3 Mistakes That Harm Your Guitar Playing Creativity & How To Improve It
You become a creative lead guitarist by integrating many skills together while not making key mistakes that other guitarists make.
Before learning them, watch this video to give yourself a creative foundation for your guitar licks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP9_yantzts
Now you know how to make great guitar licks. Avoid the following mistakes to increase your potential to be creative:
Mistake #1. Trying To Learn Lots And Lots Of Scales
It’s a common misunderstanding that learning tons of new scales makes you a more creative guitarist. You’re much more likely to become overwhelmed and frustrated by doing this.
Learning scales is entirely different than learning how to play creatively. Adding more and more scales to your vocabulary does not suddenly give you an understanding of how to use them in a musical manner.
You get much better results by trying to learn how to be creative with the things you already know how to play. When you learn how to play creatively using scales you are familiar with, you are able to use this understanding with any other musical pattern or technique.
Mistake #2. Not Integrating Music Theory & Guitar Technique Together
It’s easy to get focused on becoming a very technical guitarist or learning how music theory works. However, don’t make the mistake of learning these things without learning how to apply them into actual music.
Seek to apply every technique and musical theory into music by integrating techniques together and improvising. Start small by applying concepts with just a few notes, then work from there.
Mistake #3. Focusing On Learning A Bunch Of Licks By Other Guitar Players
On the surface, this seems like a good idea. Many guitarists think this is the best way to play as creatively as their favorite guitarist. However, memorizing a bunch of guitar licks by your favorite players achieves the opposite effect.
You are more likely to rely on repeating the same licks over and over rather than actively think in a creative manner while improvising or making your own lead guitar licks. This prevents you from learning how to be more creative.
Note: Guitarists who are best at improvising do NOT think “faster” than everyone else. They are able to take phrases they already know and use their awesome phrasing and phrase adaptation skills to quickly modify any lick to use in any context.
This allows them to create awesome phrasing ideas in their solos by often reusing old ideas without the limitation of having to constantly create new licks every single second in a solo.
Here are some of the ways great guitar players create awesome phrases in their solos:
Adding Musical Ornaments
Guitar phrases really come to life when you use guitar technique as a way to ornament a basic melody. Great guitarists make even the most bland lick sound really cool by knowing how to creative use legato, bends, double stops and other techniques to spice them up.
Using Sequencing To Make Scales Sound Like Music
Most guitar players use scales in their solos in a way that sounds more like an exercise/drill than musical phrasing. To make scales sound interesting in a solo, great guitarists use sequencing to make them very memorable. This is how great players make solos that have a melody you want to sing.
Getting The Most Benefit Out Of The Rhythm Of The Notes
Fact: you don’t have to continually play different notes while playing a solo. Repeating notes is a powerful tool that gives you more time to think about what you want to do next. It also gives you the chance to think more about HOW you are playing notes (this is critical for creating impressive phrases).
Altering the rhythm of notes you are playing gives you the opportunity to repeat the same notes while still making your playing sound engaging.
Want to learn more about developing better lead guitar technique? Find out how to master lead guitar phrasing.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is an electric guitar teacher online and recording artist. He trains guitar players from around the world how to reach their musical goals in his correspondence guitar lessons online. Visit his website tomhess.net to receive many free guitar playing resources and read daily tips to help you improve your musical skills on the Official Tom Hess Facebook page.
