Hello, I’m Tom’s guitar. As Tom doesn’t seem likely to write a post this weekend, I thought I would instead.
The big problem Tom has at the moment is he keeps repeating himself.
1. He’s got a thing about chords from the lydian mode. In particular, he keeps on using chords like this:
_0__
_0__
_3__
_2__
_2__
_0__
or this:
_0__
_0__
_3__
_4__
_4__
_2__
I think it comes from his listening to far too much heavy metal, which emphasises Es and B flats. He’s taking that and adding it to a major key flavour, and he seems to be doing it every song.
If it isn’t that, he’s always making use of diminished chords and minor third relationships – Am to Cm, Bm and Dm, Bdim to Ddim and so on. I don’t mind either the lydian chords or the minor third related chords, but in every song? What’s wrong with strumming out a few simple open chord shapes every now and then?
2. Pace and groove - there hasn’t been a lot of variety in the tempo of the songs he’s been writing lately. He’s sticking to mid tempo, and just messing around with silly time signatures. The last song he recorded with me had 6/8, 11/8, 13/8 and 4/4 time signatures. What’s wrong with just playing a fast 4/4? What’s wrong with the sort of groove you can nod your head to?
He’s trying his best, I know, but as a guitar what I really crave is variety. A bit of fingerstyle, a few blues chords, something jazzy, something new!
What about you? Are you boring your instrument? If you find your guitar going out of tune more often, your piano keys sticking, your music software crashing, maybe it’s because we’ve had enough of the same thing.
Songwriters, please – Learn something new!
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