https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:40:49 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361537 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:28:22 +0000 They just took it places the writer never intended, and made it their own.

That's making music.]]> Guitar Players Discussion kent_eh https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361537 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361522 Wed, 08 Dec 2010 07:24:52 +0000 Guitar Players Discussion jefferygibsonsg https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361522 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361486 Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:48:06 +0000
One- if you can play hundreds of songs, you are doing really well, and you have a great basis for new stuff.

Two- you only get good at the things that you practice. If you've been practicing covers, and a little 12 bar blues improv, no wonder that's most of what you can do.

You won't get the "big ears" noteboat is talking about over night.

To start improv-ing right away, though, just remember that a framework is what you need. Prepare some things- with the guys I jam with, what we usually do in the last part of practice is jam, but over a riff or partial song that somebody has already written. So one guys says- the chords are Gmajor, Dmajor, Cmajor, Fsharpminor, and Aminor. And it goes like this- plays his "framework" for us a couple of times. He goes through it again, and the drummer, who has heard the rhythm a few times now, starts to add something. As we figure out where it's going, we all jump in.

It's a slow process. It isn't performance, though it might lead to performance somewhere down the road. In the early stages, it allows for a lot of "that sucked. Everybody stop. Let's start again. What were you doing on lead there? Where was the bass? How many beats is the second chord? Would a bit of E minor fit in here? Are we all in the same tuning???" and similar conversations. But it's a step in the process.


Best,
Ande]]> Guitar Players Discussion Ande https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361486 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361439 Sun, 05 Dec 2010 22:01:01 +0000 one way to make the transition is to take something you already know how to play, and add some flavor to it. licks, different rhythms, tempos, keys, song styles, etc. explore any silly idea you think of. the idea is to get you to become comfortable playing from inside on the fly. keep changing little bits and blobs and, pretty soon, you're playing something totally original.
like it's been mentioned before, one the appeal of the 12 bar blues is that everyone has a shared base to work from, but jazz musicians also jam over the same old standards, and ira gershwin and miles davis sound nothing alike. in fact, almost every genre of music has its basic forms that everyone relies on. bluegrass jams over the same progressions, rap flows over the same beats, tons of song have the same foundations as each other. it's what makes music recognizable and not just random noise.
what you do is, you learn the form, you learn how to play around within the form, and then you get bored and play around with the form itself... and that's where creativity comes in to play. changing it around so that instead of playing to a style, you're using the tools you learn in the style to express yourself. it really doesn't matter that much where you start, although it's obvious that the more you learn, the more tools you have to work with, and all those songs you've learned is a great place to start from. what matters is where you take it.
another trick is to take a theme or idea and expand on it. beethoven's 5th is basically just a riff he explored, to name probably the most obvious example. instead of warming up by playing scales up and down, if that's what you do, play melodies within the scale. use it to make music. explore the whole neck. take shapes you know and mess with them. attack chords, strings, melodies, etc, with whatever style comes to mind.
another trick, and this is works great for me, is that if you feel like you're out of ideas, just keep improvising until your mind wanders away while your hands keep going. it's not always easy, because sometimes it takes a while to get through all the backlog of ingrained riffs and ideas you've beaten into the ground, but if i just keep chugging at it, eventually i stop thinking about what i'm doing and stop directing my hands, and at that point my mind goes still or wanders off to girls i've known or something in my life or whatever and i am no longer consciously directing my hands. it's not a conscious decision to get to that point. up to that point, i'm paying attention to what i'm doing. it's just that i can't focus indefinitely on the same old stuff and my mind drifts. after a bit of woolgathering, though, there's almost invariably a moment where i snap out of my reverie and go "holy ****! did that just come from me?", and sometimes "how did i just do that?", and once you start having those moments, you're hooked. you're a musician for life.

long rant. basically, just start improvising. nothing to it but to do it.]]> Guitar Players Discussion Anonymous https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361439 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361390 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:41:31 +0000
I hear what you are saying and I would agree. I don't do enough of that sort of stuff myself. i don't want noodling to be my primary choice of music I do still enjoy playing songs that I've loved to hear but I don't want to jam to 12 bar blues very much. I can't say I won't do it I'd just prefer not to because after the first 5 mins it's all the same. Even when I hear really good players doing it I get the same blah feeling it doesn't do anything for me puts me to sleep.

