trying to get beyond Fripp

[Michael Peters <100041.247@compuserve.com>]

Michael Pycraft Hughes:

> how many players here sound like RF when we play?  C'mon.  Be objective. 
I'm
> guessing the number's big.  Jeez, I do (well, like RF with a bad
hangover)
> and I spend most of my time trying _not_ to sound like him.  

Thanks for saying this. It really feels good to hear that others have this
problem too. :) 
We should start a Frippers Anonymous group! 

In fact, most mainstream guitarists sound so much like other mainstream
guitarists that they are all hard to tell apart, but then this is taken for
granted and doesn't feel like a problem - this is what you do if you play
mainstream rock after all, you *want* to sound like mainstream.

Our problem is that Fripp's style is so unique and so easy to recognize -
every young guitarist who loves his playing, and internalizes some of it,
will very likely "sound like Fripp" to some extent. In my youth <g> I had
no problem with that because it was so exotic that few people recognized my
playing as Fripp influenced. Today it's different - sometimes I hate it
because it feels so silly. What's the point of sounding like somebody else
after all? But it's so hard to stop falling into these habits and to find
one's own unique playing style - to be so original that noone instantly
comes and says, "hey, that sounds just like Bill Frisell". 

David Torn's "stop playing like other guitarists" hangs on my wall as a
reminder. I hope it will help.

Michael Peters   
private:        mpeters@compuserve.com
work:   mp@harold-scholz.de
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mpeters

(Never whistle while you pee)