Finding your voice on guitar?

I spent part of the day answering questions from Instagram and dishing out advice on gear and professional music. Part of being a musician is self-promotion but for me, personally, I feel miserable when I've been promoting myself endlessly and using social media just to talk about myself endlessly so I wanted to do something today to connect with someone and help them out. This question came in through Instagram direct message and I thought it was an excellent question to feature as a full blog post.

What's the best way for me to find my 'sound' in terms of gear, without spending too much money in the pursuit?

I call it finding your 'voice' and I think it's something that can take a great musician and make him or her truly special. I can only speak from my experience, so your path might differ, but my voice on the guitar came as a combination of: What I hear in my head when I'm singing in the shower, what I listened to growing up, what I started out playing, what I ended up with after trying a million things, what worked to correct any problems I was having or remove any barrier to my playing, and what my community confirmed in me over the years. I'll give examples.

What I hear in my head—I didn't realize it—but when I was humming melodies or little riffs, singing in the shower, what I was humming and singing were sounds I could get on a guitar. A lot of it, for me, was stuff you might hear on a Hall and Oates or Paul Simon record, that style of guitar. Or a more modern example, the vibrato you hear on the 1975's new record or the chord voicings you hear in Vampire Weekend. Or Johnny Marr. It's that high, harmonic, almost funk-style or almost reggae-style guitar chords with an up tempo chord melody. I think it's called African style guitar. Think "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon or "This Charming Man," by the Smiths. For a long time that was the sound in my head, coming out as I sang to myself. Those melodies that seem to connect with me as the most singable melodies, they're all in that style.

My voice was also formed by what I listened to (or was subjected to in long car rides, in the backseat of our '92 Olds) growing up. I never try to play country, but if I'm playing long enough something country comes out of me. Growing up around Nashville and around my uncle who was in the music biz, gospel and country are just ingrained in me. So part of my voice on guitar is that quacky single coil sound, heavily compressed, lots of half step steel sounding bends. I think we listened to one Vince Gill tape until it unwound in the cassette player back then.

What I started out on also helped shape and form my voice on the guitar. It was blues. My guitar teacher was a college kid I looked up to who played Strats and burnt me Eric Clapton records. Then, I had been playing for a couple of years when, I remember there was this DirecTV special, the "John Mayer Trio" live at the Bowery Ballroom, it was the first time I had ever heard John Mayer outside of his pop ballads. I used to sit and watch it over and over with my Squier Strat in hand trying to learn his licks and play along. The part of me that started guitar playing the blues is probably the strongest part of me still, even 12-15 years later. So when I'm choosing gear I nearly always tip a hat to Mayer, Clapton, SRV, Hendrix.

But then, there's what I ended up with after years of trying things. That's the part that isn't magical. I have tried at least $50,000 worth of gear over the years. I'm debt free now for the first time but in those early years I did a number on my wallet! Over 15 years of being a total gear nerd, I had some great ideas and I had some TERRIBLE ideas, and what I've ended up with—the gear that has formed my voice—it's all stuff that didn't happen as an idea at all. It all came from a place other than looking for magic in circuits and wire. What I ended up with are things that get the job done as simply as possible, and things that literally always work. I dove into all the digital gear and had so many problems so my rig is majority analog now. I tried amp modelers and it created problems so I'm back to real tube amps. I tried a TON of boutique and trendy things, many that were poorly made as one smalltime builder tried as hard as he could to meet demand, the victims of TGP and Instagram trends, so much gear that fell apart in the end, so I'm back to tried and true, the Boss and Ibanez pedals I've always used and mostly Fender guitars and amps.

That's another not-so-glamorous aspect of how I found my voice on the guitar. When buying gear, buy gear that solves problems. Nothing that creates more problems. Big example for me was the Kemper Profiler. I wanted it so bad, so that I could have ALL THE AMPS in one box, you know? but in the end I found you have to buy it, and then a good power supply for it, and then good in-ears to be able to hear yourself, and then a wireless in-ear transmitter to take a feed from FOH in places that don't have an in-ear setup, and you have all the hours spent dialing in tones and programming the thing and getting it to play nice with Strats when the profiles are made with humbuckers or vice versa...it created all these new problems for me. So as amazing as it sounded and as cool a piece of gear as it is, the Kemper Profiler isn't part of my voice.

Lastly, let your community confirm your voice. After hearing me through Vox and Fender amps, the people I worked for were continuously saying I sounded better with the Fender stuff. I brought in a crazy boutique Jackson Ampworks amp once and everyone in the room seemed to curl when I played through it, later on I was told "That's not the sound we usually get from you." I had a cheap acoustic and an expensive acoustic. Acoustically, the expensive one sounded so much better. But sound guys kept saying, "Go back to the other one." When I bought my Strymon Timeline, my bandleader said, "It just doesn't sound like you if it isn't a Memory Man." Sometimes my community knew better than me, and I honored that. It wasn't all negative either—when I brought in a Boss DC-2 chorus for the first time, my bandleader and bassist were both floored by the wide stereo chorus sound, they raved about it. I was borrowing the pedal so I had to go out and buy one. My Matchless Spitfire gets a ton of compliments every time I play through it, too. The people who's ears I trust the most, they helped me find my voice.

The second part of your question was with regard to finances, how to find your voice without spending too much. I think the best thing I could say there is, spend money on things that bring you joy, but NEVER ever go into debt to buy gear. It just isn't worth it. A great guitar and amp can be had at any price point nowadays. You might get the features you're looking for or the benefits of higher quality craftsmanship in more expensive gear, but if you can't make a Standard Strat work for you then it's not the guitar—you're the problem! Two things to note: I went and bought a few high-end custom guitars, played them to pieces, and when they were falling apart my Fenders were still holding up. There's something to that. And second, to this day, my favorite Strat pickups I've ever heard were in a $350 Mexican Standard. I know they were stock but part of me thinks maybe they were over-wound or under-wound or something because they just sounded incredible. My buddy sold that guitar and neither of us have found that tone since. So if you play enough guitars, you can find something incredible on a budget. It's not wrong to spend money but I found that even with $5,000 to spend on a guitar, you may not get it right the first time. Always try before you buy, borrow and try it out in your band if possible, try out all of your friends' gear.

So just to sum up: flesh out the sound in your head, consider where you came from, use your ears, try everything you can—borrow as much as you can—play with as many people as you can, listen to the people you play with, play what you love listening to, and most importantly, don't go into debt to buy gear.