2 Year of playing for what?

[Kris Crocker]

Hi! I’ve played guitar for 2 years. Got my first guitar on my 15th birthday because I really wanted to learn to play like Synyster. I was always a huge fan of A7X and was eager to start learning. I started out with learning things like the So Far Away solo and other small things. I can play pretty well now, not too fast but I (barely) know what I’m doing.
After 2 years of playing, the fastest thing I can do is probably the slow solo of MIA and that’s about all. I can learn things but when it comes to writing my own solos and anything music. My brain just completely goes blank, I’ve never been the creative type and I know there are things to counteract this like learning scales and all the chords (basic theory) in which I never really did. I know all of maybe 4 chords and one scale. I know I can’t complain about not being creative when I’m inhibiting myself from being able to by not learning these things. When I start learning something new I completely forget the last thing I learned. I try to play everyday too, I even put on metal backing tracks for 20 minutes at a time to try to improve at improvising and still, nothing. I’m not looking for the response of “learn your scales and chords” I’m looking for any other kind of advice for being creative. I know most methods of clearing your head but still nothing works. I get really frustrated and put myself down and don’t touch the guitar for a couple days then I try to do the same thing after that time and just end up getting frustrated again. It makes me think, man Synyster is just amazing. All the hard work he has put into learning all these different things, I look up to him so much and someday I wanna be like him in his ways of guitar. Wait no, I don’t wanna be like him. I wanna be better than him one day..

 

[Firsty Lasty]

My personal bible for creativity is Devin Townsend’s little book on the subject.
Here are a few things that have helped me.
-Taking at least the first step of learning to “produce” music. Get a daw, start collecting drum samples, play with a soft synth or two. Maybe even get a cheap bass for lols, but only if you know it’s something you’ll enjoy having. Don’t spend a lot of money on this, because that’s not necessary.
-Transcribing vocal melodies. You can probably think of dozens of melodies from your favorite songs that you will remember for the rest of your life- start with those. Make an actual list and work through it. This can cause you to see and hear scales completely differently.
-Improving my health, starting with nutrition. If you know that there are changes you need to make, get on it. This is not a small matter.
-Playing probably millions of in-tune notes. If you’ve never gone through a period when you were practicing like a motherfucker, it will be hard for your brain to think in the language of music. Imagine a painter trying to imagine and create a painting using colors he has never seen before- difficult! That’s what it’s like to be a guitarist who hasn’t put in enough work; your mind is just going to have a hard time creatively imagining music.
-Spend some time every day in freedom-mode with your guitar, where nobody can hear you. What do I mean by freedom-mode? I mean to spend time just playing around without caring about what you “should” be playing or trying to hold yourself to any standard. You should feel like you have permission to put your fingers anywhere and make any sound, and just play. Feel uninhibited, like every noise is permissible. Bang on all the open strings for no reason, fuck it. What does it sound like if you play some chords in the wrong place? Fuck it, find out. Maybe just bang out an interesting rhythm on the lowest string for ten minutes for no reason except that you feel like it. You could even tune your guitar into a tuning you haven’t studied (maybe open Eb Minor or DGDGbe) and explore it like an uncharted wilderness. Don’t overthink it, just make the noises happen.
As for improvising over a track, that’s something that is far more demanding than simply being creative. Don’t be discouraged when improvisation seems difficult, because it actually is difficult! Learning scales and arpeggios is helpful, but if you’re not excited to do that then what you can do for now is build a massive library of licks and transcribed vocal melodies. If you can play a hundred cool things in your favorite scale shape on demand, whenever anyone asks, then you can probably also improvise some cool shit.

 

[idssdi]

Learning something and then forgetting it when you learn something else sounds like you mostly use short-term memory and it isn’t in your long term memory yet. How long do you spend on something before moving on? Because that may be the key. Maybe you simply move on too quickly so it isn’t it your long term memory. Doing to much in too little time can result in that. Basically there is a limited amount of information your brain can handle in a certain time.
I don’t have any real tip with regards to being creative. In the first 2 or 3 years of my playing I only played other people’s songs and when I had to solo myself I would run a scale up and down and now I can come up with different stuff all the time. Basically, guitar playing is a craft and you are definetely not expected to be Syn affer only 2 years of playing.

 

[OskarF]

Don’t be too hard on yourself!
There’s nothing that kills creativity better than being judgemental towards yourself, and tbh, you can’t expect to write amazing music after just 2 years of playing. It really takes time to learn an instrument and it’s very hard to be creative when your focus is on other things like technique and finding your way around the neck, etc.
If you feel like you have trouble writing stuff, honestly, just continue doing it and you will get better. What i do is i just keep writing and writing and even if a lot of it sounds like total shit, i see it as practice, so i just throw it away and move on. Eventually you will stumble upon something that you think sounds nice and then you build upon it. But other than to just keep grinding, one thing that has helped me a lot is transcribing music – it developed my ear more than anything else and in my opinion it’s like the most important thing to practice when it comes to music. Learning to play a lot of music is also a great way to get insight into writing and how it works, especially if you explore different genres. So try to move away from using tabs – don’t instantly force it, but take small steps away from it and eventually you won’t need them at all and they won’t be as accurate as your own transcriptions anyway, for the most part . This will help tremendously in all aspects of your playing, i promise you.
So just continue to work hard, but remember that playing like Synyster is something that will take a huge amount of time and effort and it’s really a long term goal. You have to enjoy the process of getting there so try to find smaller goals that help inspire you and keep you going My mistake was pushing too hard on technique to achieve my grand vision, which lead me to often forgetting to enjoy just playing the guitar. And then once when i finally started to get really good technique, i still felt like a beginner in some aspects of my playing because i had neglected them for so long.
Don’t know if this helps, but i hope so For me it’s hard to give specific ideas on how to get better at playing the guitar. The most important thing by far is the mind set you have and how you approach it.
And by the way, funnily enough, i got my first guitar on my 15th birthday as well! I was always so worried that it was too late to get really good, but i’m now convinced that’s not the case for anyone, at any age (well almost)! Not that i’m anywhere near where i want to be, but still

