All things being equal I am sure that everyones' playing is a combination of all the influences they've been exposed to and tried to emulate in some manner.

The obsession with ''copping licks'' wherever you hear them (records, CDs, tabs, videos, teachers you've studied with--their respectives influences, etc.)...and of course the idea of incorporating all these licks into a ''style'' that has your personal musical DNA all over it.

Hard (but definitely not impossible) to find real innovators these days, because so much of it has already been done...and of course the guys who were pioneering it all back in the teens and twenties, were considered the innovators as they didn't have access to the multitudes of media formats that today we take for granted...so they just followed their ears, instincts and where their respective technical abilities led them, and of course what they could glean from each other.

'Course there are innovators out there who have managed to copy, twist, embellish, distort, re-invent and break all the accepted rules (if there really are any) in the process, creating a new style, that everyone else then tries to emulate.

Me? I'm still trying to figure out what ''my style'' is. A few others seem to recognize it as something that is beginning to emerge even if I can't quite see it myself. I only know that there is a lot of Merle Travis, Dave Bromberg, Doc Watson, Rev. Gary Davis, Duck Baker and Rick Fielding in there---all people who's musical approaches I greatly respect. I just seem to be a cacophony of these styles, and twist 'em around to suit my liking. Is that what a ''style'' is?

So what about you? How do you see yourself? How do others see your playing?