In A Rut - Need a way out.

[jumpwin]

I've been playing for 15 years, although it sounds a long time I don't feel like my playing has progressed much since I learnt the pentatonic, major/minor, and blues scales. I find myself running with the same licks and similar sounding solos. Luckily my band members don't seem to have noticed, or aren't bothered! I need to inject some variation and life back into my playing, but don't know where to start. I'm not the kind that will sit and learn someone else's music, prefering to do my own thing. But what do I need to learn? Any links, advice or help would be brilliant.

[mosiddiqi]

I don't know if this will help, but at some point in the 90's I completely lost interest/faith in what I was doing with the guitar. I didn't think I was improving at all and had no motivation to even do anything about it..so you're a step ahead there at least .

 

What turned it round for me was getting completely immersed in a couple of totally different genres than the rock/metal I grew up on. Namely, hip-hop ( Public Enemy in particular) and Qawali..an Indian/Pakistani style of devotional singing (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan being the best known exponent)...neither of those two genres feature guitar, but had a profound impact on the way I play..and the way I write. Before that, I think my songwriting was fairly generic hard rock. Since then, for better or worse, I think I have something of my own...which has led me to fall in love with guitar all over again and keep searching for everything I can to make me better. (Whatever "better" means)

 

I don't know what sort of music you like, but there is world of stuff out there and some of it might give you the kick start you need. Specifically, what I got from PE was a much better appreciation of phrasing and rhythm, and from Nusrat, I learned to strive to always give music my FULL attention when I'm playing. If I'm unable to do that, I stop playing and go do something else. By "full attention", I mean just that. Nothing exists other than the music and me.

[JonR]

I've been playing for 15 years, although it sounds a long time I don't feel like my playing has progressed much since I learnt the pentatonic, major/minor, and blues scales. I find myself running with the same licks and similar sounding solos. Luckily my band members don't seem to have noticed, or aren't bothered! I need to inject some variation and life back into my playing, but don't know where to start. I'm not the kind that will sit and learn someone else's music, prefering to do my own thing. But what do I need to learn? Any links, advice or help would be brilliant.

Sorry, but IMO you need to "learn someone else's music". We all (even geniuses) learn by copying others. That's not just styles of playing, but stealing licks and chord changes. Have a listen to some of your favourite music, and any time you hear something you like but don't know how to play, work out what it is. Also try listening to kinds of music you never normally listen to, and pay close attention to it (even if you hate it). (As Duke Ellington said, "there's only two kinds of music, good and bad. I like both kinds." IOW, there's a lot to be learned even from music you don't much like.)

 

Transcription should be part of the fun of learning music, not hard work or boring. It's about getting inside someone else's music.

You won't lose your individuality (you can't possibly do that after 15 years of playing!) - but you will enhance and broaden it. It may not (should not) mean wholesale rejection of past habits, but just adding bits and pieces here and there - expanding the pentatonic in various ways, understanding how to work off the chords, or use chromatics.

[Cary Chilton]

Sorry, but IMO you need to "learn someone else's music". We all (even geniuses) learn by copying others. That's not just styles of playing, but stealing licks and chord changes. Have a listen to some of your favourite music, and any time you hear something you like but don't know how to play, work out what it is. Also try listening to kinds of music you never normally listen to, and pay close attention to it (even if you hate it). (As Duke Ellington said, "there's only two kinds of music, good and bad. I like both kinds." IOW, there's a lot to be learned even from music you don't much like.) Transcription should be part of the fun of learning music, not hard work or boring. It's about getting inside someone else's music. You won't lose your individuality (you can't possibly do that after 15 years of playing!) - but you will enhance and broaden it. It may not (should not) mean wholesale rejection of past habits, but just adding bits and pieces here and there - expanding the pentatonic in various ways, understanding how to work off the chords, or use chromatics.

 

+1

 

Also, don't assume because your bandmates haven't said anything about your repetitive licks that they haven't figured it out.

[jeremy_green]

JonR is dead on. Learn other peoples music for a while. Use your ears, then analyze whet you figured out and figure out the names of all chords and scales. It will only help you and not make you less original.

[JonR]

I might just add that there's nothing wrong with repetition - repetition - repetition
nothing wrong with repetition -
see what I mean? - see what I mean?
(It's musical )

That also shows how words can inspire musical phrases. Next time you feel as if you're going through the usual motions on a tune (same old pentatonic cliches, we've all done it), think of the lyrics. Try to play one of the phrases from the lyrics on the guitar. It doesn't have to be the same notes as the melody, or in the same place in the tune. Imagine you were going to sing that phrase like you really meant it, to someone you cared about. Then put it on the guitar. (Doesn't matter what it is: it might be "I love you", or it might be "mama take this badge off of me", or it might be "it was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well" - could even be from another song, or some phrase you just made up, such as "I'm bored with my solo already" - any verbal phrase has its own rhythm, and often a melodic shape too..) Even just drawing from the usual pentatonic pattern, it should give your phrase(s) meaning and shape.

And as for repetition - when your ideas dry up, just repeat the last thing you played. Any dull phrase is improved immensely by being played twice. (Of course that means you need to keep track of what you play, so you can remember the last phrase, or at least something close enough.)

On a totally non-serious note (hey it's Christmas!) here's one of the most deliberately outrageous examples of repetitive soloing, on a great trad jazz spoof:

- listen for the clarinet solo, from 0:57; most importantly listen for the little variations. OK, it's a gag, because it's overdone to the nth degree, but the principle is sound.
(Dunno about you guys, but gimme this over Joe Satriani any day...)

[ski219]

I've been there myself. What got me out of the rut was joining a cover band. I had played in one in the distant past but we just sort of jam banded it so never bothered to learn songs note for note, just chord structure. With my current band I was suddenly forced to learn dozens of songs, along with signature leads from guys like David Gilmour, Joe Perry, Brian Setzer, George Harrison... Not only did I learn a ton of new riffs and possibilities for riffs while re energizing my playing and interest in guitar, I then branched out to learn some Miles Davis and have been working on bluegrass flat picking ala Tony Rice and others.

I now practice sitting in front of my computer and look for different styles on youtube. If I am having trouble figuring something out there are almost always a bunch of tutorials, some that completely suck and make you wonder why they are even posted, and some that are really great.

[jeremy_green]

 

I'm not the kind that will sit and learn someone else's music, prefering to do my own thing.

 

 

Jumpwin, Can you please elaborate on this comment? It jumps right out to me as a bit of a red flag. In my personal experience this type comment usually can be translated to read "I am too lazy to do the work of learning someone else's stuff". I am not implying this is you. Just that any time I come across a player with this type of mentality, it has almost always - without exception - been a work avoidance thing wrapped around a "quest to be original" type excuse.

 

I can't relate to it really because sometimes i hear guitar parts I am compelled to learn. I LOVE lifting other peoples stuff! I have learned so much by doing so.