I took a private lesson with Paul Gilbert a few years ago and he gave me some great advice for inventing new licks. All of a sudden, your minor-to-major-third bends won’t work, and you’ll have to come up with new ways to resolve your tried-and-true blues licks. If you’re a blues player and you find yourself tiring of mid-tempo, bouncy 1-4-5 tunes, put on a track like ZZ Top’s “Blue Jean Blues” and get into the minimalist, super-slow and minor-tinged blues vibe.

Phrase-trainer programs like Transcribe! or Riffstation are terrific tools for looping sections of songs so you can jam along.Īnything you can do to mix it up both harmonically and rhythmically will help break you out of your rut. I’ll jam along and improvise for 20 minutes or so, and before long, I’m in a whole new headspace. When I catch myself doing this, I’ll switch it up by jamming along to songs, grooves, or jam tracks that are a total departure, both in tempo and rhythm.įor example, if I’ve been playing lots of straight-ahead eighth-note rock rhythms at fast tempos, I might pull up Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er” and just loop four measures of the groovy reggae-inspired intro. When I pick up the guitar to play or write, it’s natural to gravitate towards familiar tempos or rhythmic patterns. Speaking of jam tracks, I sometimes get stuck in a rhythmic rut. Get yourself a portable audio interface so you can plug in to your laptop, phone, or tablet wherever you are and jam along with your favorite lessons and tracks. They’ll be much easier to find later on if you keep them organized. With YouTube, I suggest making playlists to organize the lessons you come across and like into different categories, with titles such as Blues Guitar Practice, Technique, Cool Licks, or whatever works best for you. An endless well of inspiration is literally a click away. There’s also a myriad of terrific online lessons and courses available from sites like and. The advent of YouTube means there are seemingly limitless options for lesson material right at our fingertips. Do you ever find yourself playing the same old licks, chords, and songs over and over? Thanks to modern tech, it’s easier than ever to get inspired and find our way out of playing ruts. Let’s explore some of the simple things we can do to break the cycle of the mundane and get inspired again.

Whether it’s a tone thing, a playing thing, songwriting, or perhaps something to do with our gigging or studio situations, we get creatively stuck from time to time. It’s a super fun way to experiment with tone.

A Little Thunder is a new pickup that gives guitarists the ability to simultaneously send both a bass and guitar signal from a single instrument.

Riffstation for bass