 

[Calvin Phillips]

I bet you only THINK you forget stuff. Gotta go into it with a different mentality. Like.. if you think you’ll forget its easier to shove it to the back. If you wanna write better man.. do the lessons. They give you so many tips.on how to use a single melody and make it into a chord progression and then you have that so improv.or solo over. And it goes from there. My advise.. start with beginner. And try to use the lesson atleast once over the back track. Once you feel you dont need the back tracks.. then I’d go to the drum samples firstly suggested. By then you’ll have a good idea what goes with what.
Biggest thing is to remain positive man. Dont tell yourself you won’t remember because honestly you probably just sent focusing enough because you flat out tell yourself what’s the point I’ll forget to anyways.

 

[Sayonil Mitra]

You have to realize that you are putting too much pressure on yourself.
Its an amazing dream to play like Syn one day. But that does not come easily. Plus, do not judge your playing only by speed/technique. Syn has a lot of melody too in his playing. Try to pick that up.
If my math is correct, you are 17 now. Bro, you have a lot of time left to see if you can play guitar to satisfy your mind, a lot.
Writing solos, improvising, creativity can be practiced too. Start making simple melodies. If you don’t make bad melodies in the beginning, you will never make good melodies later.
Right now, just focus on becoming a better player. Be patient with yourself. Not everyone is a 6 yr old virtuoso. Majority of guitarists are artists who struggled inside for improving their own art. its a good sign that you are going through that struggle as well. This is a lifelong thing. You must be patient in todays’ age where we expect the results too come in seconds.

 

[Sayonil Mitra]

I would like to add one more thing.
its a tactical way to improve your improvisation skills.
COMFORT ZONE:-
Every player has a “comfort” zone for improvising. since improvisations are generally done with backing tracks having a combination of chords, “comfort” zone means a certain kind of backing tracks. Some players’ comfort zone are jazz backing tracks. For some its a single chord. For some its a blues style backing track. First you have to find your comfort zone.
HOW TO FIND IT?
play with different genres of backing tracks. when you play spontaneously, without thinking, that’s your comfort zone. it does not matter if you play a single note or a complex melody, as long as you are not thinking, that’s your comfort zone. You just know that whatever you are playing works for that progression in your comfort zone.
THEN WHAT?
after you find your comfort zone, just keep playing with those backing tracks. first you will play maybe simple 2-3 note melodies. then one day you will start playing 5 note melodies. then you will start playing more complex melodies. Then you will get bored with your comfort zone and will try to expand it. you will explore new genres of music to improvise with and so on.
So, its a long process. Reaching a point is not the target. Playing again and again to improve is the target.

 

[Isaac Moss]

Dude I know that feeling believe me I know that feeling of doubting yourself I go through it a lot. Writing your own stuff is hard to start doing but trust me it is something you can only get better with as you practice it. I’ve been writing for about 5 months now and I can say it probably start out sour but trust me it’ll get sweet. It has to be sour before it can be sweet. And also don’t compare yourself to others and whatnot I’m sure all your favorite players first songs weren’t too good, but look at them now after all the years and decades of writing and studying and practicing the living hell outta their instruments. It’s just a matter of not stopping and the love of putting in the hours man and then anything is possible. Syn told me when I told him I couldn’t be creative that writing and transcribing songs and learning theory is what helped him. Dude I know not everyone says theory is good but to become creative without knowledge of the instrument you’re essentially running around inside a jungle(the fretboard) and you’d have to reinvent the wheel. Just keep working man it’ll get better as long you keep trying I believe you can do it!!

 

[OskarF]

@isaac Moss
Dude I know not everyone says theory is good but to become creative without knowledge of the instrument you’re essentially running around inside a jungle(the fretboard) and you’d have to reinvent the wheel.
So true man! I used to kind of avoid theory because i was afraid it would make me boxed into a certain way of thinking. And while that could be true to a certain extent, it’s a big mistake to neglect learning the fretboard. Without that knowledge it really is like running around in a jungle and i’m just now starting to really understand how things connect around the neck, after about 11 years of playing.
By the way, for anyone who’s interested, i found this video with Steve Vai talking about creativity and technique and it reminded me of this thread He puts it into words so well!

 

[Isaac Moss]

Yeah you’re right Oskar! And I’ll watch that video of Steve Vai, all his lessons are like sage advice from a monk XD!