Finding your Sound

When i go into a guitar shop, i always hear players trying out new guitars and riffing away. What strikes me is how different everyone sounds and how unique they are. Like everyone has their own fingerprints, each individual sounds totally different and has a special style and ear. Last night i watched an interview with Eddie Vanhalen, and he was talking about how he developed his style of playing. He idolized "Eric Clapton" and would try to play like him, but as much as he tried to copy Clapton's style he could only sound like himself. On the show he picked up his guitar and out comes "Eruption" his trademark tapping style song. He blew the audience away because he is so good at being Eddie Vanhalen. When i pick up a guitar, i do my noodling which is a bluesy style and hit certain chords that my hands gravitate to, My friend Mike, has a fast Jazzy style when he noodles. Like the players at the guitar shop, we each play in our own unique way. We take in our influences and when our fingers touch the fretboard, it can't help but come out as us. Familiarity breeds contempt, so when i pick up the guitar and play my style, it always sounds kind of lame, because i have done it so much, i am sick of me. when i hear other players, it sounds so good to my ears because it's fresh. In 2012, i went down to Nashville, Memphis, Mississippi and New Orleans. The epicentre of Blues,Country,Rock and Rockabilly. I would go to the bars and listen to all of the bands and just get blown away. I drove from Nashville to Memphis and listened to a stack of Elvis Cd's and the whole Rockabilly Genre, i then drove down to Clarksdale, Mississippi and listened to Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf and a bunch of other Blues artists. I wrote a bunch of songs that would become my album, Graeme Emmott," Sound and Word" It has 15 tracks on it and as much as i took in all of the influences on my trip, it just sounds like me. I did write some songs in a few different Genres, I have a Blues sound and a Country sound, but it's my take of that Music.So finding your voice and your sound does require listening and trying to emulate our idols, but at the end of the day, we are just going to sound like ourselves. Just like Eddie. So don't beat yourself up wishing you sounded like someone else. Find your own voice and be yourself. Bur at the same time do all the leg work taking in all of the great players.