Playing styles, are you a jack of all trades, or a one hit wonder?

[hat]

there are a lot of different ways to play guitar - with a pick, finger picks, finger style w/o picks, Jazz/swing/rock/folk/blues/etc...the list goes on and on. Question is, do you focus on just one, or are you well versed in all aspects, or somewhere in between? After recently attending both a Leo Kottke and a Riders in the Sky show - I've become aware of how easy it is to get pulled first one way, then another totally different direction.

[rokdog49]

I can play any style...in my mind.

Best suited for rhythm strumming and some flat-picking with some arpeggios and a few licks here and there. I can play the solo on "Take It Easy" by the Eagles pretty well.

[jaymarsch]

My home base is probably finger picking and light strumming in the singer songwriter style of one voice, one guitar. I have been working to expand my playing styles, mix up my rhythm and tempos and add some flat picking but I will still probably always fall mostly into a folk/old timey/americana feel.

Best,
Jayne

[Skip Ellis]

Been doing this pro/semi pro for 50 years and have discovered that the more you can do, the more you work. Band-wise, I've done country, classic rock, jazz, and surf; also, a LOT of theater productions. Solo, it's been jazz chord melody and Merle Travis/Chet Atkins thumb style. I play guitar, bass, pedal steel, and 5 string banjo. It's been a good run and I'm just starting on exploring DADGAD for my own enjoyment. In the past, it's always been about the $$$ but now trying to do something for me but it's hard trying to learn something that I'll never perform outside my living room - not a lot of market for Scottish airs and O'Carolan tunes in my neck of the woods.

[mercy]

I used to play different styles but when I got hold of fingerpicking I let everything else go so Im a one hit non-wonder

[jklotz]

I'm mostly a lead electric player, primary focus being Nashville "chicken picking" and various country styles, although we throw in some classic rock and Americana sometimes too. I'm in 2 bands currently. By the time I get home from all that, I'd much rather pick up an acoustic when I'm sitting around in my sweat pants and flip flops. I don't play out on acoustic much, so it's just for me. I'm all over the map in terms of what I play then, whatever strikes my fancy. Since I can't sing, I tend to gravitate to more complex fingerstyle stuff, or some Chet, sometimes bluegrass. I almost never just strum cowboy chords - not much point when I can't sing.

[Willie_D]

I am a hack in multiple genres.

[mawmow]

Fingerstyle... ;-)

[bmoss02]

Originally Posted by jaymarsch

My home base is probably finger picking and light strumming in the singer songwriter style of one voice, one guitar. I have been working to expand my playing styles, mix up my rhythm and tempos and add some flat picking but I will still probably always fall mostly into a folk/old timey/americana feel.

Best,
Jayne

Yep that's me too. I'm hoping to learn some more jazz rhythm and Bossa nova type stuff soon too.

[Nyghthawk]

Originally Posted by Willie_D

I am a hack in multiple genres.

This describes my playing style to a T.

[mr. beaumont]

I like a lot of different stuff and dabble a bit, but I think I look at everything through jazz colored glasses, which is to say, improvisation is what makes me happiest.

[LadysSolo]

Mainly strumming and Classical (fingerpicking.) Not great but passable in both.

[JBCROTTY]

I'm working hard to master multiple playing styles, across genres, including but not limited to:

1) Incorrect key
2) Poor rhythm timing
3) Improperly executed barre chords
4) Out-of-tune chord voicing
5) Intolerably painful vocals
6) Often indistinguishable song selection

[Gordon Currie]

I would classify myself as neither.

I play both electric and acoustic (although these days mostly acoustic) guitars.

The first ten years of playing was mostly electric and styles were rock, blues and some jazz.

Hearing Bruce Cockburn and Pierre Bensusan in the mid-Seventies caused me to investigate more fingerpicking styles - folk, British Isles, classical. During this time I started developing the skills to completely improvise instrumental pieces onstage.

I work hard to twist and transmute any style or technique I learn into my own thing. The only style I wish to master is my own.

(There are some styles and techniques that I won't touch, as I can't really get value from the study. For example, I love great bluegrass guitar, but my own style is legato, which is fairly opposed to the right hand dominance required for truly great bluegrass. That said, I have copped some choice approaches from listening to great bluegrass players.)

[Chipotle]

Jack of all trades, master of none.

I've done folk strumming, fingerstyle, Travis picking, jazz, punk bash-it-out, Celtic flat picking, a few classical pieces, and hybrids thereof. It's nice to be versatile, although sometimes I wish I were really, really good at one thing.