Home Forums Other Topics Existential Guitar Crisis

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    • #21191
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Most of my adult life, I’ve been extremely confident in my guitar playing, able to wail off riffs and leads to a degree I was quite comfortable with.
      Running recording studios meant necessarily honing it to the ability of being able to outplay and out sing all but the best of the best who would come in. Having these abilities usually led to a band trusting you more when it came to making recording decisions (a trick I learned from my far better engineering mentors as I was coming up). To the point where I ended up playing on a lot of albums with ghost credits and even asked to join or at least temp in some serious bands (which I had to turn down because of my stupid stomach, problems with which are why I ended up being on the engineer side of the glass instead of the performance side in the first place)

      Until just the last year or so, I was quite happy with my skill level and always had something to play if someone came in and wanted to hear an amp or something. I was doing a lot of product demo videos and playing short product info stuff on instagram and whatever, and just generally tooling along through life. I never considered myself a musician, but I could certainly technically play my way enough to show what the gear was.

      And then Metal Method….Over the last year, I’ve wiped the slate clean and really determined to go through the CBC and learn a lot of the stuff I never really knew, as it seemed irrelevant to my playing style (caged chords and open string stuff mostly). I think I’m progressing ok, but something REALLY bad happened a few months ago. A new amp sim plugin came out, I set up the audio and video gear, got gramblr open to upload to instagram, and realized I had no idea what to play!

      I am seriously scratching my head trying to figure out the riffs and stuff I used to know. I got the lead stuff ok, but I really, really like those riffy type rhythms with a few chords interspersed. I really like a lot of the new styles where they’re jumping drop tuned chords throughout riffs

      A lot of those yotube product channels show people playing some really riffy, but groovy type stuff so I figure kill two birds with one stone and try to learn some of that while getting my rhythm stuff back, but not too sure where to start and I’d love reccomendations. I know the video is a joke, but all the sort of stuff this guy plays, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyIr1VItWL8&t=28s

      I’ve kind of built a list of stuff to force myself to learn, but I’d love more suggestions
      anthrax indians/caught in a mosh
      bonded by blood – Immortal life
      havok – from the cradle to the grave
      Megadeth the skull beneath
      Slayer god hates us all/ raining blood
      DRI beneath the wheel
      Sacred reich – Surf Nicaraugua/ Death Squad
      propaghandi – not sure which
      SOD kill yourself
      annihilator 6’s and 7’s
      metallica leper messiah
      Dio Wild one
      Black Sabbath TV Crimes, I
      Metal Church – not sure which yet

      I’d love any suggestions or tips to just have riffy junk ready at the fingers!

    • #21192
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      I believe there’s some psychological principle like, learning stuff sometimes strengthens the “critical editor voice in the mind” which then becomes louder than the previously freely babbling creative juice. Then there’s some new skill needed about “how to temper that critical inner voice” because otherwise it interferes with what used to be very spontaneous. Well, thats how I interpreted what you were saying, about suddenly not knowing what to play after studying more, how to describe it, ‘structured stuff’.

      Anyways last nite I was endlessly listening and relistening to Halestorm Love Bites which they say was written after they learned to do a cover of Skid Row Slave To The Grind. So that’s my vote for riff straight ahead hard rock. (Actually the drums are what make Love Bites great, to me, as well as the middle riff) Always loved Slave To The Grind.

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21194
      grondak
      Participant

      Atop the CBC, there’s always Metal Riffology. I find this course is a construction kit.  Also, get out your bass and drum kit and give yourself something to groove to. A book Sarah suggested for getting into some bass/drum fun is Get Locked and I love it for the drum grid principle and the quality of the ideas. There are a lot of riffs packed in there. I’m a much better player after doing about half of the exercises over a 2-month period.

      Metal Method is helping me across the board!

    • #21196
      vik
      Participant

      Nice selection but IMO  – Pantera- belongs on any Riffy / Groovy list.

      I also really like the old Sepultura. Chaos AD, Arise, Blood Rooted…. completely different than anything else.

      Good luck. What a great journey to be on.

    • #21201
      MotleyCrue81
      Participant

      Can’t go wrong with Dokken, Hungry by White Lion has some cool riffage.

      Bring hair metal back!

    • #21204
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      It begins 🙁

      Finally forcing myself to learn Leper Messiah after 30 years…Still some flubs but I'm getting there

      A post shared by Pipeline Audio (@pipelineaudio) on

      • #21205
        safetyblitz
        Participant

        Lots to like there. The main negative that jumps out to me is you seem to be pushing the beat quite a bit, especially at the beginning.

        And I second Dokken as being a great source for interesting “riffy” stuff.

    • #21229
      superblonde
      Keymaster

      groove has a name 😮 and that name is-

      Suicidal Tendencies – How Will I Laugh Tomorrow… When I Can’t Even Smile Today Remake LRRG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBzx1Ffg6VE

      I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
      And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

    • #21232
      pipelineaudio
      Participant

      Good call!!! I need some mike clark on that list. I wish there was good tab for the No Mercy stuff

    • #21239
      j dogg39
      Participant

      Badlands would be my Metal Church choice. That song rocks!

    • #27003
      Axe
      Participant

      No existential crisis here 😉

    • #27056
      Byron
      Participant

      I have almost the opposite problem. Nearly every time I try to practice or learn something new, the creative floodgates open. I end up spending most of my time capturing ideas and not finalizing them. Or practicing.

      • #27059
        rightonthemark
        Participant

        i have that issue too 🤘🏽🎸🤘🏽

        rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

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