent.
I hear a lot of fellows doing "breaks" at festivals that do not relate at all to the tune being played. NOT the top pros like Ronnie, Doyle, Chris, Butch and so many others I've been lucky enough to hear.
John

[AlanN]

And to further my point...Grisman has signature moves. Do all folks dig them? Surely not. Doesn't prevent him from using them, though. Wakefield has a style that some call "sloppy". Has he quit playing his style? Nope. I've seen people get up and walk away when Thile plays. Think the Charlie Parker/cymbal story.

That's what I meant by "Who cares?"

[Mando4Life]

..you try to take in every note of music you hear in the world each day...not just mando music

you hit the nail on the head in my opinion. always keep your ears open.

[mancmando]

Everyone's musical experience is unique - there are such a wide variety of styles/players etc (on all instruments) that we all have a different cd collection, and our taste/experience is unique.

This doesn't mean that we automatically have a unique way of playing the mandolin, but I think we all have the potential to. Getting to this stage is the million dollar question. To my mind it is important to learn to play by ear and to really let go when you are playing as this lets the real "you" come out more naturally, which is more likely to be your own style...

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[ira]

i think that it is a combination of factors that link into developing a personal style. first of all, not just copying licks of guys you like, but expanding on them. also, looking at other instruments and what they are doing in the music and having you (to quote the mandocrucian) look at their function and using the mando to fill that function. i also think the style of music you play, the genres of music you listen to, who you play with (big one for me) and where all affect what you do with your personal style.

just my 2

ira

[dwc]

I've found I have become a better musician as I learn more music theory. Certainly many musicians have developed unique, intricate styles without knowing a lick of music theory, but I bet the list of such individuals is a lot shorter than most realize. For me, its not so much about finding my own voice, although I had a somewhat similar post a month or so ago. Rather, I am trying to expand my musical pallete buy examining licks from a lot of different styles of music, dissecting them, figuring out whats going on, borrowing what I want and leaving the rest. Theory helps me see the relationship between notes and to figure out the relationships between tones and rhythms.

[Michael H Geimer]

I think everyone has the potential to cultivate a personal style that's unique, but I have also seen many people that resist the effort. The most sylistically limited musicans I've known were the one's most concrned with knowing how a song is supposed to go, or how a part is suppsoed to be played. e.g. I jammed once with a mandolin player who would only chop on 2's and 4's with no other embellishements to flesh out the rhythm because 'that's how you play Bluegrass backup'. (IMO - that's a a severly limited outlook)

So, I would say the key element needed to nuture a personal style is trust in one's own ear and trust opinions about what sounds good or bad. Don't get so hung up on The Rules that you limit your imagination and creativity.

Of course, all the advice about listening, listening, listening is vital. I listen much more than I copy - put the sound in your ear, then go find it on your instrument. The result will sound like you, rather than sounding like a cop'd lick.

- Benig

[ShaneJ]

Not that I'm anywhere close to "there" yet, but I agree w/Benignus....play by ear instead of tab. I can tell a big difference in the songs I play by ear (or from memory, really) and those I learned by tab.

[John S]

I have developed my own style. It's taken years to perfect the right amount of bad timing, sloppiness and muffed notes to achieve it, but I'm there! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Seriously though, unless you're trying to emulate one certain player to the exclusion of all others, it's hard not to develop your own style IMO. You tend to learn the licks that sound good to your ear and ignore the ones that don't, and you pursue specific styles of playing that please YOU the most. All that is tempered with your own weaknesses and strengths and that is your style. If I were to offer a piece of advice, I'd say don't even worry about developing your own style. Just learn and play the kind of music that speaks to you and you'll automatically develop your own style of playing.

[davestem]

A lot of what I try to incorporate into a mandolin style comes from the guitar. #It's been remarked many times here on MC that great stylists on almost every instrument use techniques that mimic the singing voice. #These techniques have been explored extensively on guitar, and a lot of these techniques transfer easily to the mandolin. #It seems the main limitation on transferring techniques from the guitar to the mandolin is the mandolin's relative lack of sustain.

The particular techniques I'm interested in are the uses of hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. #Bends don't seem to translate well to mando (because of the two-string courses), which is a shame, because bends are very expressive. #(OTOH, tremolo on a mandolin is very expressive, in ways that guitar tremolo is not.)

