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I know a number of great string instrument players who mostly write/perform solo instrumental music on their instruments, be it a guitar, a bass or anything else.

A few examples:

I am not an expert and I cannot really describe what exactly it is that makes me feel like these songs are the same musical "style" (or "genre"? or anything else?). Can they even be described as being in the same style?

What I feel the songs have in common:

  • Melancholy (minor key?, slower tempo)
  • Atmosphere (reverb, use of harmonics)
  • Fingerstyle plucked acoustic instrument (even though a different one every time -- guitar, bass, weissenborn, ...)

So if I want to search for other similar musicians or for tabs of songs in this style (for any kind of string instrument: guitar, bouzouki, oud...), what exactly should I search for?

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    Two users have voted to close this because "Questions about transcribing or finding a particular song, including identifying chords, notes, key and time signatures, or similar elements, are off-topic since they are rarely useful to future readers": that doesn't apply to this question, which doesn't concern a single dong. This question identifies a particular style and asks whether it has a name. It's the same as saying "I've noticed a similar texture in this Bach keyboard prelude, Mozart piano sonata, and Fauré song accompaniment, what's it called?" It is a question about music theory.
    – phoog
    Commented Aug 29, 2023 at 10:04
  • @phoog The close reason used to list "genre" also, and even though it's not explicit in the list of elements we don't identify, I'm pretty sure genre identification is still off topic. Also, I'm pretty sure genre identification is off-topic regardless of how many songs or pieces are being asked about. Beyond all of that, genre is not objective, so the question would fail on that point anyway. If this were about a single aspect of time, tonality, and/or texture, then it might be on-topic, but not definitely, from my point of view.
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Aug 29, 2023 at 13:49
  • @phoog Confirmed, identifying style or genre is explicitly listed as off-topic in the help center. "...is not about ... identifying a song, style/genre, instrument/equipment, technique, chord progression, etc."
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Aug 29, 2023 at 13:52
  • By the way, the answer is pretty much "no." These examples have many things in common that don't constitute a genre, but the biggest commonality is simply that they are solo performers on plucked string instruments. They're also very close-miced. The only search query that would encompass all is something like "acoustic solo fingerstyle."
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Aug 29, 2023 at 18:53

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