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

As a songwriter who writes in several genres, including blues, rock, folk, country, and ambient, I can play in a lot of styles. But I consider myself to be a journeyman musician overall, and strive to be well-rounded and competent, rather than virtuosic.

[The Bard Rocks]

I play in several genres, all old (or old-sounding), all acoustic, 90% fingerpicked. I am more "competent" than "good" and do, they say, have my own melody-centric style. No interest at all in rock. No interest in playing jazz and swing, though I like to listen to it. Ditto for Hawaiian, classical and flamenco.

[s2y]

Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and bass guitar. I like to keep my options open.

[Dustinfurlow]

I try to be decent with most everything, but love melodic modern finger style best and think it will always be my main focus for personal enjoyment and original composition.

I think Skip mentioned the more you know the more you work and he couldn't be more correct. For my cover gigs and retirement home gigs I do anything from James Taylor to Bossa Nova to Led Zeppelin to Stevie Ray Vaughan... I love Celtic style stuff a la Tony McManus but I haven't quite gotten the hang of the trills and offbeat phrasing. I also haven't delved into the two handed tapping like Michael Hedges and Billy McLaughlin. One day, soon.

[FrankHudson]

Fairly early on I decided I wanted to aim broadly with my playing. When asked what I played circa 1980 I said "fretted string instruments" even though my skills on other than guitar were totally naïve (and my skills on guitar, rudimentary). I know a little bit more now (less than I should) and I've added fretless bass and one-handed keyboards to things I'll attempt, and I've stopped trying to collect cheap non-guitar string instruments and instead use virtual instruments and a MIDI guitar interface.

As a "musical instrument operator," I doubt this has helped--though you do learn some things on one instrument that can inform how you play another. As a composer/music maker I think it has helped, as the range of colors and textures I can supply is broader, and I enjoy that.

So just in the guitar family I'll play acoustic (nylon or steel strung), electric, 12-string, high-strung, baritone, bass guitar, slide (bottleneck and lapstyle), Ebow/Sustainer, and the things that MIDI guitar can do.

That list sounds more impressive than it is. For on thing, sometime in the late 20th century I dropped working on finger picking and concentrated on using a flat pick on nearly everything (I will play bass with my thumb sometimes, but that hardly counts). For one thing, my slide playing and banjo would be improved if I stuck with it.