When I listen to a singer (especially in bluegrass), they almost never attack the leading note of a melody directly. #They come in above or below the note and then resolve into the note they were really shooting for. #This is cool, and singing without doing this actually sounds a little weird, or sterile, or something. #Guitarists emulate this with hammer-on or pull-off grace notes, or slides, but mandolinists rarely do. #I'm working on incorporating more of those techniques into my playing. #I know that's not a whole style, but it's part of one.

[sunburst]

I started out with piano lessons, reading music and learning the music just like it was written.

I started playing in rock bands in high school when it would be said of a really good band, "They sound just like the record!".
So...I started learning from records and trying to do it just like the record.

Later, I learned to read tab, and made considerable effort to play it just like it was written.
I play banjo now days, and learned from tap and by ear. When I started to play with other people I found that I needed to come up with things to play that I couldn't learn from the record, so I had to make something up.
I also found that a lot of the things I had been playing for a long time weren't like the tab or the record anymore. I had started changing things without even realizing it.

I did a small amount of studio recording some years back. To fix bad note or mistake of some kind, the engineer would say: "Just play along with yourself (recorded) in the headphones and I'll punch you in when we get to the part that needs to be fixed."
No problem, I thought, I play these breaks the same way every time. Nope! Not only did I find out that I don't play it the same way every time, I almost can't play it the same way every time.

Now I learn new breaks from records, or make them up from scratch, whatever works, but they change and evolve as time goes by.

So, without me really trying or realizing it was happening, my personal style arose on it's own from just playing.

[batman]

If i hear a break that i like i'll try to figure it out, but most of the time i can't get it note for note so i end up adding something of my own or some lick that i already know that works in the spot that i can't quiet figure out. I once heard Tony Rice say that a personal style is based on your limitations. Don

[duuuude]

Kinda one of the reasons I don't listen to many CDs & such, other than to get the overall gist of a tune, is because I don't want to feel like I'm imitating or get into the habit of doing so. Sure, maybe my tunes don't really sound quite like the original when I'm finished with 'em, but that's sorta what I'm goin' for, the original's already been done.

Benig has the right idea, IMWO, get it in your head then go for creating what you think things should sound like, then you're giving it your interpretation or "style".

[JD Cowles]

if you really listen to the "greats" of today you can't help but hear their influences pouring out of their music. #i think initially we all learn by parroting back what we hear (think about learning to speak, it's the same thing). #at some point (hopefully) you take the building block of the language you've learned and form your own ways of communicating what's in your head. #i know a few pickers who can blast through theile and mccoury instrumentals note for note but when it's their turn to take a break in a pick, they're lost. #copying those who's playing really inspires you is a great way to learn, but if you really want to develop your own style, you have to experiment and listen to whats in your head. #when you can get what's in your head out through your mando, you've found your style grasshopper...
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/coffee.gif

[AlanN]

Dave Peters is (was http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif ) a good example of this. He studied all the players, learned the styles, then found his own voice. In the preface to his 150 solos book, he said - Imitate, Emulate, Innovate - not a new concept, but it works.

[John Flynn]

I found the mando player whose unique style I most admire (Curtis Buckhannon)and talked him into being my instructor, even though he had never taken a regular student before. I wanted so much to learn his style. We have been at it for a year and a half and it has been a great experience, but learning his style has been problematic: First, he doesn't think in terms of style. It's just how he plays. He can't define it, explain it or teach it per se. Second, his style is deceptively difficult. Some of his stuff looks and sounds hard and it is. Then some of his other stuff looks and sounds easy, but it's even harder than the "hard sounding" stuff.

But the teaching really has paid off. I have improved by leaps and bounds, but in my own style, which may be even more rewarding. Yet, the other night I was at an open mike and a fiddler and a guitarist asked me if I wanted to sit in with them. Another great local fiddler was in the audience who is a big fan of Curtis', so the "heat was on." She is not normally a big one for complements, but she came to me afterwards and said I did great and that I was "starting to sound just like Curtis." I don't believe it, but it was nice to hear.

[Michael H Geimer]

Sunburst,
When I first started off playing as a teenager, I thought bands that 'sounded just like the record' were (obviously) the best bands ... right? LOL!

