Portrait of the Guitarist as a Musician Who Becomes an Artist

It’s an honor to have a blog here on Gibson.com, and I’ll try to do the opportunity justice. It’s been about 15 years or so since I wrote a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine, but guitarists I meet [some who have even risen to professional status!] occasionally mention that my scribblings had a positive influence on them somewhere back in the day. So - that got me thinking - what might make a good beginning for this new adventure?
What makes amateur guitarists take the leap, to begin to see themselves more as musicians, then perhaps even as artists?
It’s not just a question of accumulating chops, because we’ve all seen and heard guitarists who have fairly limited “gifts” and/or technique & theory to draw upon, yet they manage to reveal great imagination and passion in their music-making.
And I think that’s the first, big, necessary quality – imagination. Hand in hand with that is a developing ability (and desire) to communicate on an emotional level. And certainly, these things require a confidence, an ego that can withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Some may see this as a kind of craziness, or at least a passion (maybe bordering on obsession), but MTV labeled certain qualities as being “Driven,” and there has to be some combustible fuel from somewhere.
When a guitarist expands consciousness to consider more than the challenge of fingers and hands getting notes correct, and starts to encompass the vision of those notes in a much bigger landscape – the music, the mood, the “whole” being greater than the sum of the parts – a musician has begun to evolve from the guitarist.
Then the musician begins to consider originality, and feels a need for self-expression. Playing studies and exercises seems somewhat beside the point: performing covers, even perfectly, isn’t really on the agenda anymore. But an arrangement that reveals a personal kind of truth? This becomes a priority, as a musician seeks, and starts to discover his or her own “voice”: now an Artist emerges.
An artist believes in a personal vision, and commits to it. Artists take chances based on their own “sense” of what feels right to them. An artist maintains a pursuit of truth, and hopes to continue to evolve and develop this “voice.”
A long time ago, with a tongue somewhat planted in my cheek, I offered a Six Point Hero List, so that guitarists could perhaps identify some of the traits separating them from the Yardbirds alumni of Beck, Clapton & Page.