we need space and identifiable motifs in our music to help give us time to absorb and fully experience the stuff in between the spaces.Īnd by identifiable motifs, I don't so much mean repeated figures, riffs and such - although those can be quite powerful as most rock guitarists and pop writers understand - but the feel of the an identifiable motif/theme. I remember years ago when a jazz guy said, Well, on guitar you can play endless streams of notes - but that's not really what most folks want. Thinking in terms of (wordless) song really helped me. ) I know that, as a young guitarist, I had a tendency to both play too much (breathlessly, if you will) as well as to meander (lack of identifiable motif/theme). (Of course, if one's barely ever croaked out a tune and doesn't know where to start, that might not be an immediate pathway. One thing I've found is that, at least for some folks, the human voice can be a good guide. One question: do you sing? Or are you more strictly interested in guitar instrumentals? (Or perhaps you 'sing' your melodies as you're writing guitar instrumentals?) From what you say, you're not getting much enjoyment out of your current practices and the grooves you're looking for apparently become something more like the same old rut. I definitely think you should push yourself to new growth. Everything I've written or tried to write with the guidance of that book has been absolute. Should I stick to what I know and just keep on writing heavy riffs and soloing (hard rock and metal aren't the only music I like, I like pretty much everything apart from R'n'B, pop and rap) or should I try to do more structured, chord focused music? If so, what do you suggest in order to make my chord songs actually entertaining to hear and play?ĮDIT: I do have the "writing songs on guitar" book, and ALL that talks about in terms of writing is chord progressions, absolutely nothing about single note tunes. I don't have any decent software for writing songs apart from one program, but the MIDI sounds on that are horrible and it's way too limited. I know a decent amount of theory, how to construct various chords, which ones go well together, and all that, but when I play in chords it just seems cliched and incredibly boring. I've tried patterns within chords rather than just playing them as a whole, but it's still awful. If I write in chords the song becomes dull, meaningless, slow-paced, overly melancholy, the vocal tune is horrendous. It seems the only things I can do are stupid power chord riffs and boring penatonic improvisation. Me trying to write stuff on guitar thinking in chords makes the songs about as nice to listen to as a cat being strangled to death.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |