Playing Up and Playing Out, Part 2: Getting out of the Riff Rut

I'm gonna come clean here.  I've been in a Riff Rut for about 20 years.  Most guitar players know what I'm talking about (though they may not be willing to admit it): it's that feeling you get when you know you've been speaking with the same lexicon of riffs and licks and tricks and grooves that you've been using for just this side of forever and the more you listen to what it is you're playing, the more you begin to feel that it ain't you that's talking so much as it is the folks you stole all those riffs and licks and tricks and grooves from over the past 30-odd years or so... 

This wasn't particularly painful for me when I was playing in cover bands, because...well...I was trying to sound like someone else, and it's not much of a problem when I play brass music, or lute music, or when I'm accompanying a singer, mostly because I'm playing someone else's music, and I can put my own spin on it and it feels like an interpretation rather than some kind of forgery.  It's a different feeling entirely when I'm playing my own music, however, which is supposed to be this personal statement of my own artistic voice but what's coming out of my guitar sounds to me as if I decided to rest on my laurels and give up growing as a musician after I learned to play the solo from "Sultans of Swing."  It's easy for me to curse [enter name of favorite "overrated" musician here] for not bothering to learn more than the six or seven riffs upon which he/she has built an entire career...and then I find myself doing much the same thing, but without the benefit of said musician's immense popularity (and/or massive record sales) to get me over my little self-indulgent snit.  It makes me wonder if somebody like Pat Metheny ever goes through this in his mind.  I mean, even though his riff/lick/trick/groove lexicon is vastly more voluminous than mine, he's still playing from a lexicon of riffs and licks and tricks and grooves, and his melodies and arrangements are informed by his influences and experiences and on and on and on, just like me.  Except...better.  I wonder if Pat ever feels as if what he's playing isn't "fresh."  I wonder if Pat ever says, "man, I gotta do me some woodshedding, cuz I am out of ideas!" 

When I'm thinking with a clearer head, the key to the puzzle (at least insofar as climbing the walls of my own Riff Rut is concerned) becomes obvious, and it's a lesson I expect that folks from Chuck Berry to Pat Metheny to Paul Desmond to Bootsy Collins to John Cage to that cat that used to show up at Knut Koupee back in the 80's and beat the snot out of the Marshall stacks have all chosen to embrace at one time or another: you is who you is and you plays what you plays and sometimes all you need is just to let your axe make whatever noise it's going to make. 

It's so tempting to get caught up in that big obsession with always needing to come up with something that's new or something that's different from what everyone else is playing, but forcing that process for the sake of trying to find a unique sound gets me no closer to my "true voice" (whatever the hell that is!) than just sitting in a corner and noodling (and the noodling is usually a lot more fun in the end).  This mindset also just about guarantees that I'm going to be doing all of my performing in the corner rather than out in the world where the music can have a chance to breathe a little bit, simply because self-improvement as a musician is a constantly moving target, and if you think you've got nothing to say, it's damned likely you're not going to want to say it in public.  As a drummer friend of mine puts it, "don't think--play."  Yeah, that's the ticket.

In recent weeks I've had a couple of good opportunities to apply some of that incredibly simple wisdom, and it's given me a lot of peace of mind with regard to my Riff Rut.  Playing a set of goofy pop tunes, fake jazz and acid rockabilly with The Atomic Panic on February 5th was, for me, a joyous reminder of why it is that I wanted to play the guitar in the first place, and why some of those riffs and licks and tricks and grooves that I appropriated back in my less self-conscious youth appealed to me enough that I wanted to add them to my riff lexicon.  Moreover, all forms of music have their particular lexicon of techniques, ornaments and so on, and if you're playing rock and roll, you're gonna play some power chords and you're gonna bend some strings and you're gonna do some pick slides, just like the Baroque cats are gonna play some trills, mordents and appoggiaturas.  Heck, when you think about it, symphony orchestras are really just big, highly educated, really well-paid cover bands, but that's a whole other slippery slope I'm not gonna get onto right now...

Just this past Saturday, four musician friends of mine joined me at the Secret Underground Laboratory for a three hour jam of experimental/improvisational music, which turned out to be an absolute eye- (and ear-) opener for me, both in terms of the quality of the music happening and my perspective on my Riff Rut.  Whereas I'm good friends with all of the folks involved and I know that we're all competent musicians, there was still some risk involved--getting together to make unscripted music and "just see what happens" invites the danger that "what happens" might be something no one likes or, worse yet, that "what happens" will be...nothing.

Fortunately, neither of those things occurred and we had a damned fine time making music that had nothing to do with endless I IV V blues jams, wooshy-gooshy newagey cloud music, or sludgy pots-n-pans banging (all of which, incidentally, have their appeal for me under the right circumstances).  There was...space...in the room (aurally, not physically--the S.U.L. is a tiny place indeed) and everyone had something to say that contributed to the whole.  I wish I had recorded it, but I'm just glad I was present for it, and I can't wait to do it again...hopefully sometime in public.

Both of these experiences helped me to take a different view of my riff/lick/trick/groove lexicon and see it for what it really is: a toolbox of sounds, phrases, and techniques that I've taken decades to assemble, some of which I use often, some of which haven't seen the light of day for years, some of which have very specialized applications, but all of which have validity given the proper musical context.  This is true of every musician at every level and it puts perspective both on my perception of my own performances as well as the performances of others (man, I love those student piano and cello recitals!).  The best way, it seems, for me to get out of my perceived musical rut has been to stop looking at it as a rut, seeing it instead as a track leading all the way back to the first time I tried to make cool noises with a musical instrument, and realize that the track leads forward as well as back; as long as I keep playing--out, up or noodling in the corner--I will continue to grow. That's really all any musician can ask for.  Well, that and the massive album sales, huge metro radio saturation, groupies, roadies, parties, million dollar guitar collections, multiple homes, endless nights touring, lawsuits, unflattering photos in the tabloids, stalkers...

Ummmm...I think I'll go practice my euphonium now.

Until next time, keep your strings clean, don't defeat the ground, and...be excellent to yourselves!

Rick