Now spantaneous noodling like Noteboat mentioned in a group setting would probably be very difficult with out very trained musicians which I am not. So maybe this isn't something I can ever do but I will have to try some of Noteboats, Alan and Nuno's suggestions and at least try to move a little outside the box.]]> Guitar Players Discussion cnev https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361390 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361388 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:31:32 +0000
I'm a noodler. I enjoy having the guitar in my lap & improvising a soundtrack for the news on NPR. Noodling is true spontaneity -- no chords to follow, just reacting to the environment. It's possible to noodle musically, if you pay attention to what you're doing. (I have a pretty broad definition of what is "musical," but I think that's necessary if you're into spontaneous creation.)

Noodling musically with other players is my ideal performance format, even though no one else wants to hear that kind of music :) .]]> Guitar Players Discussion Crow https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361388 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361384 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:01:19 +0000 Guitar Players Discussion Nuno https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361384 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361367 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:17:43 +0000


I no longer have this file in powertab and can't hold a guitar right now so I don't remember exactly what it sounds like but it definitely isn't the blues.]]> Guitar Players Discussion GrungeSunset https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361367 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361355 Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:14:52 +0000
You kind of also confirmed my thinking on 12 bar blues and the framework that it provides which makes the jams easier but to me that's what brings in the boredom. To me every blues jam ends up sounding the same and it gets old real quick. I go to some open mics an there is usually a couple of these every night and there is one guy that can play anything one of the best guys I've seen in CT but even after hearing him solo for a couple minutes it gets old to me after awhile it's worse than hearing some shredders play 10,000 notes as fast as they can. To me solo's are good when they have something to say and say it and then end it, the solos that go on and on are just musical meusia.

I had seen some of your other posts where you had mentioned playing a song backwards but I have not gotten around to trying it ever.

Alan I've thought about similar things that you mention but again I've never tried them but I need to sit down and read through your post a few times and maybe try things out.

As for stuck in a rut yes and no. I am still learning new songs/techniques every week but yes I guess you can call it a rut as I want to move on to do other things than JUST play covers. I'll never stop learning songs etc but I need some new ideas to explore.

Alman - As the solo guitarist in your band you have alot more pressure than I do although maybe the only difference is you do have a bit of a framework to work with since you already have a set list for your gigs so you know what tunes and what the progressions are you just want to spice them up. I'd like to do that and also create some spontaneous non-12 bar blues music if possible.]]> Guitar Players Discussion cnev https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361355 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361353 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:53:00 +0000
I guess the bottom line is you're stuck in a rut.

You say you don't want to write songs, but I think you could get a lot out of it if you meet the situation halfway. If you want to get away from the same old 12 bars, then you need to offer an alternative. Pick a key.

What I'd suggest is that you come up with a 16-bar sequence using not less than four chords - let's imagine you start with C-Am-F-G (just notice that Tom refers to this too - it's his do-wop progression.) Dave Grohl loves major->minor7 progressions so swap the Am for Am7; chord ii is a good substitute for IV, so replace the F with a Dm, and why not throw in a Gsus4 before the cadence point to add some interest. All of a sudden you've got

C-Am7-Dm-Gsus4 - and if you resolve the suspension within the bar you've got something a little more funky -

C/// | Am7/// | Dm/// | Gsus4/G/ | - play it four times and you have a 16-bar verse.

Put the F back instead of the Dm in bars 7 and 15 (yee- ha! preparing the suspension - my Uni tutor who took me through Baroque harmony would love me for this) or even play | Dm//Dm7 | in that bar.

Solo over it using the Major pentatonic and I reckon you've got something workable that's not stuck where you don't want to be.

Take it along to rehearsal. And see how it goes. The bass player can comp along using roots and 5ths until he gets the hang of it.

Who knows? Everybody else might be just as tired as you of doing 12-bar but not know a way out of it.


A :-)]]> Guitar Players Discussion Alan Green https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-players-discussion/making-music-vs-playing-music/#post-361353