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Dunno about avoidance of stock phrases being the enemy individuality/creativity. It’s really the opposite for me to be honest. I'm just not enough a good player or musician to be able to go totally off-piste and play interestingly and convincingly without reference to tricks. Plus the kind of music I play is fundamentally retro-looking, almost slavish in its reverence of a formative golden age so if you don't reference these things, you're not doing it right. Progressive it is not. I'm really ok with that.
It could be detrimental for some people I suppose. If you’re talking about those who just emulate and produce parrot-fashion facsimile, then yes I agree. I’m definitely not a fan of note-perfect dead-eyed wedding band guitarist either. But I tend to find that without learning specific new things regularly I get stuck a rut and become doomed to repeat the same tired shapes. I suppose do go on totally improvised flights of fancy every now and again but they're more often than not tied together with little "set pieces" that I know will work.
I've got a blister on my third finger today from practicing the opening solo from Texas Flood yesterday. it's probably only about 5 seconds long and I played it over and over again all afternoon. I think I Just about have it in the muscle memory now. The great thing about it is that having spent that time picking it apart I now understand a little bit about why it’s cool* in a way that my uninformed pentatonic flailing never is. The bonus for me is that now I have a few more little nuggets of theory and muscle memory that I can transfer to other keys, other songs and other styles to mess about with.
*There are two bits in that opening flurry of notes that are just so cool to me: After the opening bend and roll thing which is pretty much the kind of Chuck Berry thing that I always do whenever I’m required to play a solo, there’s a weird little trill that brings in a flat 9? (help me out here, is that what an G# would be in the key of G major?). Then right after that, there’s a bend on the 1st string 6th fret from the minor third of G (Bb) that bends up a whole tone to the fourth (C) then repeats but the second time only bends up a semitone to the major third (B) and hangs there. Deliciously. Uh. So good.
Dooks-Fatberg-
It's not so much avoiding stock phrases, as a bit of a blues/country fellow they're in the mix for me also. It's about starting to think more (too much?) about the theory and whether something fits into a particular scale or style than just getting on and trusting your ears.
I'm basically a very poor player looking for excuses, but that's not really going to change. When I improve I just improve at doing my thing. I've really no interest in copying other people to the hilt (dead eyed wedding band guitarist).I've been looking at local blues jams, but the repetitive, soulless cronieism would kill me. Even if I were good enough to improv over 24bars of anything.
We've all seen and heard muso bands. Note perfect and tight, but they rarely evoke emotion or empathy. These guys can play all of us into a cocked hat with any instrument you care to mention but then don't ever cut a record of anything they've written themselves. Instead acts like the White Stripes and Seasick Steve make "it". C*nts.
Looking for bass and drums for my new band "the dead-eyed wedding band"
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The bet's off Joe, I want my MM back ;)
Licks? I struggle to play things that have been written for other people's fingers and prefer to do my own thing ( usually something slightly too complicated for me to do without bumming notes, FML)
I was speaking to a professional brass section musician the other day about how theory can become a barrier to creativity and he surprisingly agreed with me. Anyone else find that thinking too much about where things are 'supposed' to go can sometimes bogart your mojo?