What Do You Do when In A Rut?

[mikespe]

I am in a rut musically (and honestly emotionally) and I find it difficult to stay focused lately. I know this is a normal part of any hobby especially music and I have been through and GOTTEN through ruts before. I am curious what all of you do to get out of a rut when (and IF) they occur?

Lately, I just pick up my guitar and sit on the couch. In the past I have ALWAYS sat in my studio area to practice. I thought the couch would be a nice change for a bit (and it was for a short time) but lately I have been getting lazy and unmotivated to practice. I bought a few country video lessons to help spark something but that didn't work much. I know I should go back to the studio area and practice but I have been blah lately...not just guitar...life in general. Many times playing the guitar gets me feeling better because I translate that emotion to music even with my limited playing ability.

Thanks for the ideas!

[aznrambo481]

when you improvise, sing along to your playing. that lets you play from your mind and not your fingahs.

[Telenator]

You can put the guitar down for a week or two and you don't have to think it's a crime! Let the feeling move you. Pick it up if you feel like it. Put it down if you feel like it. No big deal either way.

The next time you pick up your guitar, play something you never played before. Just do it.

The next time you pick up your guitar, promise yourself that you will only play chords and chord melodies.

Nothing will put you in a musical rut faster than noodling on solo stuff. After a while, you stop being musical and operate purely on muscle memory. Then you're doomed. The only way to break it is to make the effort to become musical again. Ditch the scales and work on your chords and chord melodies. It's awesome stuff.

[mikespe]

Thanks guys...Telenator...you're right about chord melodies but I was doing that and switched to more lick-based melodies just for a change when I got my Tele. As for putting the guitar down that's hard. I start out motivated to play then just stop. It's weird. However I DO need to change to something.

[rhythmcaster]

i've found switching instruments, sometimes to acoustic or even to mandolin for a while helps spark my interest.

[Larry F]

I isolate weaknesses and come up with a game plan to redress those. I enjoy having goals.

As I've pointed out in other threads, I think that setting the instrument aside for a week or two is a bad idea. I think it is very instructive to learn strategies for getting out of ruts. If you're a hobbyist, that's one thing; but if you have professional aspirations, you can't afford to let your technique regress.

[BB]

A great rut buster for me is altered tunings. DADGAD, open D, open G and double dropped D seem to get me going. Along with this, I drop the pick and use my fingers.

[Telewringer]

I get the same problem and put it down for about a month and don't even think about it. I then go in an get it out of the case after a long time and it is like that exciting time you first strapped on a Tele. What happenes ? All of a sudden you are finding riffs you did not have before, and I always find my speed and accuracy goes up. Take a break and you will become a better player.

[Tim Bowen]

Great suggestions. A few that I use/have used, including some dittos:

* Arrange, arrange, and arrange some more. Doing arrangements is the best rut-buster that I've found. It gets one more into the mindset of musician than guitarist. You don't have to be involved with original music to do so, you can do it creatively with covers. Take an old Motown chestnut and turn it into a bluegrass arrangement. Take a country ballad and make it a rock song. Etc.

* Transcribe. Not just solos, but chord comping and voicings as well. Not just guitar stuff, but piano and horn lines. Some of the coolest stuff that I've ever learned on guitar happened when I found myself in a cajun/zydeco band with no accordion player. Guess who got assigned to ape the squeezebox bits. Toss out the tablature and instructional vids, and do it caveman style - by ear.

* Speaking of which. Ear training. Play any root note and practice singing intervals over it. Learn each of the intervals as "colors", and reference them to a known musical example. For instance, a minor second interval is the hook for the film Jaws. If you're driving down the road, try to determine the chord progressions and keys of unfamiliar tunes that you hear on the radio, simply by listening. As for determining 'key', listen out for the inherent quirks of instruments that you're familiar with. Start building a vocabulary of "line cliche's" and chord progressions that your ear can quickly identify. If there's a chord progression that you're having difficulty improvising over, record yourself "scat-singing" (a la Ella Fitzgerald and George Benson) over the changes, and learn to play what you sang. The ears should be the boss of the fingers, not the reverse.

* Unless you find yourself in the company of someone that will be bugged by it, always play an unplugged electric guitar whenever you watch television or a film or a cartoon. Film soundtracks in particular can be a great kick in the butt and a jumpstart to new ideas. Often, the music within films contains changes that one would not normally play on the bandstand. In addition, this is a great way to work on physical and mechanical moves that are kicking you around. I got my syncopated rockabilly moves together while watching TV. There's some sort of weird psychological left vs. right brain breakthrough that can occur while one is playing an instrument while otherwise focused on something else. Jeff Beck is a long time advocate of "television practicing".

* My digital cable package contains dozens of music channels, which are stylistically diverse. I like to noodle around with everything from electronica to show tunes. If there's a genre of music that you hate, spend time with that. If there's a genre of music that contains simple chord changes that you just can't seem to groove with (happens to me all the time), there's where your time is best spent. Try playing fake pedal steel bends over a metal tune, and try cross picking lines over a dance tune. Etc.

