Playing acoustic music

[Kellan]

Yesterday I looking at maybe buying a bass, and ended up walking out with an acoustic guitar. I have about 7 (let me count...yeah 7 including this new acoustic) guitars, one of which is a semi-hollow, but I've never owned my own acoustic (I learned on one my mom owns).

I have to say:
I've been trying to write metal songs (on electric obviously) for years and can never seem to be happy with what I write, ever.
I've had this acoustic for about 16 hours and am almost done writing two songs that I'm very happy with, and I've been asleep for half the time this guitar has even been in my possession.
The process has been totally natural and comfortable, the absolute antithesis of my experience in trying to write metal, and it's got me wondering if metal is REALLY what I do like to play. I mean I love playing it, but I think this is the final slap in the face to me that I just can't fucking write it. Or maybe I should write acoustic stuff first and have the electric stuff be secondary. Who knows.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this. I doubt I'm the only one.
And while we're at it, throw out some suggestions as to what to listen to for inspiration. I'm very into folk kind of stuff (IE Agalloch for example. what I've been writing isn't too dissimilar from their "White" EP but distinctively "mine" if you will), but I have pretty eclectic taste and will listen to virtually any genre. I also played guitar in jazz band for about four years as well, and am interested in that sort of stuff too. Classical, folk, country, flamenco, I don't care; suggest it all. The more the better.

As for what guitar I bought, it's this one:
It's by Art&Lutherie, and apparently Godin is the parent company
http://www.artandlutherieguitars.com/dr ... nrise.html


I played on a couple different ones, including a big-body Gibson that was going for about $1500, and even though this is clearly not the nicest guitar money can buy, this one shit all over everything else as far as my ears are concerned.

So post your gear, your experiences, suggestions, etc.
I haven't been this stoked on buying new gear or for writing my own music for a very long time.

Anyway I'm gonna stop rambling and get back to playing.

[BassPhemy]

I've only been satisfied recently with what I've been writing. Having the 6 string plugged in is the only way I can really write metal stuff by myself. Unless I'm in the practice space and am in metal-writing mode and have my bass will I write metal stuff on bass. If I'm by myself I'll end up writing more laid back acoustic stuff on bass. When I write I'll go back a million times, hate what I've written, rewrite it or add on this or that and so on until I'm finally sick of it and can't stand hearing or playing it anymore and end up hating it. Then I'll come back a day or so later and listen to it and see if I love it or hate it. If I love it I'll play it for my band and see if they love it or hate it.

I've wanted a steel stringed 12 string for a long time now. I'll probably end up getting one pretty soon.

[Kellan]

Sounds exactly like what I do. I have only a handful of riffs that I like, that I've made up. Even then, "my ears know what they want to do with them" or how my mind wants it to sound or flow when I piece them together, but that presents an even bigger problem than coming up with riffs I like in the first place. I just get so frustrated with the whole thing that I just forget about it for a week or something like that. Whenever I try to "force creativity," I fucking hate what I write. Sounds just like what I've been listening to for the past week, wow that's amazingly original.
Then I bring this guitar home yesterday, sit down and play some chords I'd been trying to work with for months now and bam: a song.
All of this only serving to reaffirm my inclination that I wont' ever write metal that I'm satisfied with.
It was an amazing feeling to sit down and just let the song come out of me without any real criticism and I ended up really liking it. I'm not saying I'm gonna stop trying to write/play metal but I can see myself definitely putting it on the back-burner.

[BassPhemy]

Well who knows. Maybe you'll get all of your acoustic stuff out and then get sick of it and go back to metal. Or maybe you'll write some chord progressions that would make good metal riffs. Either way you're writing songs and becoming more comfortable doing it and becoming more confident that you can write actual songs that you like. I remember when I first started writing. I'd come up with one riff, contribute it to the band and they'd go wherever with it because I really had no idea what to do with it. I couldn't take it somewhere else or arrange it into something or anything at all. Eventually I started piecing riffs together and arranging songs and having tons of ideas and now out of nowhere comes 9 minute songs. I have to put the cap on the bottle sometimes or it'll never end. I'm not trying to sound like I'm a genius and creativity flows constantly, because I wish it did, but I like what I write and I love to write.

