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If you are feeling stuck with your songwriting, everything you write sounds the same, and you’re struggling to find some new creative ideas, try these 6 ideas to spice up your songs, and kickstart your songwriting creativity:

1) Take Structural and Arrangement Ideas From Songs Outside of Your Genre

A big piece of songwriting is structure and arrangement, and arguably, this is also the thing that people find hardest. After all, writing a cool riff, that isn’t too hard… but writing a whole song from that riff? That is where a lot of people get stuck.

Playing guitar and practising guitar are two very different things, but we often get them confused. By drawing some distinctions between the two, we can use our time more effectively and get better results in our playing

For the first few years of learning guitar, I love to noodle. I would sit down and put hours into my playing… sometimes not really doing much of anything. I would jam some scales, play through a few chord changes that my teacher gave me, and I had a lot of fun doing that. A lot of fun!

In this free guitar lesson, we are going to look at two simple exercises that will drastically improve your string bends and vibrato on electric guitar.

https://youtu.be/H7MXYnVeFU4

String bends and vibrato are absolutely vital ornamentation techniques that you must master, if you want your lead guitar playing to sound good.

When we listen to lead guitar players and solos that we enjoy, one thing we are listening for (although, most people would not be able to say this), is that players’ use of ornamentation, and specifically, string bends and vibrato.

Sweep picking is an incredibly fun skill on guitar… but once you can blast up and down a few arpeggios… what do you do next? If you feel like you are stuck with your sweep picking sounding robotic and pointless, and you want your sweep picking to sound melodic, musical and badass, then read on…

So now you can sweep pick! Awesome!! It’s a great skill and one that is difficult to master. But once you master the mechanics behind sweep picking on guitar, what do you do next? Are you going to play the same arpeggio 30 times in a row… or do you want to do something else with it?

If you want to do anything creative, such as improvising or composing on guitar; then it is vital to learn where the notes go on the neck. It’s true, there are some people that have never learned any music theory in their life, can’t name a single note on the guitar neck, and can play great music and write hit songs.

But they are in the minority. The vast majority of musicians who are capable on their instrument can name the notes on their instrument.

Improvising on guitar is really run, and is something that anyone can get the hang of. One vital element is how you think about the scale you use, and today, we will discuss exactly what that means

The guitar is a strange instrument, shrouded in myth and legacy. A lot of players think that some things on the guitar can’t be taught, or, are a god given ability. This comes up most often with creative ideas, like song writing and improvising.

We can learn a lot by critically listening to songs. When you know what to listen for, you will find many ways to quickly improve your songwriting skills.

When you start writing songs on guitar for the first time, it can often be a bit overwhelming. Where do you start? What do you do? Those first obstacles of getting your first song together are too much for some people.

The other side of the spectrum is, once you’ve written a few songs, how do you improve your songwriting? Is it something that you can improve, or are you stuck with what you are able to do?

The minor pentatonic scale is one of the most widely used scales for soloing and improvising on guitar. A combination of simple to learn shapes along with scale tones that easily fit over chord progressions make the minor pentatonic scale an incredibly effective scale for soloing with.

There are a few different ways of playing the scale. We will look at a system that uses 5 shapes for the scale, covering the whole guitar neck.

3 note per string scale patterns are favoured amongst shred guitar players, but the patterns have caused controversy amongst the online guitar community. Let’s take a look at what 3 note per string patterns are and how they can benefit your playing.

What Are Three Note Per String Scale Patterns On Guitar?

I always like to spell out things that appear obvious, because I’m always the guy that never picks up on the obvious.

Most guitar players have heard of [3 note per string modes]( {{ < ref “/blog/2021-03-09-3-note-per-string-scale-patterns” >}} ) and other systems for scales on guitar, but why should you put the time into learning scale patterns on guitar? Here are 6 reason why:

1. You Will Learn How to Create Different Sounds

Different scales will create different sounds, or moods. By learning how to play different scales, you will learn how to create different sounds and emotions with your guitar.