Since even back then I was in a band writing our own songs, we would emulate those Big Bands we admired by writing our songs using a 4-track ... then we'd try to reproduce exactly what we had recorded (just like those Big Band do, right? ).

It seems so misguided in hindsight. No wonder I never really learned how to improvise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ira]

hey davestem- i agree with most of what you said, but "bending is beautiful) and when used in the right way on the right tunes is a great sound on the mando.
just my 2
btw- super thread and i agree with most everything i've read. so much goes into making your own style.
thanks guys.

[Seth Rosen]

Don't only listen/learn from mandolin players....draw from all instruments including the human voice. The synthesis of all that will transcend the "mandolin licks" that you hear in other mando players and you'll come up with something unique

--seth

[Ted Eschliman]

One's "holistic" musical background will affect (and develop) your mandolin "style." What you grew up listening to, other instruments you play, what kind of songs you sing. Also the strengths of your instrument (good tone, good feel, easy of action) can shape your playing (that's why a good ax is justifiable).
I was a trombone major in college; this still shapes my concept of mando tone and phrasing. Oddly enough, I think in terms of moving air inside the instrument, and I actually breathe with the phrasing.
Now, if I could just figure out how to drain the spit...

[Jim Garber]

With so much copying going on in bluegrass it seem dificult to establish a style.
Hmmmm... you posted in the general area. Why assume that bluegrass is the only thing to play on the instrument? Start broadening your horizons. Listen to classical, jazz, old time, other folks styles, world music, rock, etc.

If you want to play striclty bluegrass, fine, but I think to expand your listening is a worthwhile endeavor.

Jim

[John Craton]

In my experience, style is something that is continually evolving, not a point at which one can say "I have arrived." At least I've never gotten there. The manner in which I play a work today is often vastly different from how I played it when I was younger. The musicality has matured (though, sadly, I find my technique waning somewhat with age -- would that I could have had the interpretive abilities I feel I now possess back when my technique was in its prime!), and it seems forever changing in both large and small ways. I'm constantly experimenting with different ways to play and also to listen to music. So to me, style isn't a constant but a neverending process.

(My philosophical thought for the day, just before I head bedward.) http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleepy.gif

[Bob DeVellis]

Let's take a look at something else that's highly individualized - handwriting. First, you learn how to read and write. Then, you get taught (at least I did) a rigid system of penmanship that dictates the proper shape, size, and position of each letter. (This always seemed more like drawing than writing to me.) Eventually, you deviate from the orthodoxy. Some people do wierd things at this stage, like drawing cute little circles or hearts instead of simple dots over their "i"s. Perhaps you notice certain flourishes (like John Hancock's signature) and go through a phase of incorporating some of your own, sort of on a trial basis. Most of us abandon those after a while, but might hang onto a few stylistic twists we particularly like. Over time, you gradually displace conscious attention away from the form of the letters and onto the ideas you want to communicate. In short, your handwriting changes and becomes individual. This is influenced by a bunch of factors, including your unique body mechanics. A certain penmanship starts to feel correct and automatic. Your writing leans this way or that because, well, it just feels right to write that way. Sometimes you may focus more on clarity (when filling out a form), other times more on conveying a feeling (when adding a note in big, expressive letters to a birthday card for a friend). But gradually, your handwriting becomes so totally individualistic that it's used as a form of identification - a personal style.

[JimRichter]

I have to agree w/ Scotti and whomever else said to listen to everything and have big ears. #As others have said, studying or listening to the phrasing of other instruments helps.

One of the things I read once that made a huge--to this day--impact on me was an interview w/ Pat Flynn (NGR) in Frets in the mid-80's. #They asked him about his unique guitar style (he tended to use these big rolling patterns incorporating open strings--a lot like melodic banjo). # He said he listened to everything and most importantly, would do things like transcribe trumpet solos for the guitar. # This forces you to deal with new phrasing, positioning, note choice etc. #Makes you better musically, but really gets you thinking differently about your instrument.

Something I read in the last couple years which reinforced this Pat Flynn article and my recent attempts on mandolin, was when Jimmy Gaudreau was the CGOW (special guest moderator) for the Co-Mando email list. #He was asked about his style on mandolin and honestly said he never formally studied the mandolin greats. #He said when he took up mandolin, he just took everything he knew from playing the Telecaster over to the mandolin. #Over time, he said his mandolin playing became more mandolin like, but by then he already had his own thing going.

Given I've been both a gigging banjoist and electric blues/swing guitarist, I found that in my early days of learning mandolin I was taking everything I knew from both instruments and applying it to the mandolin. #I think I'm a lot blue-sier than some mandolinists--not in the Monroe lonesome sense, but in the Earl Hooker/Freddie King sense. #At first when I started doing this, I felt like I was cheating--but that Jimmy Gaudreau week on Co-Mando made me feel validated. #Since then, of course, I've worked pretty hard at learning "traditional/conventional" mandolin, but it hasn't affected my core playing.

Jim

[mandocrucian]

Play, or try to play, the stuff you like, regardless of the style or the instrument it was actually played on. #If you dig Robin Trower, then try learning some of his stuff and try to get as close to the same feel you hear on the record. #If it's Dave Swarbrick's fiddle playing, try to learn a few of what you consider his best or lyrical (may not be the same as the "notiest" solos). Get the the pitches, then figure out how to connect them (slurs) to get closer to his phrasing. #This may require you that you think about playing up the neck, or with alterntive fingerings to make that phrasing more accessible. #Same thing if you want to get a lyrical Clarence White influence ("I Am A Pilgrim", "Listen To The Mockingbird"). The guitar stuff will not lay out on a mandolin neck the same way as "conventional" mando breaks will. But if you want those sounds, that feel, when in Clarencedom, do as the Clarence does.

These are more more extreme examples which will probably violate the parameters of groupthink; and you will start to hear comments like: "If you want to play Hendrix licks, why don't you get an electric guitar." or "Banjo rolls are meant to be played on the banjo!" and "You can't bend strings on a mandolin." etc. etc. etc.

You'll hear a lot of "can't do this", "can't do that" from other players who have never tried to do that stuff. #And if they did, it was probably for only 10 minutes or so after which they decided that because they couldn't (immediately) make it work nobody else can either.

In the Eric Johnson Total Electric Guitar, he talks about individual style being a result of the mix of (your) influences which you have reassembled and blended together.

What's the old maxim.... "Garbage In, Garbage Out". #Well, your ear/mind is your computer, so you want to feed it with the highest quality aural nutrients. Advice straight out of the Jerry Coker jazz books.

Niles Hokkanen

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>An additional thought. Arriving at an individual style (out of choice rather than be default) is also process of elimination. It's like going through a closet or two of acquired clothes, and then and sending 80% of it off to the Goodwill, cause it's the wrong size/color/texture/style etc. or because you simply find that you don't like it anymore.</span>

[John Craton]

You'll hear a lot of "can't do this", "can't do that" from other players who have never tried to do that stuff. #And if they did, it was probably for only 10 minutes or so after which they decided that because they couldn't (immediately) make it work nobody else can either.
If you can find a copy (I think the recording is now out of print), listen to Kazuhito Yama####a's performance of Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition transcribed for guitar solo. The colors and textures you'll hear almost defy imagining -- he even captures a Russian male choir that you'd swear you could hear in the background. Pictures was originally composed for piano but is best known in the Ravel orchestration. I would never have believed it possible that this work could be done in toto on a guitar. After hearing this recording back in 1981, I realized that anything in possible ... in the right hands.

[Jim Garber]

The key to all this "style" talk IMHO is putting your soul into your music, literally and figuratively. You can blindly copy your heroes but if you don't have part of youin your music it is lifeless.

Jim

[mandocrucian]

The key to all this "style" talk IMHO is putting your soul into your music, literally and figuratively. You can blindly copy your heroes but if you don't have part of you in your music it is lifeless.

Jim
But you have to find your "soul" (i.e. "identity" first before you can put it into anything. So while that may be a long-term goal, it says nothing of the process of getting there.

Blind replication of your heroes's solos can be a dead-end diversion for players, if they don't see past the replication. #Perhaps they see that as their goal, and are quite happy and satisfied with getting that far.

Replication of solos is a learning process; doing so is a way of assimilating new vocabulary, phrasing and techniques, and more importantly, a window into the thinking processes of the "specimin" under study.

