+Steve Vai did a hangout on air last month. It's a bit long but it's well worth a watch if you need advice as a musician or just if you like the guy because he's awesome.
There are a few things that really resonated with me. The main one was how he explained the Buddhist principle of "you are not your thoughts, your mind is the light that shines on those thoughts". As musicians we judge ourselves over and over again, usually in a negative way and as far as I'm concerned very rarely constructively. However I really like that idea of just listening to the music we make and see how it makes us feel without resorting to "this is good" vs "this is bad". Maybe if we channel our creativity this way it will open the doors to more expressiveness, which is what I am sorely lacking. Of course the technique I need to get what little music I have in my head out is essential too but I'm working on it.
Finding the right tone, the right sound, the right groove to express oneself with the electric guitar can be a long process if you get bogged down by the types of wood your guitar should be made of, the types of pickups, the picks you use, the type of amp you plug into, the effects pedals you use. None of that actually matter if you can't get that expressiveness from the fingers to the fingerboard. That's why I enjoy playing blues so much because it doesn't really require that much faffing about, a little distortion, a switch to the neck pickup and we're good to go, the rest is all in the phrasing.
What I do need though is just to spend more time with the instrument
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