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The guitar expression struggle
“How do I add more expression to my guitar solos? I feel like I’m just playing notes, not saying anything.”
I saw this question online and thought I’d do a live session answering it and sharing some of my ideas that I hope can help you! Here’s the guitar video lesson:
Causes for emotional expression struggle
Music is the language of emotions. So, how come people struggle with the emotional side of it?
This is partly related to how music is usually being taught. Here are two common ways:
- Playing other people’s music. This method is useful to learn, but it’s more about copying and less about feeling emotions or understanding the ideas behind the music.
- Music theory. This approach is about learning guidelines, patterns, and shapes, which are essential tools, but they activate the logical part of the brain more than the emotional.
Unfortunately, not many guitar mentors teach how to feel.
Another reason relates to how music is usually being practised. Here are two common ways:
- Playing over backing tracks. This is a fun way to improvise, like playing with a live band. But it’s in a specific mood. What if you’re in a different mood? Also, it’s more about reacting to something and not creating. You can’t interact with the other musicians like in a live band. Your space to express yourself is limited.
- Playing exercises. Playing guitar exercises is important to make progress, but especially with the boring ones like the famous spider exercise, you’re working on the mechanical and technical side of music, not on the emotional side.
Problematic solutions
Some offer solutions to this problem by saying something abstract, like “Feel the music”. But how does this general advice help? What does it mean to feel the music, and how do you feel it?
Others suggest a solution by describing what you can play: “various bends, staccato and control of volume”. However, does bending a string and staccato guarantee emotional expression?
My simple solution
In a way, emotional expression has nothing to do with music or the guitar. It’s more about being in touch with your feelings and if there’s an emotional block.
Ask yourself: What are you feeling when you play? If the answer is “I don’t feel anything,” you will probably reflect that in your playing, and you can’t expect your playing to change how you feel.
In this case, the simple solution is to feel something when you’re about to play, and your playing will reflect that. Easier said than done, I know. Let’s talk next about “how”.
3 ways to enhance your emotional expression on the guitar
When you think about emotional expression in your daily life, you have three natural and common ways to express yourself:
- Facial expressions (and micro-expressions)
- Hand gestures
- Voice
Let’s explore how you can translate these to your guitar solos.
Solution #1: Use facial expressions
Studies have shown that facial expressions, even if they’re fake, can change your mood. For example, this study has shown that even when people put a fake smile on their faces, they feel happier.
This means your facial expression will change your mood, transforming the way you play. Try making faces, even micro-expressions, while playing. It will help you connect emotionally to your guitar.
Not sure if it makes a difference? Compare it to playing with a blank face. Record yourself and hear the differences. Seeing guitarists and musicians making facial expressions while playing can strongly deliver their emotions. But this works even without the visual aspect. Try it!
Solution #2: Apply hand Gestures
When you think about how actors express emotions, they use facial expressions of course, and other effective expression tools like body language, and specifically hand gestures.
Since your hands are obviously occupied with playing the guitar, you can be aware of how you’re using them. Do you see and feel that they are like typing on a computer keyboard? Then, it means you’re focusing on the technical and mechanical aspects more than the emotional ones.
The solution is to use your hands to express the music and connect to it. That’s why techniques like string bending can bring you some emotion as you squeeze the guitar neck as if you’re squeezing the hand of someone you love.
Vibration is another great expressive technique. When you think about other situations where your hands shake, like when you’re anxious, that’s its emotional potential. Slow vibrato can make you feel calm, but fast and wide vibrato can make you feel angst.
Not to mention the excessive hand gestures you see from classical musicians that help them and the audience connect emotionally with their playing and music.
Solution #3: Find your voice
How do you use your voice to express emotions? How do you speak or sing when feeling calm or angry? Answering these kinds of questions can help you find and deliver your own voice on the guitar. Yes, your actual speaking or singing voice is what can make you sound unique when you play the guitar!
For example, your voice is likely slow and quiet if you feel calm. When you’re feeling angry, it’s probably loud and fast. Taking even this simple idea to your guitar can massively transform your expression. Moving between these two extremes creates dynamics, which is an important tool for emotional expression on the guitar.
Another important aspect of using your voice is playing the guitar like you’re speaking or singing, for example, using rests between phrases, questions and answers, etc.
Last notes
We barely scratched the surface, but hope this article and the video were valuable and helpful for your emotional expression on the guitar.
Reading and watching videos about it can help, but I can’t see you and help you personally, and that’s the best way to progress! Nothing beats a live interaction with a pro guitar mentor who can address your specific needs and issues.
So, if you’d like to go deeper and explore your emotional depths and how to express them through the guitar and your own music, I’d like to invite you to book a guitar chat with me about it. If you’d like to, you see if I can help you become the guitarist you want to be.
Expression is at the heart of my guitar composition academy and what I mostly help my students with. It is crucial for creating melodies, which are the basis for compelling and memorable guitar solos.
I teach how to transform emotions into melodies and how the sounds you make transform back into emotions. This creates a feedback loop that feeds itself and can help you feel the music on a deep level, getting into a state of flow where you feel connected to the magical powers of music.
