The 3 Mistakes You Make That Hurt Your Guitar Playing Creativity

Becoming a more creative guitarist takes practice like anything else on guitar. It also requires avoiding common mistakes that stop you from improving your musical creativity.

Below are common mistakes prevent guitarists from improving their guitar playing creativity. Your creativity improves when you know how to avoid them:

Mistake #1. Focusing On Learning A Bunch Of Licks By Other Guitar Players

On the surface, this seems like a good idea. Many guitarists think this is the best way to play as creatively as their favorite guitarist. However, memorizing a bunch of guitar licks by your favorite players achieves the opposite effect. You are more likely to rely on repeating the same licks over and over rather than actively think in a creative manner while improvising or making your own lead guitar licks. This prevents you from learning how to be more creative.

Mistake #2. Trying To Learn Lots And Lots Of Scales

It’s a common misunderstanding that learning tons of new scales makes you a more creative guitarist. You’re much more likely to become overwhelmed and frustrated by doing this. Learning scales is entirely different than learning how to play creatively. Adding more and more scales to your vocabulary does not suddenly give you an understanding of how to use them in a musical manner.

It’s much more productive to learn how to play what you already know as creatively as possible. Once you understand how to play creatively with the scales you already know, you can apply this knowledge to anything else you learn.

Mistake #3. Learning Music Theory Or Guitar Techniques But Never Integrating Skills Together

Some guitarists focus all their efforts into learning how music works or developing the best technique. It’s common for these types of players to neglect practicing integrating their skills together. When you neglect this, you are unable to creatively use the skills you’ve developed in actual music. For example, many guitarists have excellent technical playing skills but a total inability to create good musical phrases. This leaves you frustrated because you’ve worked so hard in your guitar playing but can’t play anything musical because you lack the creativity to do so.

Learn how to fix these mistakes and become more creative by reading this article on how to create guitar licks.