- Performance:

Vulpeck have a great live feel to their music and their performances are very tight, I plan to incorporate this fun but competent attitude into my live performance playing. Having a very nicely balanced and arranged performance but that still feels live and soulful. 

- Technique:

One technique I have taken inspiration from is Cory Wong's rhythm guitar playing. He plays funk parts sparsely and with lots of muting, but keeping the right hand at a consistent rhythm. I have incorporated this into one of my original ideas I have been working on for the DAW track submission.

- Production:

I am a big fan of Vulfpeck's minimalist funk style, which also reflects in their production. Their songs often have a very stripped production, allowing lots of space which often I find the more space the ‘funkier’ songs can sound. This is something I make sure to be thinking about when producing my songs, rather than filling the entire mix but tastefully choosing when to include certain instruments. Vulfpeck also continues their lofi aesthetic in their music, with compressed, trebly bass and a drum sound that reminds you of 60s motown.

I like lots of these similar sounds, for example on my demo I looped a clip of James Gadson playing a shuffle groove and used that as the foundation of the track. I got this idea from Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton when I saw him do it on a Youtube video.

- Performance:

Radiohead's album In Rainbows largely influences me, especially songs like 15 Step and Weird Fishes, mixing this 'jazzy' and warm guitar part with other contrasting instruments and sounds. The constant ebb and flow of Weird Fishes especially, how the fingerpicking guitar parts interweave creating this feeling of momentum.

- Technique:

Radiohead are quite abstract in their playing and writing, especially in their later work, often changing keys briefly or creating dissonant guitar parts to mirror the lyrics of a song (e.g. Paranoid Android - Ok Computer). I find this really interesting to listen to and does influence me when creating different sections in a song. Also Colin Greenwood's bass playing in Radiohead, especially on the In Rainbows album, is always prominent. He often doesn't play constantly for a lot of the songs, then adding a part every 4 bars for example. The use of this in Weird Fishes is hugely important as the guitar parts are very repetitive so would be much less interesting if the bass just followed this.

- Production:

Elements of Radiohead's production definitely inspire me, the tones on In Rainbows have a thing of their own, songs like House of Cards with a very dark, almost clean, but slightly overdriven guitar sound. This contrasts nicely with the rhythm Yorke plays. Also Radiohead's approach to combining soundscapes in with lyrical songs is hugely influential, for example with songs like ‘Treefingers’ from Kid-A and ‘All I Need’ from In Rainbows.

- Performance:

Tom Misch really inspires me with his fusion of pop/hip-hop and jazz. His clean tone guitar playing for example in songs like his cover of Isn't She Lovely (https://open.spotify.com/track/23H8PpuhyTDHwpqcDm7vS6?si=ad3582ee0d2c4b5) has changed a lot the way I play. 

- Technique

I think there is a lot to be taken from the way that Misch plays solos, often sliding between notes rather than bending, slightly mimicking some of the classic jazz guitar techniques. Whilst Misch's playing might not be as fast as traditional jazz guitar, it is used tastefully. As someone who is not a big rock soloist, I take a lot from this. I find mixing this style with the minimalist funk arrangements I looked at from Vulfpeck works quite well.

- Production

Misch also takes quite a minimalist approach to his production however with more of a modern sound, e.g. deep bass and sometimes hip-hop style drum beats. However his guitar tone and mixing definitely influences my writing and recording.