[Pfl?yd]

I found that playing clean (or acoustic) is a pretty good rut-buster. I think it's a little easier to write shit when you limit yourself than when you have a whole bunch of options to choose. You don't really do palm-muting, pinch harmonics, or power chord riffs on an acoustic so it's just you and harmony. Shit sounds super-empty on an acoustic if you're just doing riffs. It expands your mind quite a bit more, that much is certain.

[Acid Flashbakc]

I found that playing clean (or acoustic) is a pretty good rut-buster. I think it's a little easier to write shit when you limit yourself than when you have a whole bunch of options to choose. You don't really do palm-muting, pinch harmonics, or power chord riffs on an acoustic so it's just you and harmony. Shit sounds super-empty on an acoustic if you're just doing riffs. It expands your mind quite a bit more, that much is certain.

exactly how i feel. its nice sometimes coming up with something thats just the basics and doesnt need all the toppings.

[BassPhemy]

I want more people to post in this thread. I want to hear how they go about writing and getting out of ruts and so on.

[UNGODLIKE]

it doesn't inspire me to post in this forum anymore. from now on i'll just read what everyone else has to say about shit. from now on, when i pick up my guitar, i'm just gunna drill myself senselessly on scales and technical excercises not because i'm trying to impress anyone(never was, never will), but iwant to get better and songwriting just ain't workin' that way for me.

[Acid Flashbakc]

i think anyone can write a good song or two.. i dunno when i'm in a rut i listen to new kinds of music and come up with a melody or progression and then just write off of that.

[hektik]

I just pick up my bass and start playing some blues, jazz, funk, pretty much anything not metal. Then I'll come across a lick that I'll keep playing, experiment with slapping it, then I'll get down to brutal business and start going ill and writing off that one lick that stuck in my head.

If I ever get into a rut with writing metal, or anything for that matter, I'll listen to a lot of rap and electronica music, classic rock, anything not metal. Then when I pick up my bass again, it repeats the same cycle, just improvise and go from whatever sticks out.

[Pfl?yd]

Rutbusters for me:


-Pick up a different instrument. Sometimes I'll play a drum beat and some harmonic or melodic movement will pop in my head around it. Sometimes I'll just be playing a ukulele and find an interesting chord or melodic phrase from just noodling. Of course, you can simulate that effect on your regular instrument, just try a different tuning. Old phrases become completely different. I tuned the G-string on my guitar to F# and suddenly I was whipping out all kinds of jazz chords.

-Learn a new scale or mode and try to use it to write something. This is especially useful with weird non-western scales like Ahava Raba or Egyptian. You don't necessarily have to write something in the traditional style those scales were written around, but it helps you picture the fretboard or keyboard in a different light.

-Study a new piece of theory. Every now and then I sit down with my computer and Logic and, in the key of C, write out a bunch of chord progressions using chord leading techniques. I don't bother listening to them until I'm done. I keep them simple; whole note or half-note progressions. When I finish, I listen back to them and hum melodies or bass lines, or tap out a rhythm. Sometimes I transpose them to a different key. Then I try to take the harmonic structure of the chords and break them down into contrapuntal melodic pieces, like a melody playing around the 7th of an Em7 chord, for example. I try to find ways to imply the harmony without actually using chords at all. It triggers something in the brain.

-Try to come up with as many riffs in a single key as possible. I did that with the key of E-flat just the other day. I'm playing a Primus-sounding bass part completely in E with some 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths. I made one riff that is a slapped thing using Eb, F#, and G in a very staccato way with a very defined, accent-heavy rhythm and then made a second section trying to find variations on the original riff like such as having the guitar play the bass riff while the bass and drums start doing more traditional things in straight time.

