Guitarists, Stuck in a Rut? Try These Tips

While there are countless songs to learn and there are always more playing techniques for you to master, at some point, guitarists find themselves in a musical rut. Maybe you’ve been woodshedding a particular technique for weeks and find yourself a bit burnt out. Or maybe you’ve simply stalled out, lacking inspiration or direction to grow your musical skills. Let’s look at some simple ways you can reinvigorate your drive to play your guitar.

Try Out New Picks... or Go Without

It’s common among guitarists that, once they find a type of pick they like, they usually stick with it until they have a specific reason to change it up. If you’re in a rut and feeling stale, then trying a different pick thickness or material can be an enlightening experience. Your pick’s thickness and material affect your tone as well as how you address your strings. We offer a ton of different guitar picks of all types at Sweetwater, including variety packs that make it easy to try out different textures, shapes, and materials.

Even better, a great way to get yourself out of a musical rut is to learn a new technique, like chicken pickin’ (using your free fingers along with your pick) — check out Don Carr’s excellent series of chicken pickin’ lessons — it may be all you need to pop out of your rut!

Add a Looper Pedal to Your Practice Sessions

A looper pedal is a great way to add some fun and inspiration to your practice sessions. In addition to being great songwriting tools, looper pedals are a fun way to explore new chord progressions or harmonies for your lead lines. Looper pedals can also be a powerful songwriting tool, allowing you to experiment with complimentary parts and to hear how they sound in an arrangement. As a bonus, some looper pedals like the TC Electronic WireTap Riff Recorder pedal will save your loops and make it easy to transfer them to your DAW for a future songwriting session.

TC Electronic WireTap Riff Recorder Pedal

Try a Slide

Playing guitar with a slide is a hugely different experience compared to fretting with your fingers. As Don Carr explains in his helpful article on how to choose a guitar slide, a slide immediately changes how you address your guitar and affects your tone, articulation, and sustain. Even if you don’t intend to play with a slide on a regular basis, it can encourage you to discover new note choices and phrasing that will inform how you play even without the slide. In other words, learning to play slide guitar will be new and different, which is a good recipe for getting out of a rut. Playing with a slide also pairs nicely with alternate guitar tunings, which brings us to...

Dunlop 222 Brass SlideExplore Slides

The Rock Slide Moulded Glass Slide – SmallExplore Slides

Dunlop RWS12 Rev Willy’s Porcelain Slide – LargeExplore Slides

Explore Alternate Tunings

When your guitar playing feels stale, try out an alternate tuning like Open G, Double Drop D, or DADGAD — you can find these and more alternate tunings in this Sweetwater article about easy alternate tunings. If you’re in a musical rut, then an alternate tuning encourages exploration and discovery. Familiar fretboard shapes and patterns will yield new musical results, and you’ll find new intervals and note combinations you won’t find in traditional EADGBE tuning.

Learn Something by Ear

Every musician will benefit from ear training, and, if you haven’t yet learned to play a guitar riff or an entire song by ear, it can be a great way to get yourself out of a guitar rut. Learning to play by ear is a skill you’ll develop over time, and you’ll find it becomes easier the more you do it. Slowing down playback speed can be a huge help — you can do this in your DAW, with YouTube’s playback-speed control, or with a dedicated trainer like the TASCAM GB-10 guitar and bass trainer. Not only will you learn new riffs and songs to play, but you’ll also enrich your relationship with your fretboard, and you’ll likely start to feel more confident when improvising, too.

TASCAM GB-10 Guitar and Bass Trainer.

Get Yourself Out of That Rut!

Even the world’s best players can feel stuck in a musical rut sometimes. While getting a new instrument, amplifier, or effects processor can provide some instant inspiration, it’s less likely to provide lasting growth in the way that exploring new musical techniques will. But, when you’re out of your rut, you may find that your new musical perspective deserves some new gear to support it — that’s when you give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700. We’ve experienced our own ups and downs throughout our musical journeys, and we’re passionate about helping you find inspiring gear to support your musical growth.

Explore All Guitars!
The post Guitarists, Stuck in a Rut? Try These Tips appeared first on inSync.