Anyone feel limited by guitar?

[Wendigo]

First off let me say that I'm not tired of guitar playing. I love it and play every day all day long. I'm just starting to notice that maybe my creativity needs to move on to other things. I've been messing with electronic, pc based music lately (NOT cheap techno or dance, real electronic) and it's like a world of possibilities has opened up where guitar doesn't really fit in. Anyone else experiencing something like this?

[Gray]

I play the piano and harmonica in addidition to the guitar, you don't have to sacrifice one to learn another. You're only as limited as you allow yourself to be.

[Jondog]

You can do whatever you want.

[Les Paul Lover]

The beauty and limitation of guitar comes from the 6 strings being tuned in relation to each other. This brings about beautiful interaction within what is a fairly narrow range of 5 half toned octaves.

I read an interview of matt bellamy in which he was saying that he composed most of his guitar parts on a piano, and then transposed them to the guitar. He was saying he liked the flat octave approach you get on a piano, whereas on a guitar, your approach to the octave is dictated by your tuning.
He was saying that it was a challenge when adapting them to respect the original piano melody/rhythm as the shapes can be really odd on guitar.


But you're totally right playing around with different instruments and sounds can only broaden your horizon.

[Thinline_slim]

Very much agree. I can fake a piano part on a recording, play guitar and bass and some harmonica convincingly and even some lapsteel and I've even played a mandolin live but it's all still very limiting to me.

Not that I really have a ton of things to say musically but I get very much caught up in what I call "the sonic sound-scape" of music. I know that sounds completely crazy/stupid but I get tired of guitar/bass/drum music (live) pretty quickly since the sound-scape is limited in the timber of it all. Throw in some keys, some horns, a fiddle/violin, acoustic and to me that makes it interesting.

Where I'm completely limited though is on the drums. So much in fact it's pretty frustrating. I really wish I had far more experience with drums than I do right now. I really missed that early life (14-18 y/o)experimentation outside of classical based music since I didn't pickup a guitar until I was 19.

[Boy_Narf]

Go pick up a fret-less guitar! That should keep things interesting.

[everdrone]

I branched out to bass and guitar and vocals, and its way easier to get in a gigging band if you play bass so I do that. vocals are really really hard for me so I only dabble in that. get lessons first on that stuff so you get your technique right! cheers

[Eddie Famine]

I don't think I am limited by the guitar as much as it is limited by me. When I do feel like that I listen to Robert Fripp or Glen Branca or Leo Kotke or Blind Lemon Jefferson or Junior Brown or a host of youtube slapping/tapping phenoms.
The only limits are self imposed.

[basshole]

Aside from singing and playing the guitar, i'm quite fluent in drums, bass and piano.
Songwriting wize that's quite a blessing, but it makes me pretty much a musical decathlon-ist(?) which means i'm a jack of many trades but not really really good at playing any of aforementioned instruments.

But i wouldn't really like it the other way around.

[nlimbaugh]

Unless you start playing full on at like 12, I think it's quite challenging to ever get really really good, but that doesn't buy a killer good riff. I

[Wendigo]

I should probably clear up my original post. I don't feel as though I'm limited on the guitar ie. by technical ability or creativity. I just feel that I can already do everything that the guitar is capable of (ok excluding maybe extreme shredding like Paul Gilbert or something). I can play anything, I can be creative/expressive to no end, but at the end of the day, it's still an instrument and will always be a guitar. Even if I run out and grab some ridiculous effects or a guitar-synth it's still a guitar. I think maybe I'm tired of the lack of precision (no matter how good the player) inherent in all "natural" instruments, as well as maybe the possible "soundscape" available. I guess to sum it up, all normal instruments like bass, drums, guitar, keys and all of the orchestral instruments and sitars, koto, etc etc etc have me bored sh!tless. What is wrong with me?

[Les Paul Lover]

Time to put it down for 2 or 3 weeks.


Funnily enough, you never complained of being bored of your guitar playing until you swapped (heretic!!!!) your Rockerverb for the Vintage Modern.......


Seriously, nothing like a little break to get back to it with loads of fresh inpiration!!

[OrangePaul]

Maybe you need to take some time out...listen to some Nine Inch Nails or something and then come back when you're done

[sidvicious]

take up pot and whiskey.

[msmith4432]

I don't think I am limited by the guitar as much as it is limited by me. When I do feel like that I listen to Robert Fripp or Glen Branca or Leo Kotke or Blind Lemon Jefferson or Junior Brown or a host of youtube slapping/tapping phenoms.
The only limits are self imposed.

True, the thing about Guitar is wherever you are at you have only scratched the surface. That goes from the beginner all the way to the guy who has been playing 20 years and is a virtuoso. That being said I have played with the idea of messing with the piano just because it would be nice to al least be proficient in the major and minor chords, but guitar is not limiting, we simply need to break out of our rut and we will find the soaring winds of growth propelling us to new things on the neck we have never seen before and a new set of sounds and options explode from our finger tips.