Influence From Other Instruments

Hey all, sorry I haven't updated in a few days, been a little busy, but thank you all who are regulars here. Your the reason why I do this. Ive learned so much from so many great people, its time to give it back! Now on with the lesson.

Sometimes as guitarists we find ourselves in a rut, or feeling that our music is not that original, its almost impossible not to. So one way of getting away from this is gaining ideas or even inspiration from other instruments. I cant tell you how many times I hear a guy like Kirk Hammett mention getting ideas from horns and such. So many of the greatest players came up with ideas from other instruments, a great example is Buckethead, and although the example I'm speaking of is a little different, find him playing the Halloween theme song on his guitar on youtube. He plays the rhythm part by barring the notes on the neck with his picking hand, and hammering on the melody notes with his fret hand. Its a real good example of taking the piano, which usually plays rhythm with the left hand and right hand playing lead, and applying it to guitar.

A good way of taking the lesson and putting it to use is, try to emulate the sounds of different instruments with your guitar. A great instrument that is easier to apply to this idea is the drums. As a guitarist you can emulate the bass drum with big chunky rhythm playing, or maybe the hi hat with palm muted rhythm ideas, scrapes and such. Its also a good idea as a guitarist to know the basics of drums as well, helps a lot with the rhythm aspect of playing.

I hope I gave you some basic ideas that you can expand on and take your playing to new places, Keep Rockin!!!!