accompanying a repeating riff..

[x15]

if your guitar player is being some what of a.....
well anyway..
if your guitar player insists on playing the
same annoying riff
over and over again, what can you possibly
do - aside from refusing to play along with it -
to make it move and give it some direction..
i'm a bit confused about this..
when i'm confronted in a situation like this,
say if the riff is in the key of D.. I end up
playing a riff from the D ionian or the A mixolydian..
but.. it never seems to seem like i'm adding
very much to the equation..
the band seems happy with it.. but i'm really not..
would appreciate any help at all.
cheers.

[SLaPiNFuNK]

Try different pedal notes...

Going to the 3rd of the cord... 5th.... 6th... and back to the root...

you can also always play back at him, and just play the same groove over and over again along with him, or even playing that same groove but changing one note every other time...

D ^D A F# D: D ^F# A F# D: D ^A F# A:

eh?

[x15]

i appreciate it.. i think what i was referring to was pedal notes.. but i didnt know the techinical term.. they seem to
give the music a sense of motion.. could you expand on them a little more?

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by x15

if your guitar player is being some what of a.....
well anyway..
if your guitar player insists on playing the
same annoying riff
over and over again, what can you possibly
do - aside from refusing to play along with it -
to make it move and give it some direction..
i'm a bit confused about this..
when i'm confronted in a situation like this,
say if the riff is in the key of D.. I end up
playing a riff from the D ionian or the A mixolydian..
but.. it never seems to seem like i'm adding
very much to the equation..
the band seems happy with it.. but i'm really not..
would appreciate any help at all.
cheers.

Experiment with creating a counter melody in the bass. If a strong enough it could move his line to being the background line. That will improve the tune or a least wake the guitar player up.

Also if riff is in D Ionian you could try going into the relative and parallel minor to change the flavor of his riff. So moving to B minor or even D minor, but the other chordal instrument will need to go with you and the guitar is left pedaling the riff.

Then time to bring up the arrangement to the band. Nicely say you think its getting repetive what can we do. Just hearing that might do the trick or if others join in maybe a might come up with a new arrangement. No matter what it should be fun to experiment.

[cowsgomoo]

Originally Posted by x15

if your guitar player is being some what of a.....
well anyway..
if your guitar player insists on playing the
same annoying riff
over and over again, what can you possibly
do - aside from refusing to play along with it -
to make it move and give it some direction..
i'm a bit confused about this..
when i'm confronted in a situation like this,
say if the riff is in the key of D.. I end up
playing a riff from the D ionian or the A mixolydian..
but.. it never seems to seem like i'm adding
very much to the equation..
the band seems happy with it.. but i'm really not..
would appreciate any help at all.
cheers.

double it a major 3rd above... if he doesn't get the message try doubling it a flattened 5th above

either that or find a band where rehearsal doesn't involve your guitarist blasting out his fave riffs for hours on end...

jamming is good if everyone's listening & reacting to each other, but a guitarist whose listening skills are as good as his/her finger wiggling skills is a rare guitarist indeed

[moogboy]

this might not work, but here goes: do a sort of 'echo' to the guitar player. what i mean is if, for example, you are playing smoke on the water, you wait until after he hits the first note, and then you play that note, and do that for all of the notes. i have done that with a looper, except i am not that good at syncing up to something perfectly, so it came out as if the bass was echoing the guitar at some points or the other way around. hope that gave you some ideas.