Influences and Style

Why did you want to start playing music? What band or artist was it that inspired you so much that you wanted to play like them? Are you a punk? Metalhead? Jazz enthusiast? Blues rocker? Establishing what your musical influences are and what style you want to play is a critical step in progressing toward writing your own music and forming a band. Figuring out which style is your motivation will give you direction along with the passion to play and create that style whatever that may be. To each is own right?

My influence have grown and developed as I have. This is a natural evolution and it will happen with you as well. Early on, I loved playing hard rock and metal like Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. So, I started learning a bunch of their songs and started trying to play heavier and faster. As I learned more, I began idolizing lead guitar heros such as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and my personal favorite Eric Clapton. Now, as I have matured and started writing my own music, I have been looking back and learning from Blues legends like Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Quite a difference from where I started, the pure blues of B.B. King couldn't be any further away from the heavy distortion of Metallica.

Here's what I recommend. Make a list of your favorite bands and artists. Listen to as much of their music as you can. Go out and buy all their albums. If you are broke or lazy, look up their songs on youtube.com, grooveshark.com or pandora.com. If you still can not find all of their music, then steal it using the many illegal downloading sites there are out there. You can pay them back later. Anyway, after you have a collection of their music and you've listened to them start learning their songs. Be sure to pay close attention to the songs that were not singles or extremely popular because those songs are more true to the artist's true style. After that, look up all the bands and artist who influenced your favorite bands and repeat the same thing. This will give you a well rounded knowledge of your particular style of music.