How do you not get stuck at playing guitar?

[Mythic]

Hi everyone!

So I wanted to ask the more technically adept players beyond you how you not get stuck with practicing guitar. When I play guitar at home ( not with a band, friends or anything ) there are mainly three ways for me to play.

1. I write stuff ( what is not important here )
2. I just sit down and play licks, riffs and stuff that I am working on, but without metronome, or just play what comes to my mind.
3. I actually sit down and practice, try to improve, metronome all the way.

So what I want to ask you is : How do you not get stuck practicing the same stuff all over again? For example you really practice with metronome and full concentration, but for like two months you play the same licks of a certain technique, song, or whatever.

I mostly experiment with new scales, but there must be more options of course and it seems like right now I am not making any progress since I tend to play the same licks over and over again and that for a way to long period. So how do you get to practice new stuff? Or where do you get it from? I often listened to solos and picked certain parts out and practiced them. All in all not a bad way to play stuff that you want to play somewhen, but there must be better ways.

So how do you handle that kind of stuff?

Cheers and merry christmas!

[Dave Sloven]

I hate practicing with a metronome.  Unless you are living on an oil rig or have a disability that prevents you getting out I'd advise to start jamming with a drummer as much as possible.

Other than that yeah I pretty much do #2

[Lew]

Well, I suppose the most important thing is knowing what it is you want to achieve and then set out to do it. I can hold my own but I'm no shredder god. It's one thing knowing all the scales and another being able to string em together in a musical way. Learn the songs you want to play inside out and like Agent said, jam it out with a drummer that's where the fun is. But I would advice to play with a pulse, it's something I wish I started a long time ago.

[Mythic]

I hate practicing with a metronome.  Unless you are living on an oil rig or have a disability that prevents you getting out I'd advise to start jamming with a drummer as much as possible.

Other than that yeah I pretty much do #2

I hated practicing with a metronome as well, but at a certain point I realized I wasn't playing fast and clean enough. Now the metronome is one of my most important tools and without it no guitarist ever will be fast and clean at the same time. ( to a certain point of course )

Well I mean getting not stuck playing the same things over and over and to grow as a guitar player. Jamming with a drummer is fun and covering songs as well. Anyhow when it comes to developing your technique and speed, the metronome would be the better option IMO ( or a drummachine ).

[Dave Sloven]

Metronome is good to improve your performance in between practices.  I need to get on the metronome to speed up my downpicking, as I am using almost all downstrokes in this new band and we play pretty fast.

I play rhythm in the band.  Lead guitar is something I play at home for fun.  I let the other guitarist worry about that ;)

[Kiichi]

A big part is going beyond what you play into other genres and realms. Learning some folk, jazz, pop, etc licks and riffs can be quite amazing. I am  currently doing more folk stuff for rythm and my chords. Basecally find anything that does not sound like what you do and learn how to do it. No need to master it, but be able to play it well. That will give you ideas and flavours to add to what you already do.

Then of course there is the sound switch, so if you play a lot of high gain, do clean days. You will notice different things and get different ideas. Playing the same riff clean can reveal things you did not notice before. Go even further and use an acoustic, amazing for practice.

Go even further and try some other stringed instruments. Having played a bit of banjo recently certainly added to my alternate picking solo style, as the sound and feel of the banjo does encourage certain rythms and speeds.

It can also be cool to get a cheap acoustic (like the less than 50quid harley benton from thomann) and try different alt and open tunings. Things like open C are great to use. It teaches you a different approach to the fretboard, keeps things fresh in that regard. Breaks the patterns in which you might be stuck. Really just open things up again. Plus it can easily introduce you to new ideas for harmonies in chords and their construction.


So in short: Anything, anything at all to break the habit, the comfort. Challenge yourself and mix things up as much as you can.

[gordiji]

I try and keep the emphasis on enjoying playing, i will jam over a back track for half an hour say with good volume.
Just like being in a band without the others getting bored when you want to try or hone things. In the evening a practise amp to do more of the same. Different styles help a lot to develop understanding. Finally you don't need to be brilliant to sound great, good tone and staying within your ability(live).
Don't have an objective, play guitar because you like it.

[MrBump]

I thought I was a good guitarist until I started playing with real drummers.

As good as you think you as - as stated above - it's the pulse that makes you better.  You obviously need some technical ability which you seem to be working on.  But relating that to a real drummer and bass player is really important.

On a related note, despite having played for nigh on 30 years, I've just started to realise how bad by right hand technique is.  And that's despite being single for a large part of my early life.  Playing in time has always been a struggle for me.

[Doctor Doug]

Make a point of not working on the same thing as you did last time you played.  If you worked on scales before, work on a song this time.  Or write something or work on some aspect of theory or sight reading or something.  I try to make sure that I'm not working on the same thing for several days in a row or I just stop getting better at it.  Keep changing it up.  Not that I'm all that great though...

[Mythic]

Thanks for all your suggestions and point of views. Jamming with a drummer is kind of impossible right now for me, but I know how hard it can be and how much it makes you just be a better musician. It's just part of the whole thing and especially when it comes to faster soloing it's IMO really hard to not lose the beat or just don't give a damn and just play your shredding. That's the hardest part for me since you mostly don't practice a solo with a drummer, more like with a metronome.

