Playing "out of your comfort zone" music

[RuiNs777]

Hey guys. So, I've been playing guitar for 17 years now. Almost exclusively death metal and more technical stuff. Grew up with the Necrophagist tab book, Obscura tab books, Spawn of Possession official tabs, etc. Over this year I've been trying to "broaden my horizons" so to speak. I got a vintage custom shop strat, a Les Paul and some more traditional guitars that I really love. The idea behind that was to have tools to allow me to practice other genres and learn new techniques and styles etc.

Now, I've had issues finding "good" music that one can really dig into and learn with "legit" resources. Example, when I was learning to sweep and speed up my alternate/economy picking I had Necrophagist official tab book and knew exactly how to play it. So learning was more enjoyable for me. I'd sit down, turn on my metronome and concentrate for hours into learning how to play things "properly". Seems to me that rock and metal music are more "organized" in the sense that its easy to find legit resources that one can really digest and sink into. I haven't been able to find jazz, blues or country stuff like that. I think honestly I just don't know enough of that type of stuff to even know where to start looking. Do you guys know of anything like that? For example, a great blues band with official tabs? Or something like that?

 

[Rubbishplayer]

You could do worse than start with scores of Mike Stern's music. I've got a few and they are defintely very different from your current repetoire, yet Mike started out playing rock and blues, which will give you an in to understanding where he takes things.

The scores are pretty accurate too. For example, the drum into to "Upside Downside" sounds perfect transcribed right into a midi sequencer.

 

[SalsaWood]

Dixie Dregs/Steve Morse might be up your alley. He has a lot of country and blues techniques in his earlier albums. You can find his tab books online if you're resourceful, or PM me.

 

[nightsprinter]

If you can read music, Pat Metheny has a million books. There's one for the entirety of "Bright Size Life" and he even has his own Real book. There are definitely tablature transcriptions out there which you can pair to them, but you gotta dig deep on the net in some cases - which is what I did, because I can't read music good.

 

[Calija]

Hate to be one of them damn kids, but looking into polyohia might be good.
Polyphia have official tabs, obv they arent blues or country, but they also arent techdeath. they have a pretty diverse range of genres and some are more metal than others so maybe you would be more likely to enjoy it. A gateway I guess idk. plus they have some pretty difficult shit so maybe it can help push you.
From what I can think of they doent really have that lose-ness of some jazz or blues.
Talking out of my ass here, but its not techdeath and they have tabs.

 

[Dwellingers]

If you got s strat check out scotty anderson. He made a gtest record called triplestop.

Check this video out


One of his books

Scotty Anderson – Red Hot Guitar - Instructional Book with Online Video Lessons from the Classic Hot Licks Video Series Hal Leonard Online

Buy the official Hal Leonard Hot Licks, 'Scotty Anderson – Red Hot Guitar - Instructional Book with Online Video Lessons from the Classic Hot Licks Video Series'

www.halleonard.com

Other beast to check out would be Danny Gatton.

 

[RuiNs777]

Hate to be one of them damn kids, but looking into polyohia might be good.
Polyphia have official tabs, obv they arent blues or country, but they also arent techdeath. they have a pretty diverse range of genres and some are more metal than others so maybe you would be more likely to enjoy it. A gateway I guess idk. plus they have some pretty difficult shit so maybe it can help push you.
From what I can think of they doent really have that lose-ness of some jazz or blues.
Talking out of my ass here, but its not techdeath and they have tabs.

Man I am practicing some Polyphia stuff. Some of the harmonics and hybrid picking stuff Im struggling with and its great. Practicing In The Cut, check that one out with Manuel Gardner Fernandes and Tim Henson.

Thanks for the replies guys. Will look into those.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

If you want a real workout, try any of Allan Holdsworth's transcriptions. Some of the early solos of Meshuggah are very heavily influenced by Holdsworth.