Learning to jam

Hi, I'm having trouble learning to jam and more specifically sounding good while doing it.

I would call myself an intermediate guitarist and me and my bandmates are starting to think about making our own metal music. In the meantime I'm trying to improve my creative skills, but I'm having trouble with it. I know it won't happen overnight but it feels like I'm not making meaningful progress.

I've tried jamming to backing tracks like from Wikiloops but when I do I just end up defaulting to some dumb and dull sounding guitar playing. Any tips?

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If you call your own playing dumb and dull (which I'm sure it's not) it means that you're benchmarking it against something that's not dumb and dull. So why don't you start with experimenting a bit?

Also, listen to some of the adds from fellow wikiloopers and try to understand what it is they are doing. I've found that to be extremely helpful when I'm bored by my own stuff.

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Yea, I've tried analysing some songs that I like, but I feel like i didn't take anything away from doing that. Maybe that's what I'm missing.

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First of all, welcome to Wikiloops :) Listen, it is hard to know what is going on without hearing your playing, so I would suggest you make a remix of your playing, and let us hear it. We are often the hardest critics of our own music... maybe it is not as bad as you think? Let's hear it.
Plus, some people are not that good with improvising, they are better at interpreting existing music. For instant concert pianists don't improvise, they play note by note what has been composed, but their tone and touch and feeling make it special. And that does not mean theiy are bad musicians, on the contrary.

But you came to the right place, choose a track, play with it and upload it, we will have a listen and give you some positive feedback :)

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Learn some improvising scales. Figure out the key & go at it. There's books on it but now you may find it free online.

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Wdym by improvising scales? I can kind of go around the fretboard in C major if I don't do big leaps so I would say I kiind of know the C major scale. What books are there on improvising? Maybe they will be helpful

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Improvising Rock Guitar (Green Note Music Publications)
Fingerboard Chart for Guitar
(By Ronny Lee)

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Damn I started remixing a backing track and it's really fun!!!

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You said the magic word: Fun!! :W Because that's what its all about, especially at Wikiloops. Trust me when I say that if you keep at it, recording, mixing and uploading you will learn so much, not just about playing but the technical side of it, too.

When I started here, I knew how to play guitar, and I've been listening to music for decades. Many decades!! I am old :D . However, once I started to get involved with mixing, I discovered that when I listen to music now, I notices far more interesting things I never "heard" before in a track.

So let it rip :o:D

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Bro, you've jammed to some of my tracks and it was awesome! I look forward to jamming in the future with you. Don't be so hard on yourself! For years I've thought I downright sucked!That's just part of being a musician I guess. We strive to be better but don't stop to realize how far we've really come. I don't find your work dull or dumb. You're on fire ! Now let everyone bask in your light! Burn em down!

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