Resources

Fingerstyle Guitar: Lessons From The Pros on Finding Your Voice

Discover how pro fingerstyle guitarists develop their signature sound. Learn practical steps to move beyond technical imitation and find your own voice on the instrument, going beyond skilled playing into artistic expression.

Jesse Paliotto

Mar 10, 2025 • 8 min read

After doing a number of interviews with fingerstyle guitarists, some themes seem to repeatedly surface. One of those worth mentioning is about finding your own voice with fingerstyle guitar.

In the vast landscape of guitar playing, perhaps nothing is more elusive yet rewarding than discovering your own unique voice on the instrument. While good technique forms the foundation of good playing, it's the personal touch—the individual expression—that transforms a good guitarist into a compelling artist. But how exactly do fingerstyle guitarists develop this personal voice? And what separates those who sound like themselves from those who sound like everyone else?

After speaking with some of the world's best fingerstyle guitarists on The Guitar Journal podcast, a few patterns have emerged about how artists develop their signature sound. Let's take a look at these insights and see how they might guide your own musical journey.

The Danger of Imitation Without Integration

Many guitarists begin by emulating their heroes—a natural and valuable step in musical development. However, there's a fine line between learning from others and getting stuck in pure imitation.

Emil Ernebro, a renowned fingerstyle guitarist with a massive online following, shared a crucial realization from his development:

"I learned that I couldn't, it was not a good thing for me to watch someone play and then think, okay, that is the right technique because that player is so good. So that must be the best way to do it for me too... I spent like a lot of time playing with a pick and thought, okay, George Benson plays with a pick like this in this weird way and he's George Benson. This has to be the best way to play. So I tried that for a month and I was miserable... Try a lot of different things, but don't spend two months on one technique, forcing that technique on your own playing. Try to see if you can find something that comes natural to you."

Ernebro's experience highlights a common pitfall: assuming that what works for one guitarist will automatically work for you. Our hands, musical sensibilities, and creative instincts are uniquely our own. What feels awkward to you might feel natural to someone else, and vice versa.

The Exploratory Mindset

Finding your voice often requires a spirit of exploration and discovery. It's about giving yourself the freedom to experiment without judgment, allowing your natural tendencies to emerge.

Maneli Jamal, known for his innovative percussive fingerstyle approach, describes his relationship with the guitar in exploratory terms:

"The best thing that I know to do is to just have my guitar in my hand and have time to just discover things. And that's what I started to do... I'm kind of a puzzle guy when it comes to guitar."

This puzzle-solving attitude—approaching the guitar as a canvas for discovery rather than a set of rules to master—allows for genuine personal expression to develop. It's about finding joy in the process of exploration itself, not just in the end result.

Jon Gomm, another exceptional fingerstyle player, expresses a similar sentiment about avoiding predetermined standards of "good" playing:

"There's no good really. It's just what is going to transmit the feeling that you are trying to transmit. So there's no, you shouldn't be worried about whether something is, sounds good or not. All that'll happen then is you'll use, you're using somebody else's idea. Cause if something is pre-established as being good or being of quality, that means it's been done many times already at this point."

Learning the Language Before Creating Your Dialect

While finding your voice is about personal expression, it typically begins with mastering the fundamentals of the musical language. Juno Award-winning jazz guitarist Jocelyn Gould offers an insightful comparison:

"The way to learn it is the same way you would learn a language, like a speaking language. And that's by listening and copying and trying new sentences out, trying new phrases out. And slowly, over a number of years, when you're learning a new language, you piece together a fluent ability to have a stream of thoughts. And it's the same with jazz. It's a musical language."

This language analogy applies to all guitarists. Just as we learn to speak by first imitating others, guitarists often begin by learning established techniques and copying their heroes. But over time, your own accent emerges—your unique way of phrasing, your preferred vocabulary of techniques, and your personal musical sensibilities.

Balancing Technique and Expression

Even the most technically accomplished players acknowledge the importance of moving beyond pure technique to find emotional expression. Will McNicol, a classically trained fingerstyle guitarist, reflects on this balance:

"I think that both worlds can learn a lot from one another. I was fascinated by the fact that in my classical training so little attention was given to chords in general, right? So you could end up playing quite a lot of advanced material. But then you asked me to play like a certain chord or whatever. Well, I got thrown into situations where I had to play in like a show band, for example, and it was all chord charts. And I was like, man, I don't know what to do."

McNicol's experience highlights how different musical traditions offer unique perspectives and skills. Finding your voice often means drawing from diverse influences and integrating them in your own way.

Moving Beyond Mechanical Reproduction

A common concern among fingerstyle guitarists is sounding too mechanical—too much like a MIDI reproduction rather than a human expression. Jon Gomm addresses this challenge directly:

"On acoustic guitar, if you're playing a melody and you're also playing a bassline or a chord or something, you probably can't do all that bending and vibrato and sliding so much. So I always try to find any way that I can to bring that texture to the melody that I'm playing. And sometimes that might be mixing fretted notes with harmonics or open strings. So I'm using a mixture of pluck notes and pull offs and hammer ons. They, the change in texture is more subtle than Jeff Beck bending the shit out of a note, but it's, it's still there. So my guitar doesn't sound like a midi guitar. That's my ultimate fear, you know."

This fear of sounding mechanical—of losing the human element in the pursuit of technical perfection—is common among serious guitarists. Finding your voice means discovering how to maintain expressivity even within the technical demands of fingerstyle playing.

Practical Steps to Finding Your Voice

Based on the insights from these accomplished guitarists, here are some practical steps you might take to develop your own fingerstyle voice:

Explore widely but integrate selectively: Study different guitarists and techniques, but don't feel obligated to adopt everything you encounter. Choose what resonates with you.
Give yourself permission to discover: Set aside time for pure exploration without judgment or specific goals.
Focus on what feels natural: Pay attention to techniques and approaches that feel comfortable and natural to your hands and musical instincts.
Develop your ear through transcription: Transcribing music you love trains both your ears and your technique, while exposing you to new musical ideas.
Prioritize expressivity: Always ask whether your playing is communicating the feeling you intend, not just whether it's technically correct.
Embrace your limitations: Sometimes your limitations can become signature elements of your style. Work with them rather than against them.
Record yourself regularly: Listening objectively to your own playing can reveal both your strengths and areas for growth.

Finding Your Voice Is a Lifelong Journey

Perhaps the most important insight is that finding your voice isn't a destination but a journey. Your musical voice will continue to evolve throughout your life as you grow as both a musician and a person.

Adam Rafferty, as mentioned by Emil Ernebro, exemplifies this ongoing evolution:

"He changed his technique in the past few years. And he's been playing his whole life and now he plays different than way different than he did a few years ago. You can still change and develop and that's a good thing to know that you don't have, you're not stuck in your playing once you try something."

The beauty of this journey is that it's uniquely yours. No one else will travel exactly the same path or arrive at exactly the same destination. And that's precisely what makes your voice on the instrument worth finding.

As you continue your fingerstyle guitar journey, remember that technique is merely the vehicle for expression, not the destination itself. The ultimate goal is to play in a way that authentically communicates who you are and what you feel—to find your unique voice on the instrument that speaks to others in a way that only you can.