Re: Ever suddenly find that you've been in a rut with your guitar playing?
Ya know Crusty... Much of the things you say, make me envision Ive scaled this huge mountain and when I get to the top, instead of seeing the frail old man with a long beard and stache dressed in sheet, I find you sitting there holding your beat up old strat... You hit it out of the park so often...
Hehe, you'd probably just find this little kid who claims to know nothing.
I've always done most of my electric guitar playing acoustically ... no amplification. I realised a few years ago that I'd been trying to emulate the sounds of my records, of guitarists with amps, acoustically since I was young. I'd try to get all the sounds, sweet, aggressive, singing, stinging, whatever, without the contribution of the amp and speakers. The end result seems to have been that most of how I sound is at the guitar end of the cable, and that was again illustrated to me when i tried to respond in the 'How Do You Tweak Your Amp' thread.
And then with the 'what to play' aspects ... even as a teenager in two-guitar bands, I was often trying not to be a guitar player ... I'd be trying to be a string section, a cello, a piano or organ, to make other textures beyond straight guitar. That probably led me to listen more to what those kind of other sounds could do, and how they'd be used.
I'm not saying i was particularly brilliant in any of those things, but they took me out of 'normal guitar thinking' into other areas ... the song, the emotional effect, and other ways to have effective input. I also had, and have, a healthy respect for silence, and an awareness that it's the blank canvas, and any noises I make are marks on the canvas, so it helps if they are thought-out, meaningful and worthwhile. Sometimes my best contributions are ... nothing at all. It's not all about me.
I've also played a lot of acoustic throughout my life. That is really something special, because it's all there with no extraneous clutter. The sense of history that goes all the way back, and how even the simplest thing can sound glorious and have deep emotional impact. Feeling that wooden box vibrating, it's kinda primal and about as meaningful as something can get.
I've spent my life playing, learning, it's all been about music and music-related stuff. To me, music and life are the same thing. It's been my constant companion. My most pleasing and productive times are when i don't think about the guitar at all from a 'technical' standpoint. Everything i've learnt has just been building the tools to create a toolbox. The music comes from life, not the toolbox. I don't wanna make music that says 'this is my spanner, here's my chisel, here's my paintbrush and you're gonna love my hammer'.
I go out, i have human interactions, I spend time at the river, i watch the platypus, i get caught in the rain, all kinds of stuff happens, good and bad. I have feelings when these things happen, they affect me emotionally. I pick up the guitar and try to play those feelings without thinking about notes or chords or theory or anything else. The tools just allow me to analyse things later if it's necessary.
Thinking about guitar often works completely against making music. Best not to think about it. Just think about what you feel and what you want to say.
