Breaking out of your comfort zone

[Julian Barton]

I have found that I seem to do the same things and have a tendency to not be creative when improvising and playing scales. What is a good way to break those nasty habits of a comfort zone and begin playing outside the box. I have gotten feedback from Ids before saying it sounds like I am playing scales (as I was) I am just looking for a way to break this habit because I can not seem to find a way to do so.

 

[Sayonil Mitra]

There are many ways to approach this problem. Almost everyone faces this problem at some point. You can take the Zak Wylde approach. He confines himself in a Pentatonic scale and tries to find new licks in it. You can go Paul Gilbert way. Try building awesome arpeggios in a scale. Another approach is, when you are improvising, start including brief gaps or silences. Rather than playing all possible notes that you can think continuously, try playing lesser notes, put little silences in them. You can go Syn way, try including slides in your solo. Or mix some modes in your scale. Switch to a minor or a diminished lick (as syn does). You can go Slash way. Start an affair with bends and with shredding at the same time. You can go David Gilmour way, a married relationship with bends and melodic licks. So many ways dude. The best advice that I can give you is, try to find the guitarist that you can really relate to, you really like. Then try to cover his solos. Those nuances will slowly come into your solo. You will understand how a solo is made, what is this guitarist thinking, how is he spicing it up. Being influenced by certain guitarists will often take you out of your comfort Zone. Also another way, which is quite challenging, is, try different genres. Try blues, jazz, metal, even try stuff played on a piano. You will find shit loads of inspirations. Good luck

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Well, it’s imperative to get comfortable with what you’re doing at first before you go off and actually start soloing. I think it’s great to just play scales over the progressions because you can get a feeling and an understanding of where you can and can’t go and what scales you can do and which ones sound the best. In the beginning I think doing this is actually a good thing to do. We need to remember to be patient with ourselves as musicians. To be honest, Julian (and please don’t be mad at me because I mean this in all sincerity of trying to help you improve), but when we were talking on Instagram, I encouraged you to just use the first Cmajor scale position and get REALLY comfortable with that position alone, and then write a little solo over it. When you took my advice and made the solo video on here, you stayed in that position for about not even a full two measures and you ended up going all over the neck and hitting notes that you yourself knew weren’t in key or in any Cmajor scale position. If you watch Papa Gates’ lesson about the Cmajor arpeggio in the beginner section, he creates an entire beautiful solo just with that ONE position, he never moves out of it. But what you do hear, is him using rhythmic articulations, sequence patterns, slides, vibratos, and resolves and he finds a melody. And it’s a very beautiful solo. But the reason why PG can take such a simple scale and turn it into a full-blown amazing song solo, is because he KNOWS it so well. The more you get familiar with things and really hone in on them, the natural ability to solo and write will come. I just put up my new improv video over Cmajor taking PG’s advice on some things, and I include new scales and new patterns I learned thanks to my singer but I had to play them over and over again for a week for hours a day to be able to do it. Just focus on playing scales over your progressions in the beginning and get use to how they sound. Get them SUPER solid with 16th notes, triplets, quarter notes, rests, sequences, then plop on a backing track from the school and have fun!! I really recommend the Cmajor backing track in the beginner section for the intro to the scale. It’s got a bluesy/jazzy vibe to it and really is a lot of steady fun to play to. Hope this helps buddy!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

And one more thing, my friend. This is yet again only to help you. When I get messages for advice from you on Instagram, what I hear 99% of the time is you’re trying to run before you can walk. I think you’re overthinking a lot of things and trying to be extremely precise and learning all these complicated things before you get solid with the basics. You have a lot going for you. You have a natural knack for melody and songwriting, so don’t worry about that. You’ve already got that! But as a real friend to you, I’m trying to help you understand that I think your ONLY flaw when approaching the guitar is you scatter your attention and trying to learn TOO much at once. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed. I know taking on the guitar is a HUGE, daunting thing. There’s soooo much of never-ending knowledge we can learn and we feel we have to rush against the clock to cram as much as possible. Please don’t do that. You have a long journey ahead of you of learning things, unlearning things, RElearning things… don’t rush it. Be patient and be kind to yourself. When your solo work comes out and you record it, it’s going to be incredible because you are a talented songwriter. I just would hate to see you lose out on necessary skills and concepts for the rush of trying to learn so much in such a little time.

 

[Julian Barton]

Thanks guys! I do agree with you Jak I tend to learn a lot because I feel like being more versatile will create certain skills that would not be there otherwise but I also see your point about mastering the little things first so that I can use that base and expand it. (It might even make learning some of these things easier)

 

[idssdi]

You can also take mamy different styles and steal licks. At least that is what I tend to do I simply steal licks that I really like from any guitar player really. I think I already told you this but still it is kinda what I tend to do steal licks and make them your own.
Another thing that might work is gettig as close as possible to olaying what youbhear in your head. Or First sig the melody and then play it. Writing I solo can take some time you really don’t have to do get a solo in 5 minutes it can also take days before you have one that you like!
Also I’ve had private guitar lessons for like 7 years and it mostly contained improvising, a lot of improvising. I started the way your doing, basically just running scales. At first my guitar teacher would just say I could skip some notes in the scale creating a melody. Later when I was able to play (remotely) fast he would say slow down sometimes and take some rests because that makes your solos nicer to listen to. But this was a process of like 4/5 years of weekly guitar solos.
Also this is my guitar teacher maybe you get somethig from it #ad