Young people can’t do anything else but be creative

I have seen a lot of guitar players that play rock, blues or jazz having not so good opinions about alternative music bands, nu metal, etc. The fact is that I had myself my share of fast judgment related to some bands and honestly I feel bad for kind of rushing into judging them. Now, after this small mea culpa, let me tell you the point of this post: we work since a few days a song that is new and at the same time, old, meaning that it has been composed about 4-5 years ago, has been played a few times, but then kind of forgotten. Now we try to bring new life to it.

The fact is that we used to refer to this song by the name Rolling, as in Limp Bizkit’ Rolling due to drum line. Now, when I started playing the guitar line, I realized I need something new, some new approach, to match the drums and the bass line. Everything must sound new, I need some strange sounds, some interesting chords to dress up a very simple progression, Em, C, D…

I have started to listen Limp Bizkit, Korn, Guano Apes to see how they do it and what makes them sound the way they do. Beside the over processed guitar, in most cases, the chords use some interesting forms and turns, that, again, don’t come naturally to me, but surely provoke me.

I have come up with something that IMO sounds as it should, but I kept on thinking about this.

Actually, modern music, nu metal, alternative music, all these are not simple to create, despite what an experienced guitar player might think at a first glance. I am sure that if you are used to play pentatonic scales, blues and fast solos, you might face a problem trying to put up a simple alternative song, because your brain doesn’t think that way.

The fact is that I was listening yesterday, I think, something on YT, but I don’t remember where or what, I just remember what the guy said: “they don’t have the experience, so young people can not do anything else but being creative!”

I can’t help thinking about Metallica and that album that changed their musical direction a few years ago, I presume it was not easy for them to be creative on a new musical direction, preserving at the same time their branded sound.

So, let’s do the following exercise and then come back and comment here: listen one of the new bands that you hear these days (I don’t speak about Blink 182, OK?), take Guano apes or Korn and try to come up with a few riffs that match their music. Put yourself in the place of their guitar player and try to enrich the song.

Well, do you still think it is easy? The interesting part is that it is not about technical knowledge, even if a good chords theory helps a lot, but it is about creativity and breaking new grounds! And if you think at one moment that if it is just about power chords, listen carefully again

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