-Trying to meld styles that seem completely off the wall. I wrote a tune that, for now, I call "Turbogringo" that's basically a concept on what it would sound like if Tito Puente wrote a song with the Jesus Lizard or Helmet. It starts with a very traditional 2-3 clave beat and the bass doing a simple latin-flavored ostinato between Eb and B and then kicks into this post-hardcore riff with the drums maintaining the clave pattern on the snare and the kick drum doing off-beats and the bass and distorted guitar playing in unison with this rhythm. Then it shifts to a quiet part where the overdriven bass is the only thing playing the clave-bossa rhythm and the drums kick into straight time with a clean, heavily reverbed guitar playing really sparse arpeggios. And it was all born of a silly concept of "if so-and-so played with so-and-so how do I think it would sound".

Really, the more styles and theory I learn, the more weird shit like this pops out. Then I kind of streamline it or fix parts that are clashing and suddenly I have something new I never would have come up with if I just sat down with my bass or a guitar and did what I normally did. Creative exercises rarely come from the mechanics of playing an instrument; it's about putting your brain in a different place.

[Skull Dragon]

For me it's usually been getting a new guitar that inspires me... Each one has it's own personality and plays differently.

[goshuaspenis]

Yesterday I looking at maybe buying a bass, and ended up walking out with an acoustic guitar. I have about 7 (let me count...yeah 7 including this new acoustic) guitars, one of which is a semi-hollow, but I've never owned my own acoustic (I learned on one my mom owns).

I have to say:
I've been trying to write metal songs (on electric obviously) for years and can never seem to be happy with what I write, ever.
I've had this acoustic for about 16 hours and am almost done writing two songs that I'm very happy with, and I've been asleep for half the time this guitar has even been in my possession.
The process has been totally natural and comfortable, the absolute antithesis of my experience in trying to write metal, and it's got me wondering if metal is REALLY what I do like to play. I mean I love playing it, but I think this is the final slap in the face to me that I just can't fucking write it. Or maybe I should write acoustic stuff first and have the electric stuff be secondary. Who knows.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this. I doubt I'm the only one.
And while we're at it, throw out some suggestions as to what to listen to for inspiration. I'm very into folk kind of stuff (IE Agalloch for example. what I've been writing isn't too dissimilar from their "White" EP but distinctively "mine" if you will), but I have pretty eclectic taste and will listen to virtually any genre. I also played guitar in jazz band for about four years as well, and am interested in that sort of stuff too. Classical, folk, country, flamenco, I don't care; suggest it all. The more the better.

As for what guitar I bought, it's this one:
It's by Art&Lutherie, and apparently Godin is the parent company
http://www.artandlutherieguitars.com/dr ... nrise.html


I played on a couple different ones, including a big-body Gibson that was going for about $1500, and even though this is clearly not the nicest guitar money can buy, this one shit all over everything else as far as my ears are concerned.

So post your gear, your experiences, suggestions, etc.
I haven't been this stoked on buying new gear or for writing my own music for a very long time.

Anyway I'm gonna stop rambling and get back to playing.

got the same in green, great guitar

[Hunter/Killer]

I have a Takamine elec/acoustic
single cutaway, i never use it on an amp. i never would buy an elec/acous but it was a gift.
the guitar fucking sounds beautiful.



looks like that but not a 12 string

[Lord of This World]

I played acoustic almost exclusively for about a year and it did wonders for my chops. I play so much cleaner now, and my fretting hand is a lot stonger/faster. The only thing is that I played only fingerstyle that whole time, which I was horrible at, and I got so good at it and used to it that it's awkward for me to use a pick now. I play so much better with my fingers.

[Acid Flashbakc]

i actually like acoustic electrics.. sure they're fine not plugged in but when i love plugging em into a nice crisp tube amp and not having to play infront of a mic

[Pfl?yd]

i actually like acoustic electrics.. sure they're fine not plugged in but when i love plugging em into a nice crisp tube amp and not having to play infront of a mic

I love having an acoustic/electric because I can just throw it in my backpack bag and walk up to the music/art district and plug into any PA. That's pretty awesome itself.

[Brandon]

GAY

[PABassPlayer]

My acoustic bass gets the most use when I'm learning a song and am too lazy to turn on my amp, get a cable, plug it in....it's all very exhausting.