Advice for a guitarist?

I've been playing guitar for almost 3 years now and I'm facing a problem. I love playing all kinds of metal and songs from bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Disturbed, but I have NEVER written a song of my own. I can't even come up with my own riff. I can flawlessly play and cover many songs and play both lead and rhythm guitar, but I can't create anything of my own. I'm not the kind of person who would like to take lessons either. Does anybody have advice for me? I'm in a band and there's increasing pressure for me to write my own stuff.

I can get writers block as well. Quite a lot actually, so it's perfectly natural. Well I suppose one way to come up with something would be to play some basic chord progressions to start with. Then maybe once you have that down, and record it (if you can), then you can try playing some melodies, or single note patterns over the top of that. It'll seem more natural. Over time it might change completely

Actually, when it comes to riffs, the odd thing about me is I can only seem to come up with them at night! No idea why.

Question: Do you learn songs by using tab? Is so, it might be worth your while to try to learn some songs by playing them by ear. It'll be hard at first if you're not used to it, but over time your ear will develop, and it'll be easier to get ideas down when they come to your head

Learn your scales and your chords. Between the two, anything is possible. As Repner said, if you start teaching yourself music by simply listening to it, you'll begin to grab an ear for specific notes and can then go on to work with harmonies and various melodies. Also, when Repner says it's easier to write at night; He's not kidding. The night hours seem to be people's peak of creativity, things just flow more naturally. And if you're covering a lot of songs with ease, try to break the songs down - Learn what the guitarists from the bands are creating their music from; what chords, what scales. Take each riff note by note and examine it deeper than the surface.

And when all else fails - Just jam! Play anything and everything, find a riff that sounds good to you, write it down and go from there! A simple riff can be turned into something insanely technical, or it can be broken into multiple sections. Either way, just one riff can sprout an entire song.

Yeah. The chords and scales thing is very good advice as well. We're not talking advanced jazz theory or anything like that. If you can get the basics down, (your major and minor chords, and pentatonic scale at least), you'll find things easier.

Whether we're talking Jazz or not, Jazz theory and the roots of it are extremely helpful in any situation or genre. You 7's are terribly important in any sort of metal.

True. But that's something to look at later

hey guys, thanks for the advice. right now im messing around with some pentatonic scales and play a few power chords based on that, i almost have a song written finally. also i always did work better at night.

It's awesome that you finally wrote a song...! Good job, dude! For future songs, I suggest tuning your guitar to open chords and see what you can come up with. Whatever you play will either sound really great or terrible; nowhere inbetween. It's just a thought.

The pentatonic scale is very helpful for developing a solo.

As Austin said, I just like to jam to see what I can come up with. Maybe try mixing the sounds of two songs together. Experimentation and innovation (and sometimes improvisation) is what makes songs for some.

Oh, and I also like to ue this:



It's hooked up to my rig at all times, and it records everything I play. If I ever play something and decide "oh, that was a good riff", I can press the Mark button on top, and it moves the last thing I played to a "Marked" folder