Hey guys.. I need some help/support.
I've had almost no formal training (a couple of private lessons but that's all), but I have come a pretty long way by myself. I'm somewhat happy with my guitarplaying when it comes to metal, but here's the thing: I pretty much can't play anything else.
What I mean with this, is it's very easy for me to learn new songs in my style, I can somewhat easily improvise riffs and melodies that are metal.
But I can't pick up an acoustic guitar at someone and play a complete song.
I can't come up with decent rock riffs a la van halen, mr big or extreme.
I can't play anything - is what it feels like.
My lead playing is probably way better than my rhythm playing, because I started in that end when first picking up the guitar. The last 2 years or so I really started paying more attention to tight rhythm and I have become much better - when playing metal.
I wonder if anyone here has any tips on what I could do to step out of my comfort zone and start becoming more comfortable as a "real" guitarist.
One goal I have set it up is to _really_ learn the notes all over the fretboard, and get more comfortable with playing major scales (damn metal minor scales!). I want to be able to dabble in many styles of music.
I feel my weakest points are these:
Chord knowledge (sure, I know my powerchords, 3rds, 5ths etc, but "real" chords)
Rhythms that doesn't use a pedalnote or even lots of palmmuting.
Coming up with chordprogressions on the fly that aren't in the key of E or A
Freestyling fills like Jake E lee or any of the blues gods.
Different rhythm styles
I don't know where to start or even how to approach any of these problems. Any tips?