"Throughout your life you make thousands of decisions, collect preferences in terms of what you like and don’t like…and no one has these experiences, in this combination – except you. You have a totally unique viewpoint! Celebrate that! You can’t not be you, and that is beautiful."

I agree with the majority of the article, but I think he missed out making a few connections between concepts?

A lot of playing a instrument is about developing muscle memory to free the mind from thinking about technique/theory. And, through these 1000's of decisions/preferences you WILL develop a style.

For the first years of playing (5years? 10years? more?) it haunted me - that I didn't have a my own style and though I could regurgitate things, I felt I wasn't original at all. And that feeling is more common that you'd think, Srv, Jimi Hendrix, Clapton and a bunch of other guys felt similar at some stage of their development.

ATM, I'm working on was feel and listening.

Working on feel, I found rhythmic tools to be creative - now it's far less about the notes and more about the placement in the groove (or just playing with space).

Working on listening, I just listened to whatever interested my ears - perhaps horn parts, piano sounds, synths, whatever. I'd try and replicate those sounds on the instrument - I'd never nail it exactly, but I would find cool things that became part of my sound/style.

And listening also means being able to play what you hear - ear training. I'm at a most basic level, but if I hear something, likely I can figure out the key and start to try out learned patterns - when my fingers have an idea of what works I then just jam till I find something that's fun.

I'v found listening to be really powerful, I get most of my phrasing idea's and tones out of hearing something and trying to replicate.

Not that I can be original or creative on demand. Sometime you need a poke from a jam session with some peeps or a backing tracks or something (GAS to the rescue!) to spark it into life. Other days it'll just pour out your fingers. Musical is a fickle mistress at times!