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:

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or this:

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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!