breaking a jamming rut

[Ryan Smith]

Lately I feel like I've become stuck doing the same little pentatonic stoner rock riffage whenever i get in a jam with my friends/bands. Its not that I have any problem with it, but I just get stuck doing constantly repeating riffs that all vaguely resemble one another. I've been thinking of just learning a lot more tunes by ear and trying to get more of a feel for hearing patterns in the music rather than just learning scales, because i tend to play them a little too much like the literal scale sometimes. Has anyone else had problems like this and what did you do spice up your jams again?

[ghiadub]

Try running somthing melodic over a few key changes.
When you are "peaking", run the riff up a whole step and re-establish the riff.
Communicate dynamics - visually or verbally
Learn a song in the direction you would like to go into

[WildTrkey]

I am kind of in the same boat as the OP. I find myself not really stepping out melodically but rather repeating a riff...kind of like an extension of the drums or something.

[fearceol]

Listen to some different types of music, maybe some jazz and blues. I'm learning walking bass lines at present. I would not be advanced enough yet to play jazz, but I find the walking bass lines help to open up new ideas for me. A band I love to play along to, while a bit advanced, is "Steely Dan". Plenty of great and non repetitive bass lines in their music.