The rut zone

After a week or two of moaning I managed to dig my way out of my rut.  I finally managed to come up with a few riffs I actually liked!! although its not much its enough to give me a bit of motivation.
I had go at a rut busting workout that constrained you to work in a four fret area.  I found that the article assumed you had a lot of knowledge of music theory and chord sequences, that didn't amount to anything  because I was overcritical and had forgotten a lot of theory.  Theory is good up to a point but once you are playing you don't tend to think of things too much in terms or which interval in a scale your playing, well I don't anyway!  especially when I'm pummelling out power chords!

I found these things a helped me:

• Just play as much as you feel like and not try to force anything.
• Accept what you come with as valid music don't disregard everything.
• Try to get what you come up with recorded, do an overdub or two, this helps you get things consistent.
  
• Get some drums beating away first, this helps form the basic rhythm and helps you on the way.  Finding the right drum patterns is another matter I seem to struggle with this but Ill save that discussion for another time...

I tend to come up with a riff and work with it for about 5 minutes them disregard it as something I don't like or not the style I was going for. To be honest anything you come up with may be potentially useful, you tend to be over critical and once you have bass, guitar, drums and melody things start to make more sense, you need to get top that point before you can make a proper judgement, even then a second opinion is wise.

I suppose a lot of this is obvious but is often forgotten when your in the rut zone...