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What's the latest thing you've done to break out of your "playing rut"?


GAS Man

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Originally posted by GAS Man

Although I've probably had a couple hundred songs and ditties pass thru my guitar playing repertoire, I fall into these duldrums of playing the same dozen or so progressions over and over again. I'm there again.


I need a mojo fix bad right now.


Something in the intermediate player arena.


I went recently went thru a Song Xpress Party Tunes Vol. 1 recently - Too easy and simplified.


I've got to get back to my Paul Pigat video on Rockabilly.


I'm looking at the few powertabs I had downloaded before that went south, but they are not inspiring me.


Any suggestions would be appreciated, but no metal please. I can't bang my head that quickly and just trying gives me a headache.


What's worked for you recently?

 

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Buy the latest Brad Paisley CD and try and figure out what the heck he is doing on the guitar. That CD is chock full of killer playing. the band I'm in is playing the song 'The World' from that CD, and has probably eight or nine guitar tracks on it. Lots of stuff to learn to pull it off well...

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Listen to new music. Something you've never heard before. Check out some Zorn or some salsa, or Balinese gamelan. Gives you new perspective.

Invent excercises to start thinking about your fretboard in a different way.

Read poetry, go see a great movie, take a walk in the sunshine. Look at some pretty girls. Talk to them.

Fall in love.

Go to a blues jam in a place you've never been before. Start or join a band.

Decide you're only going to play a kind of music that you don't play at all for the next week. If you're a metalhead, only play blues. If you only play country, play death metal, etc.

Any of these things will help. Its all in your head.

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genre switch
recently went from playing freestyle improv with my jam buds to open chord flat picking hammeron/pulloff stuff, country/redneck blues
by doing this ever so often it tends to add new dimension to the other jenre when i go back to that

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Originally posted by GAS Man



Which would you recommend?


I'm pretty well versed on the major and minor pentatonics.


Which is next?

 

 

The pentatonics cover the neck with five "boxes," minor and major are two of them, I don't think the other three have names per se, but learn 'em. Do the same with the diatonic scales/modes: major/Ionian, Dorian, Phyrigian, Lydian, Mixolydian, minor/Aeolian, Locrian

 

The above are the names of the seven diatonic modes, but I use them as scales. Each mode starts from its note in the major scale, but if you write them as "box scales," you can cover the fret board by advancing up the neck, instead of starting from a note in the smae position as the root scale.

 

I have described it badly, but check out the sections on "The Seven Modes" versus "Playing Modes in Boxes," here.

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I have been really focused for the past 5 years of playing (been playing 25 years) and came into my first rut in that whole time where I would go a couple of days without picking up the guitar (usually I play several hours a day minimum). I finally put everything in the closet except the Martin D-35 and a few harmonicas and just focused on some rootsy style music for a bit....kinda {censored} technique and just sing and play for a while. Couple weeks of that and I am right back to compulsive practicing again, though I plan on keeping the acoustic on the stand to keep me anchored.

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