* "Superchops". Superchops is a program that was developed by the late, great Howard Roberts; jazz guitarist and musical educator par excellence, and one of the founders of the Musician's Institute in Los Angeles. Take any set of chord changes, and lay out all the harmonic possibilities that are known to you (scales, arps, etc.). Find each of these within a particular area of the fingerboard, and don't stray. Relegate yourself to playing strictly quarters, eighths, sixteenths, triplets, or some combination thereof. The important thing is to keep playing within the designated meter without fail, even if you're tossing out clams left and right. Keep playing until you find the "right" note. When the chord changes, try to find the nearest available "correct" note, as opposed to defaulting to the root note and subsequently starting your patterns from that point. Along the same lines, try nailing each new chord change from its diatonic third, on the downbeat. Don't bend notes, don't phrase or play conversationally; play like a machine, like a robot. After you've done this within three or four areas of the fingerboard, toss these stipulations aside and start playing with some chicken grease and nastiness - whatever you're hearing and feeling at the time.

* "Musical sequences". Any sort of sequence within a scale or arpeggio. "Groups of four", diatonic thirds and sixths, whatnot. Mix them up, add chicken grease.

* Most musicians can harmonize the major scale with four note voicings by stacking the diatonic thirds (1-3-5-7). Take a scale or mode that is less familiar to you (harmonic minor, as a possible example), and do the math. Stack the thirds, find the chord grips and inversions.

* Practice playing with and without a metronome. My feeling is that developing a solid sense of time is based upon a combination of the two, not any sort of exclusivity. Every single musician that I've ever worked with has had a sense of meter that is unique to them.

* Surround yourself with musicians that are more accomplished than yourself. Whenever I've found myself in musical situations that were highly uncomfortable at the time, that's when I've learned the most.

* What rhythmcaster said. To cite his example, the tunings of guitar and mandolin are very different. What falls neatly on one is a monkey wrench on the other. Adapting lines from one instrument to another is a great way to approach and visualize with a fresh perspective.

* What BB said. Try playing any tune that you know with flatpick, thumb and fingers, pick and fingers. I suck with a thumbpick, so I'm fumbling about with that at the moment. Take any tune that you know and reconfigure the chord grips for alternate tunings. Drop D and double drop D are the ones that I most frequently use. Occasionally, a tune calls for a custom tuning.

* As to Larry's comment. Taking a week off from music does wonders for me. I try to do so once a year, but have rarely been able to afford to do so for the last three or four years. I guess it's been at least ten years since I've been without a musical project or three. As long as I've got commitments and deadlines, I'm a workaholic at heart. Sometimes it's a stressball, but I love it all the same. If left to my own devices, I'd just as soon munch Cheetos and watch cartoons and sit around in my pajamas. So it's likely best that I paint myself into a corner with commitments.

* Several years back, I found myself mired within the muck of the most godawful musical rut that you can imagine. I tried everything that I could think of to shake it, but the harder I worked at it, the more I sucked eggs. I had a couple of beater guitars lying around the house. So, I strung one of them with E,D, and B strings, and the other with A,G, and high E strings. I improvised and attempted to play song parts with each of them separately, and would then pick up a 'complete' six string, which felt like an entirely new instrument, with all sorts of possibilites. Intervallic skips and octave displacement are not really my forte', but what I've managed to incorporate within the toolbox, are directly the result of having "limited" myself in this way.

* Slides, capos, E-bows, whatnot: as to busting ruts, they are your buddies.


That's all I can think of at the moment.

[Eric N]

Great advice all the way around. I would like to contribute one little idea for coming up with new phrasing ideas. I stole this from a drummer friend of mine that plays a drum solo, and begins removing drums and symbols one at a time from his solo. By the end, he has just his snare, and has to rely on phrasing to keep it interesting. You can do the same thing with note choices on the guitar.

Rather than narrow it down, I like to choose 5 notes, generally in the same scale but not necessarily as long as they make musical sense. Then I see how long I can solo interestingly over a groove. It forces you to come up with new phrases, and some will be genius. Some will be crap, believe me, but some will be genius. Then, when you take the note restriction away, you have a bunch of new ideas. Works for me, anyway.

[mikespe]

Tim!!!! That is an AWESOME list! It should be stickied for all of us newbies! I'll have to try some of them but others will take some time since my theory is weak to non-existent! I did buy a cheap acoustic to build into a slide guitar. I have the strings off but haven't got much further than that. I also bought a Puerto Rican Cuatro (basically a 10 string mandolin) but it is strung BEADG (bass to treble) so I have to learn new chord formations. I could work on that. Plus I have a keyboard I should work on.

Everyone...thanks for all of your advice and ideas. I always hate putting the guitar down but I do so a day here and there. I guess I do have choices!

Thanks!

[RCinMempho]

Play naked.

[Larry F]

Lately I've been playing a lot with blues backing tracks. Sometimes I get so focused on developing certain ideas that my playing falls into a rut. To get out, I play a minute or so of Otis Rush or someone, then put on my jam track and try to play using Otis's phrasing. It helps me recontextualize the ideas that I had been practicing with.

I love the idea, mentioned in earlier posts, about restricting your note choices. I'll try that today.

