How to get out of a guitar playing slump

[jgibb]

So recently I've noticed how terrible my soloing and improvising is. It sounds like the same exact thing and very choppy. I'm trying to learning a lot of scales and am spending my time memorizing those. I need help. What would you guys suggest?

[Poster]

download a bunch of DVD concerts off itunes or something, slow them down in VLC player, play along.

get a new instructor, ask for credentials of course, but just make a craigslist add, there are great classically trained instructors for cheap everywhere. my new teacher is really weird cool, i like um.

[fulltone1989]

Definitely getting some videos and sitting down and playing along helped me out a lot - hearing is one thing but being able to actually see how it is done is very useful

[dabomb]

I posed this same question in an email to chuck Garvey of moe. a few years back. He suggested:

- rotating your gear. New sounds can lead to new musical thoughts
- take a break. Don't play and don't listen to anything for a few days.

[Stecks]

I've got a bajillion ways to do this.... I prefer to think of these periods as "plateaus" instead of "slumps"

1.  Take a few days off.  Go for a long run.  Do something creative COMPLETELY away from your guitar
2.  Learn the shit out of a scale you NEVER play
3.  Practice playing bluegrass riffs over something nutty like a Motorhead tune.  Or some Buckethead lines over Punch Brothers.  etc. etc. etc.
4.  Go back to just practicing scales, chord inversions, etc..  Sit your your ass down with a metronome with no preconceived ideas of what you want to do, and just let it come out of your body naturally like how a songbird greets the morning, or an after-sex fart
5.  Start learning solos from non-guitarists....  Arturo Sandoval.  Learn latin jazz.
6.  Buy a Real Book
7.  If you aren't playing with other people - START.  Music is like fucking - the more the merrier. 
8.  Play with different people
9.  And when all else fails... just shut the fuck up, quit being a whiney bitch, and JUST FUCKING PLAY.  Don't be bullshitting, either.  You might die tomorrow.

Make each note count.

[Stecks]

One other thing I'll add.....

Something you can ALWAYS control is your ATTITUDE.  If you want to be good at anything, you have to do it when you don't feel like doing it.  Bruce Lee used to envision all of his negative thoughts on a piece of paper, then lighting it aflame.  Do the same with your playing.  Muscle through.  When you play something that sounds totally WRONG - do it again - but this time, play it like you MEANT to play it all along.

Know your strengths.   Know your limits.  Use them to your advantage.  Push them.   The only limits to your playing ability are self-imposed.  You may never sound like Trey, or John McLaughlin, or Mike Stern or even your little sister - but you might end up sounding like YOURSELF, which is 1,000 times cooler than sounding like any of the aforementioned artists. 

(and play with a metronome)