I do play different instruments as well once and then. I play classical guitar everyday and also a bit of piano. Just getting some melodies out of it.

I think you're right as well Doc. Sometimes I probably don't worry too much and should rather continue writing on my songs. Though when it comes to songwriting, for me it's more like that I just start playing that one vers or chorus or whatever and then all of the sudden I get an idea to continue it. Sometimes I just can't really come up with something good and then out of nothing 2 or 4 really good riffs are coming out of my hands which I keep and still work on. ( Not those kind of riffs that u like for 1 day maybe and then you accept they're garbage  :lol: )

The thing is, I am mainly talking about growing as a Leadguitarist or songwriter. I rather like writing solos than rhythms. What I mean is how do you not get stuck playing the same licks over and over. I mean it sounds easy " just go and play something else", but at the moment it seems like I don't know what! At the moment I am playing licks out of songs and a few solos maybe. So how do you kind of widen your range of elements? For writing stuff. Mainly for guitar. I know sitting down playing another instrument can help, but I kind of have the feeling I got nothing new to practice on, but still know that there are thousands of things.

[dave_mc]

I hated practicing with a metronome as well, but at a certain point I realized I wasn't playing fast and clean enough. Now the metronome is one of my most important tools and without it no guitarist ever will be fast and clean at the same time. ( to a certain point of course )

I don't think I buy that. I've never used a metronome and I think my timing's not too bad (I'm not as clean as I'd like to be but that's not the metronome's fault :lol: ). I could be imagining this, but i have a vague recollection of when i used to take piano lessons (this is when i was maybe 8, so 150 years ago, my memory's a bit hazy) going to my piano teacher annoyed because all the schoolkids who took piano lessons said you had to use a metronome or you wouldn't be in time. I thought my piano teacher was ripping me. :lol: She said she didn't think I needed one and only used one with her students who needed its help, and put it on for a few seconds to let me see, and sure enough I was in time fine.

I do play along with cds and stuff, which is sort of like a pseudo-metronome. It's always a good idea just to make sure. But I don't really have much time for sweeping statements, either, there's normally an exception to most "rules".

[Mythic]

Well it depends about what we are talking here. Are we talking about Blues or Shredding? I never needed a metronome for fast blues or solos like from metallica, GnR, Pantera and so on. But when I started to REALLY shred, means not noodling only some pentatonics and blues scale, I had to use a metronome cause it was just sloppy and not clean, and I never got that fast. I started with the metronome at a super easy tempo up to 250 BPM. If you are able to shred on really fast tempo without practicing with a metronome, then you're eithernot from this planet or you just think you are playing that clean and fast.

Like I said, I never used to practice with a metronome, but more because there was no need for it, rather than I was lazy or something else. I just got to the point where I realized that I'm not not getting any faster and the stuff that I play fast was like mentioned fast bluesy stuff and solos like AC/DC, Metallica some Megadeth etc.

I did play along A LOT and always learned new songs and solos, but I got to the point where I didn't want to learn that stuff note by note anymore or cover stuff.

It really depends on what you are playing and of what speed we're talking about here. If I was a Jazz guitarist I wouldn't loose a second thin king about getting a metronome, but rather a drummer.

[Dave Sloven]

I hate the sound of a metronome.  Either it is too quiet or it is really obnoxious.  A necessary evil I guess.

With covers I like to learn them by using my iPod dock plugged into an old Roland Cube 30X I have.  If you are trying to improve certain techniques though you need a metronome.

I just can't stand that PUCK PUCK PUCK sound ...  :x

[AndyR]

I loathe a metronome :lol:

Just seems totally soul-less and divorced from what happens when you play with other musical parts. If I have to use something to stay in time I use a drum machine.

But the main way I've avoided getting "stuck" is by writing songs - I've been doing it ever since I started playing nearly 40 years ago. I write stuff I can't play and then have to learn to perform it. Simple as that - to say, at least :lol: ... slightly harder in practice! (But I might be a bit different to many of you, though? - I picked up guitar to accompany my voice and to write songs, I didn't pick it up to be a guitarist... I AM a guitarist, but I rarely regard myself in that light when I'm using the guitar, I'm a songwriter/musician, whose main tool is a guitar)

But something else I've learnt over the years -

"what exactly is stuck?"

Most of it is in our heads. Try telling yourself you're not stuck, you just think you are (doesn't always work, though!). I've always tended to think "if I'm not enjoying it, do something else" - but that didn't stop me sitting there for hours doing the same stuff. In recent years, I can actually use this - I'm still driven to play the thing, but if what I do doesn't please me I'm capable of putting it down and not touching it for days or even weeks. Then when I pick it up again, it feels a little "alien" but it still comes back to me, in a "hey! this is good, why did I think I was stuck?" kind of way.

[_tom_]

I think the only way to not get stuck is to keep attempting stuff out of your comfort zone til that becomes your new comfort zone. Applies to pretty much everything as well, not just guitar!

I've never played to a metronome though which is probably why I can't shred.