Sophie Lloyd: “The sign of a really successful guitarist is when they can play anything and sound like themself”
Just what makes a really successful guitarist? Is it the speed of your fingers on the fretboard, how melodic your solos are, or your ability to connect emotionally through your music?
For 29-year-old guitar sensation Sophie Lloyd, the true mark of success is when one can “pick up anything” and still have it “sound like you”.
READ MORE: Slayer’s Kerry King calls this player the most “overlooked” guitarist in metal
The musician speaks on the latest episode of The Mistress Carrie Podcast, where she shares why the tool is secondary to the master when it comes to a guitarist’s tone.
“For me, it’s not even so much from the guitar or the equipment. It’s from your hands and from your fingers and how you do different things,” Lloyd explains [via Blabbermouth]. “My vibrato is completely different to B.B. King’s vibrato or something like that. The stylistic is so different and you do develop your little nuances – you develop licks that you know inside out, so they always sort of pop up in your playing in some way or another.”
She adds that every player develops quirks that are “so unique to them”: “And I think that’s the sign of a really successful guitarist, is when they can kind of pick up anything – literally you could pick up some broken guitar off the street and start playing and it sounds like you,” says Lloyd.
“If Steve Vai probably picked up any old guitar, if he picked up B.B. King’s guitar, he could sound like Steve Vai, even though it’s on a [Gibson] 335 or whatever. So I think that’s really where it comes from, is your own expression of how you decide to form the licks, of just your little micro nuances that you have that make your playing really specific.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Lloyd also names Orianthi as the female player who inspired her guitar journey, saying, “It was just after the This Is It documentary with Michael Jackson. We went to the cinema and saw that, ‘cause my mum was a big Michael Jackson fan.”
“That was kind of the first time I’d really seen a woman that looked kind of similar to me as well, just absolutely kind of rocking out, playing the craziest solos on such a massive stage with a massive artist and just absolutely owning it,” Lloyd recalls. “And she was almost the star of the show.”
“That was a really unique moment where it was just so special to see. And then I got really into her and started listening to her music. And, yeah, her career has just been so inspiring, and the fact she’s still just absolutely killing it, still playing live all the time, releasing incredible music. And she’s just, yeah, an absolutely massive inspiration for me.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
