This is odd... or is it?

Fuengi

Alright, just picked up last night a new Tele style (will post pics & details elsewhere) on loan / first dibs from a colleague. Plugged it in and played it this moring noodling away in Am on the looper, lovely.

However, suddenly I'm playing completely different phrasing, putting toether different note sequences, double stops & rakes. All of which i've learnt, but few not natually put together like this.

The two electrics I own and use daily are ones I pretty much learnt on. Every time I pick them up it's familiar, but so are the notes and phrasing, same old, same old.

I've heard people talk about guitars that inpire you to play, and that could be it. I'm wondering if the guitars I began playing on are keeping me stuck in a rut?

Would be nice to break of of that rut, is new gear always the answer though?    

TheBlueWolf

New gear is *always* the answer lol

On a serious note, maybe your playing had got in a rut and a new axe to play with encouraged you to try something new? Unless I make an effort to learn something I just end up chugging on power chords all night. Please upload some pictures though

Sambostar

It's not the gear, it's the tone, tone can pull unlimited amounts of latent unknown talent reserves that are already in their heads out of people. 

Bad tone and you struggle to even play a note.  

Of course good tone comes from a strong fingered, decent technique, but it also comes from decent stock instruments, pickups and amps.  You had this in your head all along, the guitar put materialized it for you.

I find the same sort of thing, I can't get into playing Angus with a 25.5" scaled Charvel and a top mounted floating trem, just can't do it, doesn't sound right,  I can't get into Lynch with a Tuneomatic bridged 24 3/4" scaled BC Rich, I can't do Jimi with humbuckers and prefer a 7.25" radiused Strat for it and I completely struggle at all to get anything at all out of the Jackson SL3 with the recessed floating trem, even though it is an excellent guitar, the neck is too thin and it's light, push buttton jumbo frets seem sterile to me. I also hate pedals and effects, don't use reverb and only play everything from hair metal to jimi on the green channel of the DSL50.  It's all about tone.

Of course I can play mix and match but it feels forced, doesn't sound right and it doesn't inspire me to lose myself and build on it.  So yeah I reckon it's definitely the guitar, although it started in your head

Fuengi

Tone! Yeah, the tone is certainly inspiring. 

 I'll crack off some snaps and upload.

Roland

A new guitar brings all sorts of inspiration: tone, responsiveness, and just novelty. Beyond this, I've always found a Tele hangs differently on its strap compared with many other guitars. It causes me to use a different hand position, which changes my playing.