Lost feeling when playing old riffs

[Dan Shipway]

Hi everyone, as of late I have been listening back to old riffs but when I play them I cant seem to find that passion that was there when I first wrote it. Maybe this is completely normal but when I write riffs i always feel a certain way when playing them but I dont anymore.
Does anyone else experience the same?

 

[Sayonil Mitra]

Ya, sometimes I do feel it. So what I do is, I try to change or modify those old riffs. See, You have learned a lot of things since you made those old riffs. Try to apply those new techniques to them. Maybe insert some harmonization. Some crazy bending here and there. Or a tasty pinch harmonic. Anything. Just try to discover what can be done to make those old riffs sound better.

 

[Aaron Aldous]

Awesome suggestion from Sayonil above, I know what I’m doing with my afternoon Those techniques can also breathe life into a riff that’s relatively recent
It’s also worth noting that our tastes evolve and our writing styles develop which can feel like our older material sometimes doesn’t fit with who we are now. A recorded/written piece of music is essentially a snapshot of who we are or were at a given point along our musical journey. To counteract, and satiate our artistic side, its often the case where we just need to go back to the drawing board and create something new
Definitely keep everything you write though because what sounds stale to you personally may sound totally fresh to a bandmate who’ll inevitably end up twisting and sculpting it into something that you never thought possible. Also, using the snapshot analogy, older pieces of music are like personal photographs, sometimes it’s worthwhile just comparing who you were musically at one point to where you are now

 

[Dan Shipway]

Thanks guys, these are really useful tips!

 

[Noah Berends]

I like to often visualize I’m playing them live on stage in front of 50,000 people. I’ll put on a strap, play it standing, and turn on the song to play over. And so since I’m “playing” it in front of 50,000 people, I gotta make it really interesting right? So I’ll embellish the riff a bit more. Maybe I’ll make the vibrato a bit more aggressive. Maybe I’ll put in some arpeggios in the dead spots. Anything that would make it cooler.
This usually gets me some good energy to play for the rest of the day too.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

@aaron and @Sayonil Actually pointed out very good points that helped me when I felt dissatisfied with a solo I had been working on for years. I kept working on it and kept building on it and I never knew when to stop and walk away from it. And never seemed good enough. And it’s because as I kept learning I wanted to try to expand my technique and try to make it better. I definitely agree that as we get older we change and develop our influences and our musical tastes a little bit. We hear things better and we hear things and feel things more differently. If you were to hear everything that I wrote when I was 18 it’s kind of funny compared to what I am now that I am 31. It’s not that I don’t like those older riffs it’s just I’m more of an adult now and I feel and experience different things. That’s kind of one of the reasons why I get upset when everybody gets mad at avenged sevenfold for not redoing waking the fallen a 1000 times over with a different title. Their sound and their emotions are evolving with me and I love it!
Now if I could give my 2 cents, I would agree that you could kind of look at it like a back bone for a song. If you like the riff or you like the work but don’t exactly like how it has been finalized, try spicing it up. Maybe add different guitar tracks or think of certain melodies are lyrics to go over it. Maybe think of a different beat. The lesson with the metronome that sin gave us has actually helped me so much and I can’t wait to showcase the work that I’ve done with it. Maybe do it faster or slower. There was a song that I had that was A slow, melodic song and we were kind of stuck on it. My singer then suddenly said “Hey, what would this sound like if we sped this up and kicked on the gain?” We had a whole new song! And it moved really well going from slow and soft to heavy and fast! hope any of these tips help you out buddy

 

[Dan Shipway]

Those were really good points, Its like my playing, I went from playing pentatonics and blues 100% of the time to playing more melodic and that was due to what I listened to. I definitely think what I wrote was good but I dont think it is worth changing them because it shows progress.