Wrong Approaches Get You Nowhere Fast Options

[PosterBoy]

I had another breakthrough / epiphany in my guitar playing journey yesterday.

It was one of those moments where you slap yourself on the head for being so slow.

Anyway, I was in my car going over a chord progression in my head that we were using in a song at church that morning and I heard a nice sequence, so as soon as I grabbed my guitar I worked out what it was. Nothing groundbreaking just 3 arpeggios that followed the chords and a nice descending run with some repeated notes in with some rhythmic phrasing.

But it was the descending run that made the lightbulb in my head go off!

Every now and then I'll hear a run or sequence that sounds so cool (usually by Paul Gilbert, Nuno or someone) and when you work out what's going on it's nothing unusual just a basic scale with some repeated parts etc. So I'll try and make some up of my own and they sound 'meh'

And that's where it clicked for me, it's about function and context. The reason the runs sounded cool was the phrasing and repeated parts served a function over the progression and rhythm they were played over, hitting chord tones or creating syncopation etc.

So now when I what to practice composing sequences and runs, I'll give myself a musical situation for context.

It seems so basic and like common sense, but I firmly blame all the instructional videos out there that teach this way, Yes even you Paul Gilbert!

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