It will have been noticed that since I got my xbox there has been a distinct lack of updates here at cm.com. Hey, what can I say? I’m a gamer at heart.
One side-effect of this has been a mildly alarming ache in the centre of my right wrist, running about halfway up to the elbow. Now I type and use a mouse continuously on my work, and my two hobbies are gaming and guitar, and all three of these activities are pretty intensive on the wrists and hands, but this is a new development, so I’m blaming the xbox controller at this time.
In a bid to ascertain whether this is in fact the case, I’m laying off the games for a few days, and that has led to a very interesting development, namely time and inspiration to work on my instrumental music. Wowsers!
So it came to pass that last night I finally cracked the complete block I’ve had on a certain song for almost 4 years. The first new song I started seriously putting together towards a second album was – and is – entitled “Gunslinger”, inspired by Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series of books, and the backing for it came together easily back in 2004 or so. It was a heavy fast song (200 bpm in fact, I kid you not), with the main riff down low on the 7-string. But got the life of me I just could not find or hear a melody I liked… until last night.
I think my main problem was the key. The intro riff, which is also the chorus riff, dictated a key of D# minor, which as any fule kno, has 6 sharps. Not a comfortable key for me at all. However at some point last year I had a brainwave about this – I tuned the 7-string to Drop A tuning (AEADGBE) and redid all the backing guitars a whole tone lower. Voilà! The key dropped to C# minor, the relative of E major, only 4 sharps and a much more natural key to play in.
Nothing sprang forth, however, until I programmed the riff into Guitar Pro and started writing in there without even a guitar on my hands. I suddenly found myself much more able to come up with genuine new melodies rather than trotting out the same old clichés that habitually fall from my fingers.
Just goes to show… something.
Probably.
–c.
An excellent idea using GP to come up with ideas
Makes you think outside of the box. I must try that 
On that, it's working out amazingly. On the downside, I'm writing things I can't quite play. But it's great for making me avoid the same old licks! I shall be using this approach a lot from now on, methinks.