Article 1 Under The Influence (Copyright) Stephen Housden

All musicians - good, bad, well known or unknown, have been influenced by other players. Some spend their whole life emulating their favourites, others use the influence to develop and enrich their own style.

Learning recorded solos parrot-fashion can help your technique and ear-training - especially in the early years of learning - but eventually the real value comes when you can analyse a solo and understand the emotional and theoretical reasons behind it. Then you can take the lines and turn them upside-down, twist them around and eventually make them your own.

There is much to learn from analysing the attitudes of your favourite players and thinking about the reasons why you like their playing.

When I started learning guitar in the early 60s I wanted to play exactly like Hank B. Marvin, and I wore out most of my Shadows records in the process. The Shadows were an English band that had a string of hits in the early sixties everywhere except the USA. The USA version would have been "the Ventures". The first Shadows tune I heard was "Apache" and Hank's Stratocaster through tape echo into a Vox AC 30 was absolute magic. I knew straight away electric guitar was the instrument for me. I copied every note, even the echoes -not easy when you don't have a tape echo unit.

Nowadays, I aspire to his attitude rather than his style: all notes should be played with feeling and finesse and unnecessary notes shouldn't be played at all.

When I first heard Chuck Berry I figured that his solos were improvised and therefore I should do the same. I used to copy bits of his solos and improvise the rest. That's where I learned the basics of rock "n" roll phrasing. You can really hear his infuence on early Beatles and Rolling Stones records.

Eric Clapton with the Bluesbreakers taught me that you don't have to be black to play incredible blues guitar. I didn't learn any of his solos note-for-note for fear of becoming a Clapton clone (like everyone else was at the time) but now when I listen to that record I realise that his phrasing had quite an influence on me. He also inspired me to get my left-hand vibrato happening.

Some people who hear Jimi Hendrix for the first time wonder what all the fuss is about. He has had such an influence on rock guitar playing in general that people don't realise how original it sounded back in 1967. Although a lot of his playing was blues-based, he had a way of making it sound as if he came from another planet. I was struck by the intensity of his playing and like all rock players at the time couldn't avoid being influenced by him.

This was a very exciting time for a musician but not much for for the neighbours! My amp got louder and I felt it was very important to practise getting feedback for at least an hour every day. Needless to say the neighbours soon found the fuse box.

My favourite jazz player without a doubt is Wes Montgomery. Wes was 19 and just married when he decided to take up the guitar. So as not to disturb the neighbours he played the guitar with him thumb instead of a pick and also developed a technique for playing melodies in octaves (two notes an octave apart played simultaneously). This made the guitar sound even quieter.

Later when he tried to use a pick he found it awkward and abandoned the idea. This was good because by using up and down strokes with the thumb (which is supposed to be impossible) he had developed a unique sound. There is real warmth in Wes's playing and I am always inspired by his phrasing and melodic invention. His solos are always memorable; I find my self singing along with solos that I haven't heard for many years.

Wes Montgomery has a quality that all improvising musicians should aspire to. A direct link from brain to instrument. When I hear him play I am aware of the feeling of the music rather than the technique used to play it. Wes died in 1968 but left behind many memorable recordings, Try "Full House" or "The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery", both on Riverside. His later, more commercial records are also worth checking out such as "Tequila" on Verve and various compilations on A & M Records.

Another player who still puts a smile on my face when I hear him is Django Reinhardt. Django, whose recording career spanned from 1934 until his death in 1953, had a wide range of emotional expression in his playing. Although his left hand was damaged in a fire and he only uses two fingers for his lead playing, his speed and dexterity would challenge even a good player with six fingers!

His music could be described as jazz-European style with gypsy overtones. He used trills, false harmonics, octaves and many other devices. Some of them, like the way he could move up the neck on one string, would have been a result of his damaged hand. Django always inspires me to use my imagination and not always settle for the obvious.

There are plenty of other sources to draw inspiration from. Listening to classical and traditional Irish music has influenced my playing. Also seeing a good film or reading a book can be inspiring.

Once you forget about technique and start expressing emotion on your instrument then you can really have a good time and so can the listener.

Naturally, a certain amount of technique has to be developed in order to do this but technique for technique's sake can be very boring. All the guitarists I have mentioned have varied techniques to suit their radically different styles, but they all had one thing in common. Like all of us they were inspired by others.