On Chasing The Tones Of Others

If you frequent guitar or gear forums, you'll often come across posts where people ask about achieving some aspect of a famous player's tone. I've read lots of them, and even made plenty myself.

The problem that seems to occur, almost as frequently as the tone chase posts themselves, is a stream of responses along the lines of, “It's not possible, for x, y, z reasons”. In this post, I'd like to break down the most common reasons given, and why I think each one is wrong and/or missing the point. You'll notice a common theme that runs throughout my thoughts, that tone chasing is how you become an individual.

Easily the most common response to tone chasers is the claim that the tone is in the given player's hands and fingers, and since you cannot duplicate them, you can't get their tone. I will admit that this point has some truth to it, but still I believe it ultimately misses the mark. Everyone's physiology affects the way that they play the guitar, and we're all different. Shaquille O'Neal is most definitely going to hold a guitar differently than you or I, and this will necessarily change how he hits the string, where he picks, etc.

To use our primary example, Jimmy Page had very long arms. This is what enabled him to wear his guitar so low on the strap. He also had rather large hands, which, like Jimi Hendrix, allowed him to wrap his fretting hand thumb over the neck to fret notes on the low E string, freeing up the other fingers for chording. My hands are on the smaller side, and so I'm not really able to fret chords exactly the way they did.

So case closed, I don't have Jimmy or Jimi's hands, I can't sound like them right? Not quite. By analyzing how they played physically, we are developing our ear, brain, and technique to identify subtleties in their approaches to playing, which I believe is the most important way of emulating a player.

I recently discovered that Jimmy tends to pick very close to the bridge, which gives him a brighter tone. I believe this is natural for him because of his long arms and how he slings/holds the guitar. And despite not having his arms, I can still pick closer to the bridge and get that much closer to Jimmy tone.

Every guitar player naturally sounds like themselves. This is why so many of us chase the tones of others, because it doesn't come naturally. In fact, short of a lifetime of obsessive study, like (the absolutely fantastic!) Mr. Jimmy, it's very difficult to ever truly sound like someone else.

So in that sense, this objection is rather meaningless, as we all already have our own sound! But how does our own personal sound develop? I know I sounded much different 3 years into play than I do now; technically I'm better, and my style is different as well. How and why did it change then? Well, a big part of it is all the blues, Zeppelin, and Jimmy Page stuff I learned over the years.

I think songwriting is an area where it's easier to be derivative from your influences, compared to guitar style. Say what you will about Greta Van Fleet, but the accusations of copying Zeppelin is primarily about the songs, and maybe the vocal style. It's clear the guitarist is heavily influenced by Page, especially riff-wise, but I get less of an impression that his actual soloing is a Jimmy Page ripoff.

Which brings me to my most important point: The songs you learn, and the tones you chase inevitably influence your personal sound and style. This is a natural and good thing, and happens for us all. Jimmy Page was heavily influenced by the blues, rockabilly, British acoustic folk players, and Indian/world music. You can hear every bit of that all over Zeppelin, and no one ever called him derivative.

It's worth mentioning at this point the way that Jimmy learned: he played the record over and over, tried to learn solos note for note, and even bought the same guitars as his heroes! He was trying to emulate them as best he could. I can't help but assume if he'd grown up today, he be posting on The Gear Page asking how to get that Gene Vincent slap-back sound! And yet he still turned into one of the most innovative and creative guitarists ever.

We are all the sum of our influences, and I believe tone chasing is simply a very in-depth way of integrating a particular influence. Don't worry, you won't end up a clone of some famous guitarist, because you're not them! But go nuts trying to chase them, because you will develop your ears, your mind, and your chops. But don't expect your wallet to be safe :)