Then you pull out the bits and ideas that appeal to you that like from the particular player, expand or extrapolate on those ideas into new permutations, and discard the stuff that doesn't grab you. The process repeats with other players you study, or take lessons from, in the proactive sense, and the music you listen to (in the more passive mode of feeding the ears/memory).

It isn't uncommom to notice that the playing of "name players" is a lot more varied in the earlier stages of their recording careers. Over time, the excess stuff evaporates and a unique personal identity begins to emerge, as in a distillation process. #On the other hand, there are those that become highly adept technicians who can find employment opprotunities because of the chameleon Zelig-like qualities of their playing to fit into #different situations, but may have no real strong identity of their own.

I like players who you can identify after hearing only a few notes. #There's no doubt who it is.

NH

[fangsdaddy]

per usual niles is on to something.
i've played mando for under 2 years after playing guitar for 25 (20 years thrashing punk & the last 5 years as a rev gary davis inspired fingerpicker.) i've transfered my guitar vocabulary to the mandolin. my local bluegrassers continue to tell me "you'd be really good if you played like a bluegrasser." but i refuse to be restricted & defined by a genre or a style. sure i love mr monroe & ronnie but i also love hendrix, thurston moore & neil young playing the electric guitar (neil on electric is my personal jesus.) going to the symposium was interesting. while i didn't know all of the nuances, i could jam w/the bluegrassers, choro & classical folks. i think it's more about being a musician (which i'm not anywhere near yet) than being a mandolin player.

[Peter Hackman]

When I got started on mandolin, almost 40 years ago
(after 8 years of guitar), my first move was
to explore the fingerboard and the various
positions. Then I had a period of copying solos and licks from records, the ones that struck me, some way or other:
gotta know how he did that, then asking myself what
could I do with it - looking for variations. I like
to hear a solo or a composition as a solution to
some problem, ask myself what is the problem, and are there
other solutions? You can't help but arrive at
at a style of your own that way.

Even though I was motivated by Bluegrass I've
always been looking outside the
idiom (whence also outside the instrument) for further inspiration. Electric guitar in '50s rock or country
for a freer type of phrasing, The fiddle, of course.
Copied several tunes from Forrester's Fancy Fiddlin'
album (I believe Bobby Osborne did, too, e.g.,
Rutland's Reel) for a more detailed approach
than Monroe's abstractions, then transferring some of
that to ordinary songs.

And then some Western
Swing, and even classical.

[reindoggy]

When, as a kid, I was first learning violin, I found practicing very boring, so I would watch TV while I did it. I, eventually, started copying theme songs and jingles which developed my ear. I still do this. (when my wife is out of the room as it makes her nuts)

Style? Why worry about it? Music, when played successfully, is the communication of emotion. Louis Armstrong could get more feeling out of one note than others can get out of a hundred. If improved technique allows you to communicate better, I'm all for it, but there are many examples of players with tremendous technique who fail to inspire any audiences but tech junkies. I feel that a musician needs to find his message before he can deliver it. Each misfingering is not a failure, but an opportunity to turn in a new direction and find a new voice for your message. It is possible that the technique of sliding into the note in blues is an example of simple misfingering being turned into a whole new style of music.

Hey, if more technique frees you to say what you need, go for it. But, it is only the means, not the goal. Style is like speaking in a different dialect; if no one gets the message, it's useless.

My opinions are deep and need frequent shoveling.
Reindog

[GTison]

To assume a person doesn't listen to, or hasn't been involved in other kinds of music is rather a "narrowed horizon". I just don't want to play (on a regular basis) other kinds of music. I just want to stay in bluegrass.

I like niles comments. I just heard B.B King on one of those diabetic ads on TV. His style is instantly recognizable. It's not very complicated sounding. It is Style. We could all go on about who's got great style. But how you've developed it is a great question.

I've thought about taking small licks and using them in alot of songs I play to give a feel to everything I play. Someone asked me how I play this and that. One thing I play I don't really hear anyone else do. I guess thats part of style for me but I know I'm way short, I just don't measure up,.... yet. I need more of a way to say something with the instrument. I guess it's almost like saying something with a regional accent of some sort. HMMMMMM.:blues:

[sunburst]

I just re-visited this thread.
Bobd, I think your hand writing alalogy hits the nail right between the eyes! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif (or words to that effect)