After watching Guthrie Govan's professor shred lesson, which I wrote about here and this fantastic lesson by Paul Gilbert. It really has struck me that one of the failings in my playing is the ability to say something new and different sometimes. I think we can all fall into a rut of saying the same thing when we are speaking as well, so this isn't just about guitar playing, but in life too. It is also possible to draw on that analogy and look at the similarities between guitar playing and speaking/writing/singing. One thing you could try is to record yourself speaking with a dictaphone or computer etc and then analyse the way you speak and then do the same with your guitar playing. Do you say things the same way? Do you play the same licks, with the same emphasis in similar places, same words, same sentence structure?So what does this have to do with gutar playing you ask?Well, I am starting to think, and this may just be a personal thing, that because when I speak, I tend to say and phrase things similar with in my comfort zone, that this is coming across when I am playing guitar too, so I am trying to slow down, think more about what I am saying and the key...what I want to say and how I want to say it. Then I am applying this to the guitar, trying to say things in a different way, trying to phrase things different, different 'sentence' constructions, different emphasis on different words. And of course, longer words in longer sentences for those shreding moments!!Looking at guitar playing, we could perhaps draw these example analogies

• A shredding lick could be seen as being similar to saying a very long, complex sentence perfect, precise and fast.
• A rock lick could be seen as being similar to saying an exclamation or sentence in a chatty or colloquial way.
• A blues lick could be seen as being similar to saying a chatty, colloquial sentence with emotion.

And so on....If we consider the situation where someone gets some chewing gum in their hair, the following might be examples of the structures described above....

• "There seems to be some chewing gum stuck in my hair, could you please help get it out?" - might be the shred version
• "Aaarrggh arrrrghhhhhh....gum in my head....arrrgh get it f***ing out!!!!!!!" - might be the rock version
• "Damn..... got some gum stuck....stuck in my hair.....get it out will ya" - might be the blues version

Thinking of these sentences and then thinking of how they might sound if you played them on the guitar gives you an idea of where I am coming from. I would recommend trying it perhaps with each of the sentence above and see what they sound like. Then taking that to your playing and seeing if you can say the the same thing, but in a different way, or should I say take the same thing and see if you can play it in a different way.Be interested to hear you comments! Please add them to below!Enjoy!PeaceNeil