Do you consider yourself a guitar player or a songwriter?

[solacematt]

So this is inspired my MikeD's thread about not feeling he's a very good guitar player. This got me thinking about a few things, namely what matters to you more as a person who plays the guitar. Technique and how good a musician you are, or how good a songwriter you are? I'm 31 years old and after literally having the worst year of my life last year where I gave up pretty much everything from my job and publication, to my band for the women I thought I was about to spend the rest of my life with I picked back up what had been missing from my life for a year, the guitar.

Like many of you I picked up the guitar in my teen years. Some seem to think that your best years are those early years, but I think of those as your learning years and stepping stones where you don't really find your voice for a good ten years. Anyways, Most people I know think I'm a pretty great guitar player, and I suppose I'm decent, with the exception of one person; an ex-best friend/bass player. He was a very good technical guitar player but honestly I never really felt he could write a great song to save a life. He used to refer to me as a disgrace to the instrument because I didn't do a lot of flashy stuff (his heroes are Slash, Zakk Wylde, etc) and focused on writing songs instead. To me that's always been the most important thing as a player, and someone who plays in bands.

At the end of the day, I think all anyone wants to hear is a good song. Which is why pop radio and country does so well. Yes, there are some great players there, but first and foremost the song is at the forefront. Most of my guitar heroes (Billy Corgan, Chad Kroeger, Jerry Cantrell, Pete Loeffler, Daniel Johns) don't always show the most technical prowess but have wrote a lot of great songs. They are great songwriters.
So I ask you fellow PRS forum members, what do you consider yourself more, a guitar player (more technical) or more of a songwriter (someone who cares more about writing good songs)

 

[Johnnyboy94]

I think that like everything else in life, there needs to be a happy medium. There are plenty of "Technically" Great guitarists out there that couldnt write a song to save their lives. I think the best combination guy out there is Keith Urban, but there could be others.

To answer the question(lol), I try hard to do both well, but I have seen myself improve on guitar more than I have as a writer.

 

[Prs2studio]

Hello I have done some studio work and wrote some for people that hired me. I don't feel I'm a song writer as what I did was layering work and adding solos.
I don't play much cover songs. I have had to learn them for students and learned a couple for myself to push myself in a style I wasn't strong in. I don't know what I would label myself really

 

[Tedder]

I am not a great guitar player. I can jam with people and I can solo a bit and sometimes I even hit the mic. But when it comes to song writing I stink. Mainly it's that I am never happy with what I'm starting out with. The funny thing is when someone else drops a chord progression or some half formed idea I can run with it and add all sorts of nuance to it. I get inspired by it. I just suck at starting the process. Me thinks I have a mental hang up.

So to answer the question... I wouldn't say I'm either of those things. What I am though is a good team mate.

 

[NomadMike]

When playing was number one with me I was a guitar player, entertainer and right hand man to the leader.
About five years ago I was unemployed but had made contact with a bunch of old music friends one of which is a very good song writer. He gave me some hints and encouraged me to just write and not worry about it being good enough or perfect. That advice and a small 8 track mixer was all I needed to start having fun on the guitar again.

 

[László]

I don't write songs, but I do compose music for picture (TV ads, documentaries, etc.). I consider myself first a composer, second a keyboard player, and finally, a guy that doubles on guitar.

However, I love playing guitar in connection with my work, and it's my favorite instrument even though I'm better at the other two things.

I hope that makes sense? :iamconfused:

 

[kingsleyd]

I started playing guitar, trumpet, and piano within a period of about a year in 1966-67. I was in 3rd grade, 8 years old. I'd been obsessed with music for a long time before that, both the music my grandfather (a church organist & choirmaster) played and the music my uncle (a blues/rock guitarist) played.

On guitar, the third song I learned to play was one I'd made up myself. Although I was already a pretty big Jeff Beck fan by then, my motivation was to play songs in a group with a singer that we wrote. Keith Richard(s) was my main man in that regard.

I had a brief James Taylor/Carole King phase in junior high, likely because it appeared that those kinds of songs appealed to girls more so than the Stones did. For whatever reason, that didn't last very long, although later I discovered mid-70s era Joni Mitchell, who has been a huge influence ever since.

In 9th grade I discovered Yes/Steve Howe. That gave me a whole new perspective on guitar, mainly that I didn't have to restrict myself to one style of music or type of guitar, and that there was more to electric guitar than the recycled Freddie King > Eric Clapton licks with which all of my peers were obsessed. Braces had made french horn (which had supplanted the trumpet) unmanageable, and while I continued to play piano so I could take music theory & composition courses, I was never that into it. Although I kept writing songs throughout HS, by the time I left I'd pretty much decided I was more of a guitar player.

I never completely stopped writing music, though. It just ended up being more instrumental. Throughout the '80s that was more solo acoustic stuff because it was what was practical at the time. (young children; teaching at a boarding school) I finally did an actual record (CD) with that material which came out in 2003. Since 2000 it's been more electric/jazz/fusion kind of stuff; I've had a couple of working bands doing that music and am in the process of putting together a new one. I'd like to do a record of that, too, 'cos I think the tunes are pretty strong, but that's more of a financial challenge since it would involve really good players, a studio, a producer, and all that. And trying to sell electric instrumental music by a complete unknown pretty much amounts to tilting at windmills.

As for the "are you a good guitar player" conundrum, that's always a matter of perspective. I'm a bit like Steve Howe in that regard: OK at a pretty wide range of things, not great at any one of them, and quirky enough that I don't sound that great next to really good players. And I know what that's all about because I'm lucky enough to be friends [meaning: go to their houses & sit around & chat or play guitar with them] with some world-class players. The difference between me and them is obvious to me: they've put in the work. I haven't. It's not a matter of raw talent.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

A little bit of both... but mostly I just classify myself as a fruitcake.

 

[alantig]

A little bit of both... but mostly I just classify myself as a car-thievin' fruitcake.

Fixed that...

 

[prsrocker1988]

Guitar player.

Songwriting was never happenin' for me. I do sideman gigs as well as a cover band in a tribute band mindset of doing exact covers with the original tone and reproduction of parts and whatnot.

I was always better at playing exactly what someone else played than coming up with it in the first place. I'm not a studio guy. Though I'd like to be as I am an introvert and would love to sit around and come up with tones and experiment but my skills are more focused to a live application. That said I have mucho respect for those that can create, but it's just not my thing. I'm a classic rock junkie so for me replicating that stuff live is what I love most because I get to play the stuff that made me start playing.

 

[hugh_s]

I use the guitar to write. The two are inseparable as I wouldn't enjoy either on their own. I mostly play lead guitar in bands and I think I've got decent chops as I spend quite a bit of time developing them yet, while playing, I'm usually not very happy with whatever I'm playing--usually I believe it could/should be better but it almost always sounds great contextually when I listen back to the recording.

 

[vchizzle]

Songwriter.