Teaching can get you there fast, but in my opinion makes you less original, as you tend to pick conventional ways of doing things. Forming your own style is what truly great players have strived for and achieved.
There are tons of great self-taught musicians, but this whole "teaching/theory makes you unoriginal" argument is really played-out. Being trained in music isn't necessarily learning how to follow the rules, it's also about learning to understand music better which can give you a great insight in how to deconstruct what you like about other music and synthesize it into a personal style.
I remember when I started taking lessons so I could prepare for my audition to get into the music program at my university, and this [censored] kept going on about how I would become so unoriginal, whereas he learned his instrument by doing covers of his favorite artists (The Strokes in this case... great). His argument was clearly flawed, because by learning from covers, he was essentially doing the same thing I was doing, which was learning from musicians more experienced than oneself. I also have to say being trained in classical and jazz probably gave me a much broader palette than doing Strokes covers, so I would guess that at this point I am not only a more capable musician than he, but a more original one as well.
My general feeling is that more knowledge and experience will contribute to your originality rather than trying to shield yourself from influence.
I've got a Washburn Idol 64 and a Frankenstein guitar
I think it was originally a cheap Squier guitar but I've replaced pretty much everything except the neck (which is surprisingly good considering it's a cheap guitar)
The neck IS the guitar as far as I'm concerned (speaking of electrics, anyway), it's interesting to me that you also identify it as still being what the neck was as opposed to the body.
Is this a guitar-exclusive thread or can bass be discussed as well? Oh never mind I see people are discussing bass. I started about half a year ago, but I don't play too much. I bought a cheap-ish bass but no amp yet, since I just want to practice technique.
As far as electric bass goes, I think getting an amp would be pretty crucial. Playing unplugged is probably going to make you play way too hard just to be able to hear yourself clearly, and that's not always really a great sound on the bass.
As far as my own gear goes, I have an American Charvel San Dimas from one of the recent years ('08 maybe?) and an '09 Japanese Fender Telecaster. My amp is an Orange Rockerverb 50 through an Avatar 2x12 w/ Celestion 30's. At some point I want to get an Axe-Fx and a Strat.
» Mon May 14, 2012 4:51 pm 
