What do you guys do when you play anymore?

[Deneb]

I've been trying to just force myself to write lately, and I've found, forcing it out, doesn't work. Everything sounds the same, and you go back to what you know. I'm not saying I can't sit and write a good song, but I want to expand, or not even so much that, just be better.

That said, I've been thinking, "what do other people practice to? or what do they do when they practice?"

So, what do you do? I mean, shit, technically, I can do whatever I need to do, I just don't really play a lot of covers, unless I play them out. When I practice, I usually just that, practice.

So what's up?

[Drsracing]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

I hate forcing it. Just go outside and injest the surrondings

[Donovan]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Get REALLY wasted. Record some crap and listen to it sober. There are always a few jems in there. Listen to songs backwards. That really works, it can give you some good ideas. Listen to songs from another room or in the shower, they sound different because you can't hear all the parts sometimes just the beat. Start humming the new tune in the shower. For the hit single... get wasted in the shower and listen to a song backwards. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Drsracing]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Fuck you girlfreind or someones girl freind

Relax in a hot tub

Go racing

Listen to different tunes. Go try some pop music, follow it up with some jazz, than go old school contry, Than like 60's rock. than Get Van Halen 1 out, turn you sterro To 10 and rock it. the Van Halen has to be in LP form too

[metallicarocks]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Listen to inspirational shit.

List of shit that makes me wanna buy a tank and conquer the world: (various songs and albums)

Progenies of the Great Apocolpse (Dimmu Borgir)
Most of Enthroned Darkness Triumphant (DB)
Track 2 on Annorexia Nervosa's Exile album. Probably the only worthwhile song
Various pieces from Damnation and a Day (COF)
Various songs from Nightwish's "Once" album. Probably the best orchestral production done for metal.
Yngwie Malmseen "Trilogy" song.
JCF's very own "Revengeance", especially the song "Carry the Storm" Good fucking work guys! Keep it up! [img]/images/graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]
Shadow's Fall-Art of Balance-esecially "A Fire Burns in Babylon" There's something about that song that gives me courage to know end. I could give anybody the finger listening to that.
Children of Bodom Kissing the Shadows
Diary of a Madman, mostly the song.
An orchestral mix of Sephiroth's them from Final Fantasy VII
Cthulu Dawn and Her Ghost in the Fog (COF)
Smoke and Mirrors (Symphony X)
Aces High, Run to the Hills (Iron Maiden)
No Leaf Clover
Burning Times (Iced Earth)
Dig, Not Falling (Mudvayne)
"A Night on Bald Mountain" Written by Modest Mussorgsky.
"Red Poppy: Russion Sailor's Dance"-Gliere
(Philadelphia Orchestra does a great job of the above classical pieces)
The soundtrack from the movie "Hunt for the Red October"


Maybe that helps you some, I don't know...

[Newc]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Get a drum machine and a bass, pick a random pattern at a random tempo and see what hits you. I've done that a lot and got what I feel are my best tracks that way.
But then that's if you're into stuff that has more of a groove than full-on bash/mosh. I dunno how to get inspired to do that, other than to get really mad [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Although forcing something can have good results. I whipped out a solo once that I still regard as one of my 3 best when I was trying to record it. I tried and tried for hours but couldn't come up with anything from my huge back of "Iommi and Page" bag of tricks, and then got really mad about it and just started pounding the strings when the tape was rolling.
I ended up with one of only two solos that I ever took the time to learn note for note rather than just "get close".
Of course, the really hard part is getting it to sound exactly like the first one - the phrasing and attitude are still way more noticeable in that one version, and all the other versions I've recorded since then still sound "rehearsed".

[GodOfRhythm]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Only ONE thing will solve that:

Listening to more music, expand your horizons (even further if they already happen to be wide).

Listen to any sort of music without any prejudice, and you'll be amazed at how much beautiful stuff is out there, even thing you dismissed as commercial/mainstream or just plain bad crap.

[sully]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

grab an acoustic and fart around with open tunings. it's like a different instrument when i do that, and i've come up with stuff that i normally never would have in standard tuning.

or just say fuck it and stop worrying about it.

sully

[txcharvel]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

I either grab an acoustic, or play acoustic stuff on an electric.

If you have a POD or multi FX unit, play with it and make some weird sounds. If you do that long enough you start to realize how all these pop musicians make the big bucks on the radio.

[Ace]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Smoke a bowl, crank it up, and fuckin' jam till your fingers fall off!!

[Inazone]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

I come up with ideas while in the car or at work. Since I have no means of recording them on the spot, I keep humming until I get home, and then plug in my J-Station and laptop to see what happens. If I'm just sitting around at home, I'll pick up a guitar and deliberately try chord progressions or short leads that I know I haven't used before.

To this day, I can remember when and where most of my song ideas first came to me.

[jim777]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

I have a Yamaha Motif 6 I play along with. I turn on a drum spound, play some chords into the sequencer and then just fart around on top of it. It's fun enough, and leaves me free to play jazz or rock or whever I feel like. The Motif was a great buy for me.

[wilkinsi]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

writers block. it sucks. try listening to your previous works and try to build on that. it may inspire you to produce something.

[FusionFarmer]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

I was farting around playing the same old stuff the other just like you said, and a movie about the old Miisissippi Blues players was on. I started to get into it and went and got my old acoustic and copied some of their licks and just started to have fun with it, later i incorporated a bunch of it into my basic playing,

[ApeDosMil]

Re: What do you guys do when you play anymore?

Learn exotic scales.