No artist is known for playing the same way every time they pick up their instrument. Inspiration can be a tricky thing to master, and when someone tries their best to put together a track, it’s anyone’s guess how the guitar part is going to turn out. Although Eddie Van Halen and other technicians have tried their best to become technicians on their instruments, Mark Knopfler felt he was in a unique position by being a relatively poor guitarist.

At the same time, most of us would trade any skill to have the dexterity that Knopfler has as a guitarist. Throughout tracks like ‘Sultans of Swing’, he has made it a habit of taking the core pieces of blues, rock and roll, and just the tiniest bit of jazz cleanliness and turning them into the most mellow anthems of the late 1970s and 1980s.

And all this from never having even learned what the word ‘plectrum’ meant. Compared to the attack that Jimmy Page or David Gilmour got out of striking the string, Knopfler’s ability to play with his fingers always gives his guitar a certain texture whenever he plays. As opposed to attacking, it feels like he’s more in tune with his instrument every time he sits down with it.

In fact, there’s a lot more in common between Knopfler and other unconventional pick-less players like Lindsey Buckingham and Robbie Krieger. None of them were going to pull off the rapid-fire picking techniques that Jimi Hendrix would do, but by relying on their fingers, there’s a human feel that’s impossible to recapture.

Then again, Knopfler never claimed to be perfect on his instrument, either. When talking about his technique, he thought that everything that he did on guitar had been backwards from a technical perspective, saying, “I’ve got a shorthand on it, which is like every guitar teacher’s bad dream. You’re holding it wrong. It’s like a plumber holds a hammer. The thing that makes me different is that I write the songs, so I can get away with stuff.”

It’s not like anyone’s arguing with his pedigree from writing hits, either. Even when he wasn’t delivering straight-ahead rock and roll on ‘Walk of Life’, his contributions to projects by everyone from Bob Dylan and Tina Turner saw him as a visionary who knew just what note needed to be placed in the song to make everything come alive.

That lack of finesse also managed to come in handy every once in a while as well. No matter how many times people try to imitate Knopfler’s tone on ‘Money For Nothing’, it’s almost like one magical take that he managed to lay down without any trouble at all.

At the same time, all good rock and roll tends to come from people who never had the kind of formal training everyone else did. Whereas some rockstars know the ins and outs of their instrument like the back of their hand, there’s a beauty that comes with looking at your musical weapon of choice and not knowing what’s going to come out of it. Because when things do go in the right direction, it feels like a miracle has occurred.