[bobthecanadian]

Go back to basix.

Do all the things that are already mentioned in this thread.

Do something different (get a tattoo, get married, streak through your neighbors yard, take a second job, shave your head, listen to Johnny Cash and Mozart at the same time).

Whatever it is that you do, remember to keep trying to kick the ends out of the rut or it will eventually turn into a grave.

Peace!

[Tim Bowen]

My pleasure, Mike.

Originally Posted by mikespe

I also bought a Puerto Rican Cuatro (basically a 10 string mandolin) but it is strung BEADG (bass to treble) so I have to learn new chord formations.

Now THAT sounds like big fun. Enjoy!

[defaultoprime]

When I hit a rut, I intentionally stop playing for a period of time... it could last a day... or a week... eventually it all comes raging back... and you'll find yourself forced to pick up the guitar and play... and then good things will happen...

[maestrovert]

it's quite common for guitar players (especially self taught ones) to get into a musical rut....and while there are many excellent ways to progress musically, this technique works well also:
If you can, record yourself humming, singing or whistling a melody.... then go back and try playing what you've recorded....in this way the music comes from within you and not from regurgitated licks & "guitarisms".....

[bobthecanadian]

i think i have been in a bit of rut for a while but something happened recently that has inspired me. i am sure that it is pretty common, but it has been fun to explore. i have tried out open g tuning. wow. its a lot of fun. new chord and scale shapes and a LOT of happy mistakes.

peace.

[dibber124]

I switched from the strings I've used for years (9's) to 12-54's. Bends became harder, could not play my old licks as well, but I opened up to chord comps, slides, double stops and rhythm playing. Working with a limitation brought my playing into new areas.

[mikespe]

I tell ya I am SOOOO damn frustrated today!!!! I played maybe 5 minutes Friday and then took all day Saturday off from playing figuring I needed a break. I picked the guitar up today and I can't hit a clean note with a gallon of bleach!! I picked up my acoustic...same thing!!!

AAARRRRRRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

[Chris Truman]

Here's a couple of ways that help me out of those all too common "where do I go from here" situations I often find myself in:

Jam with people you don't regularly play with;

Look at the players who inspire you and go back a step and listen to the music of players that inspired them.

Works for me.

[Stuco]

Leave the guitar alone. Hang out with an old friend or find a new one. Spend time in a new unfamiliar place.

[Stuco]

deleted wrong thread

[mikespe]

Thanks guys...As for playing with others...well I really don't know anyone to play with. There are a few guys at work but they are VERY good. Playing for AT LEAST 20 years a piece. One guy is a drummer who played Jazz most of his life and was even on the Today Show this past Summer with his new band. But these guys are GOOD as in I couldn't even be a water boy for them!

As for inspiration...it's not that I don't want to play...it's just that my fingers won't go where I want them to go. I really listen to music more clearly now but then I get pissed because I am almost on my 2 year mark and I can't even play a tune with others. I always read on forums of people starting bands after less than 1 year of playing. I don't know how they do it.

I did play around with my newly built slide guitar yesterday. Not much music being played but it was fun and a great learning experience. I may finally start to look for a teacher in my area..trouble is I don't know of any close by here...

[rand z]

take a break from playing every day or... change guitars. like go from an electric to acoustic for awhile... or, buy an instructional dvd... or, put down the pick and try playing with only my fingers... or, play slide a lot... or, buy a drum and practice my percussion skills (helps my rhythm)... or, pick up a book on jazz voicings or passing chords... or, buy a new guitar and start fresh on it for some inspiration.

mix it up and change your regular habits. stick with the change(s).

imho.

rand z tropicalsoul.net

[getbent]

go buy a gdec and jam!

[twangpunk]

"gdec"?

What's that?

Do you sing when you play? That helps keep me interested when I play alone. It really helps me figure out where to go too.

I agree with all these great suggestions but playing with people that are better than me has helped more than I ever would have imagined. Also getting over my fear of playing in front of others and playing actual shows has made a huge difference. I'm not that great but it's a heck of a lot of fun.

Open tunings are fun and it's easy to play melodic, meandering songs that can go on forever, but please restrict those to private time. No one wants to hear that kind of noodling...my opinion of course.

[mikespe]

Well I found some relief from my rut today. I found a couple cool blues backing tracks and improved over them for 2 hours and I must say I was in bliss during that time. They were slow bluesy tracks. The tele sounded great over them with slight overdrive added. I only used the pentatonic scales (major, minor & blues) mostly in A (since that's the one key I know fairly well over the whole neck!) with some color notes added. I made a few mistakes but I was actually hearing melodies forming and flowing fairly smoothly. It felt very good considering how I have been playing (and feeling!) lately!). I still have a hard time improving over faster tracks but at least its a start!!

[shades]

Watching the TV while working with an unplugged Tele does wonders for me.
Sometimes the wife gets a bit worn out on it, then it's time to head to another room. You can get jiggy with all sort of things and enjoy doing it.

Streaking through the neighborhood with a Tele on your back....sounds like a "You wouldn't part with yours either" ad from the good old days.