How To Develop Creativity In Your Guitar Playing – Part 1

Entertainment Articles By Ma Mehmood

Do you struggle with becoming a more creative and self expressive musician? Many guitarists run into this problem as they begin to feel easier with the physical aspects of their guitar p…

Do you struggle with becoming a more creative and self expressive musician? Many guitarists run into this problem as they begin to feel easier with the physical aspects of their guitar playing. plenty of musicians can’t seem to write down down songs or create their own guitar solos at the same level as they’re going to “play” their guitar. Their music sounds stiff, uninspired or not very creative and expressive. If this describes you, then this text will assist you to identify the causes of why this problem exists in your guitar playing and may show you the steps you’d wish to require to beat it.

That question of how one can become a more creative guitarist could also be a really typical one that I (and probably most guitar teachers) am fairly often asked. Before i’m going into detail to answer it i would like to say that so on completely overcome such a haul would require one to work at it for an extended time. which i strongly suggest working with an outstanding teacher to help you thru this. He/she will prevent plenty of some time , effort, aggravation, etc. (Refer to my previous article on “How to choose A Guitar Teacher“.)

Most players have, at a short time in their musical development, felt uncreative, uninspired or otherwise not very expressive musically. Fortunately, there are several things which can help one get over this. the first (and the foremost critical) thing to know is that the matter lies in lack of creativity as a “musician” rather than as a “human being”. We are all creative and expressive as people (that’s a huge a neighborhood of what makes us human). When it involves your ability to express your innate creativity through your guitar, the matter lies in lack of mastery over several fundamental musical skills. Typically the problem is caused by a mix of things like those within the subsequent list:

Music Theory Problems

Not knowing your fretboard tolerably so as that you simply don’t need to believe where the notes are as you’re playing, improvising and writing music.

Not having memorized all the notes within the key(s) you’re working with.

Not knowing what notes are in what chords.

Not knowing what notes are consonant and what notes are dissonant in any given situation (and more importantly, the thanks to control dissonance in music theory!)

Aural Skills (Ear training) Problems

Not listening closely enough to acknowledge consonance and dissonance.

Not knowing the thanks to use and control dissonance aurally.

Not knowing what notes and chords are becoming to sound like before you play them!

Not having the power to aurally (by ear) understand the emotional function of each individual dig during a scale and a chord.

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Guitar Technique Problems

Not having enough physical technique developed on your instrument to undertake to to the sorts of things which can allow you to be creative. If you’re severely restricted musically by what your hands are able to do (or rather, what your hands aren’t able to do), it’ll be physically hard (or impossible) to undertake to to certain creative things.

Not knowing how or when to manage your technique.

Thinking an excessive amount of about what your hands can do instead of what you’d like them to be able to neutralize order to execute your creative possibilities.

If you’ve any of the above problems, work on fixing them because those things, although not really elements of creativity itself, are the essential skills that one must possess to be creative/expressive on an instrument. The human mind is amazing and should do several simultaneous operations, but the more belongings you ask your mind to undertake to to at the same time, the harder it becomes to undertake to to any of them well. to truly be creative and musically expressive, you’d just like the maximum amount of your conscious brain energy as possible to be concentrating on being creative/expressive. If you are doing not really understand what notes you’ll use during a given situation to provide desirable results, and at the same time your mind has no idea what the notes are becoming to sound like before you play them, and at the same time, you’re battling the restrictions of what you’ll physically play, and at the same time, you are doing not skills to manage dissonance, etc., what proportion conscious brain power do i even have left to believe improvising an expressive guitar solo, create a clever melody, or to write down down a song with new ideas? i’d bet that the majority of those of you reading this have this problem to some extent. I suggest to make it a priority to urge these basic skills under your belt as soon as you’ll .

Once you’ve (or if you have) an honest amount of control over the essential musicianship skills, you are able to travel deeper into the creative aspects of playing / writing.

I usually find that my most creative musical ideas don’t come from thinking about music within the least . I inspect other kinds of art (and nature) to determine k out new ways to ascertain creativity. Once I even have an interesting idea or concept in mind, I look to hunt out all the possible ways during which i will be able to adapt that into musical form to suit my musical needs. Following is an example of what i’m talking about.

A few years ago i started thinking about the similarities and differences within the various processes that are utilized in separate art forms (painting, music, poetry, stone or marble sculpture, etc.) Of the four I just mentioned, only stone cut and marble cut sculpture starts with something (the raw materials of stone or marble) then the artist destructively eliminates materials to form the art. Poetry, music and painting generally are created from nothing (no materials from which to need away from) thus the artist creates the art constructively (adding materials like letters, words, musical pitches, rhythms, brush strokes of wet paint, etc.). I once made this easy analysis of the stone sculpture process, I knew that its importance would be significant and valuable to me eventually. After almost a year of thinking about how during which I could apply the principle of destructive creation (versus constructive creation), I finally had some fresh ideas (at least they were fresh ideas to me) for a replacement creative way (process) to write down down music. I found ways to use this to general musical compositional processes and form. I’m sure there are more ways to use the principal that I even haven’t yet thought of. If I told you my very own discoveries it’d hinder you from discovering your own and going beyond what i wont to be able to do. I encourage you to think deeply about how you’d possibly be able to apply destructive creation into new musical writing processes.

Another example of taking creative processes from other forms came once i used to be watching a Disney movie on DVD. There was a special features section after the movie on the DVD during which the film makers showed diagrams and charts called story boards. the aim of these story boards was to talk more clearly the ideas from the writers and producers of the movie to the artists who were creating the animation for the film. i assumed about how this might be applied to my advantage when writing the music for my “Opus 2” CD. Since I had in my mind all of the things I wanted to express within the music, I used this story board technique to raised communicate between the right side of my brain and thus the left side of my brain. I charted out with diagrams, charts, elemental lists, etc. all of my non musical ideas (emotions, thoughts, ideals, experiences, etc.) that I wanted expressed within the music. The plans were much more organized now, I could clearly see what I wanted to be expressed at what moment during the music. This helped to remain me on track musically. i wont to be very proud of the last word result. There many other processes that I utilized in composing “Opus 2” (and “Opus 1”), but this general principal is one that i feel any composer or songwriter can use no matter how advanced or basic one’s music writing skills are.

As the previous example illustrates, I typically believe what i might wish to precise before i feel about writing the music. that’s something that surprisingly not tons (probably most) songwriters don’t really do much (especially within the non classical music world.) I’m not saying that my ways and processes for writing music are better than someone else’s way (because i feel all methods are legitimate)Free Articles, I’m just offering here one of my ways of composing which may be a replacement approach for you.