I'm in a rut with my playing

[Wes Mantooth]

I have a song I'm ready to program drums to and record but I seemed to have hit a rut in my playing lately, All my material sounds too much the same or I just have a lack of inspiration.

I guess I'd describe my play style as more thrashy/metally/noisy

I feel I need to find more influences and just learn more techniques as i was never really formally taught, so my question to you ILF... How do I improve my playing and gain more song writing inspiration? I need to get out of this rut

[the Life Aquatic]

listen to wide ranges of music, if i feel like all my music becomes generic to one genre say hardcore/metal ill put on something completely opposite or different from that genre. i recently started a kick of listening to a lot of instrumental, ambient, spacey music, which after coming off of listening to nothing but heavy hardcore and metal and playing that, has helped me figure out some really fun and cool new ideas to incorporate in my playing that i would have never thought of has i kept listening to break downs and blast beats lol

[tuffteef]

well ive never been in a rut since i work in a studio so i see so many musicians come in of all genres and we just had a hammered duclimer player come in and she was INSANE
so ive been checking out some hammered dulcimer and i can hear stuff like this transposing on guitar
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxjpYHhfRyI[/youtube]

[Wes Mantooth]

I find I have a wide range of music that I listen to everyday, its more transferring the ideas in my head to the fretboard, I'm not a skilled player really

[Ironbird13]

those hammered dulcimers have an amazing sound

[SPACERITUAL]

Listen to some melvins.

[McSpunckle]

well ive never been in a rut since i work in a studio so i see so many musicians come in of all genres and we just had a hammered duclimer player come in and she was INSANE
so ive been checking out some hammered dulcimer and i can hear stuff like this transposing on guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxjpYHhfRyI

This is the best thing I've seen all month.

And HT sent me nudes. So you can imagine how high the bar was set.

Incidentally, I find myself playing guitar by hitting the strings with sticks of some sort quite often. And electric hammered dulcimer would probably be a cool instrument...

[Bassus Sanguinis]

I find I have a wide range of music that I listen to everyday, its more transferring the ideas in my head to the fretboard, I'm not a skilled player really

I've been there. The major reason to it was that I played almost exclusively material I wrote myself, which lead to situation where the written music wasn't demanding enough for me to grow as a musician, nor get technically any better. Each and every new song ended up sounding absolutely the same as the past dozen of songs. And I played them as I played every other song.

SO, try playing something completely different. Introduce Yourself to an artist You didn't know and practice one or two of his/her songs. Or join in a band that doesn't play Your music, and has a decent learning curve.

Why not try record first Your ideas without Your instrument, i.e. hum, sing, whistle or something and use whatever media available to record Your song ideas/riffs. That way Your songs will not be as much based on Your playing technique. It might lead to fresh sounding new material.

And if You are a prisoner of Your instrument, You know, now might be a great time to learn to play an instrument You wanted to try out but never really cared to go through the trouble. It really might help You learn Your primary instrument anew. A friend took the flute for months, when he was stuck with his guitar, and returned through the lute and classical guitar detour to his electric guitar. Some others have learned to play drums, for example. Learning a bit guitar didn't hurt my bass playing.

You can also try changing just Your tuning, take the Robert Fripp train. Try Your old material now. It's given me more than just a bunch of ideas - and lots of good, healthy laughs at myself, too. Definitely didn't hurt my skills or song writing, just made me wish I had taken the Guitar Craft courses before they quit.

[jfrey]

1. Listen to more music - that you have never listened to before, and preferably all different styles. Try listening to very contrasting groups side by side. Listen to these albums in order for some inspiration and you'll see what I'm talking about:
Balmorhea (Constellations) - Necrophagist (Epitaph) - the Bad Plus (Suspicious Activity?) - Astrohenge (Astrohenge) - Ulver (Bergtatt) - Mono (Hymn to the Immortal Wind) - Isis (Celestial) - Negura Bunget (OM) - Scale the Summit (Carving Desert Canyons) - Les Discrets (Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées) - Gorguts (Obscura) - Imogen Heap (Speak for Yourself) - Levi / Werstler (Avalanche of Worms) - Bad Brains (I Against I) - Miles Davis (Kind of Blue) - Giant Squid (The The Ichthyologist) - Tera Melos (Tera Melos) - Hauschka (Ferndorf) - This Will Destroy You (Young Mountain)... Etc, I could go on forever...

2. Practice practice practice. Learn new techniques.

3. Join a band, or just start recording things even if initially they sound like crap. You can always use things later, or change them to suit your needs.

4. Learn music theory, if you haven't already. Really knowing what you're doing will only help you.

5. Learn another instrument. Contrary to popular belief, learning more things increases your capacity to learn. The whole "jack of all trades master of none" thing is situational. With something like music where it's all related practice and knowledge in one thing spills over into the others. I play 5 instruments and the more I learn in any one the better I get in all of them.

[dubkitty]

the thing i've found most helpful in breaking out of limited patterns is to learn one or more exercises in a style or technique that's unfamiliar to me and work on those techniques until they become integrated into my playing. e.g. after Radiohead's In Rainbows came out i became obsessed with the guitar figure in "Weird Fishes," which only sounded correct when picked with three fingers and no thumb (i.e. in classical style rather than thumb/fingers folk picking); after plunking out those four arpeggios for six months, my third finger was way more functional when fingerpicking than ever before.

[Bellyheart]

Jamming with other people really helps.

[masked elwood]

Why not try record first Your ideas without Your instrument, i.e. hum, sing, whistle or something and use whatever media available to record Your song ideas/riffs. That way Your songs will not be as much based on Your playing technique.

that is some great advice right there!!!!!!! everyone should do that from time to time.

[Wes Mantooth]

This is good! I have a friend who is in the bands Total Babe and Howler, maybe I'll have him teach me some of their songs, I've also been quite into Moros Eros lately along with Electric Wizard.

I'll start working with all these suggestions ASAP.

Still wish I had a band, No one seems to like my main style of music...

[jfrey]

Why not try record first Your ideas without Your instrument, i.e. hum, sing, whistle or something and use whatever media available to record Your song ideas/riffs. That way Your songs will not be as much based on Your playing technique.

that is some great advice right there!!!!!!! everyone should do that from time to time.

I think Satriani does this.

[Bellyheart]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD7ZnJdi2rY[/youtube]
These videos help a lot. At least they did for me personally. I keep having to replace my strings, because they melt.