Chops

So, lots of my energy has been focused on the guitar lately.
I've been looking up different lessons on youtube. Tony Rice riffs, blues Am scales, watching Jim Hall clips(Thanks Fretboard Journal) etc...
And I'm working on things hoping eventually I'll have some kind of "sound"
All of this is built on the notion that the sound comes more from the player than it does from the equipment.
In years past I've been little more than an acoustic guy. A strummer with moderate picking ability. As an electric player I was always a smash em bash em kind of gent. You have to add some sensitivity into the mix. That's what I'm workig on now. It's difficult.
I find that I still want to crank up the gain and rock out a little. Almost sounds childish in some respect but, I'm sure I'll find it to be totally neccesary.
Truth is I can't handle too much noise. Hurts my ears like hell!!!
(ear plugs?)

I'm hoping for a balance between thick chords and twinkley picked notes. All to end up backing whatever lyrical imagery.
Which as I've noticed lately still has lots to do with loss. Still, in another spectrum, there is a lot of things about joy. And things that were written with a joyful notion are finding there place in the chords.
The focus on guitar comes from needing to take a break from too much lyrical over analyzing. not for it's quality so much but for it's content.
Never one to obsess over sadness(knowingly) I think in watching the news and listening to what happens in the day to day, there's just too much of it...

Someone's neighbor dropped dead the other week. Leaving a wife and two small children.
Cancer constantly challenges someone's life...
The other day in Alabama someone decided to go after everyone who'd "done them wrong" There was a man on the news with a painfully blank look in his eyes. His wife and months old child were both killed by this maniac. He said

"I cried so much yesterday I don't have anything left. I've never cried so much in my life. I keep thinking I'll walk in there and they'll both be ther but, no..."

What sound goes with that?