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.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

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.

Plus one on the Metheny books, with a caveat: the Real Book is, like others, just a collection of lead sheets in standard notation only, i.e. melody with chord notation, with limited guitar/piano transcriptions, zero solos and zero tab. As such, it is only really useful if you want to make your own arrangements of the songs (which I do). If you do get it, make sure you get the edition for C instruments, as there are other versions for horns, etc.

For intense Metheny soloing study, it doesn't get much better than the transcriptions of his album "Question And Answer", which is arguably his best trio work. Here you get tab, including solos and in a trio, the percentage of improv in the transcription is very high (probably 80%).

 

[nightsprinter]

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.

That video was fucking ridiculous. No chance I'll ever be able to shred that. Really impressive.

 

[ArtDecade]

Zappa.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

That's really cool that people here are suggesting really technical stuff that isn't metal. I've always been told that I have to play "a bit of everything" and that I have to be open minded and listen to all genres.
But I think that bullshit, when I try something like that, I just lose all interest. Why would I force myself to play something I'm not passionate about?

 

[JSKrev]

Learn some Yes. Steve Howe was amazing.

 

[TheRealMikeD]

That's really cool that people here are suggesting really technical stuff that isn't metal. I've always been told that I have to play "a bit of everything" and that I have to be open minded and listen to all genres.
But I think that bullshit, when I try something like that, I just lose all interest. Why would I force myself to play something I'm not passionate about?

You certainly don't HAVE TO, and if you aren't enjoying it, it's probably not worth it. But I would definitely encourage everyone to at least try playing music that's outside of their normal preferred genres. I always get interesting ideas from seeing how other people play, and I end up incorporating a lot of them into my own music. But the bottom line should be that you enjoy it, at least on some level.

 

[Screamingdaisy]

Jazz (in theory) doesn't need tab since they can (in theory) all read musical notation. Blues is simpler and tends towards chord charts. I'm sure tab is out there, but it's not really necessary once you understand the theory behind it.

Both genres tend towards improv. The idea is it's a musical conversation between musicians, thus not a lot of demand to learn anything note-for-note, particularly in jazz as it that eschews the idea of playing something the same way twice. The idea is that you're supposed to listen to the other musicians around you and react to what they're doing, which you aren't doing if you play a memorized piece of music while treating the band like a click track.

IMO/YMMV

 

[Fenriswolf]

That's really cool that people here are suggesting really technical stuff that isn't metal. I've always been told that I have to play "a bit of everything" and that I have to be open minded and listen to all genres.
But I think that bullshit, when I try something like that, I just lose all interest. Why would I force myself to play something I'm not passionate about?

I mean, I do like I little bit of everything, but this is one of the like most out of my zone technical songs I know. I mean it has vastly improved my playing because of how clean it is, you have to be super precise with your picking and fingering, and there's no gain to hide behind.



But, it's also this song...so my rhythm gets completely fucked trying to speed it up.



because playing it slow, where it sounds right automatic spongebob rhythm, and I'm at this point where it's play everything perfect, and also it's too fast for the spongebob rhythm.

 

[jaxadam]

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.

Now THAT’S how you play guitar.