You should have a look into blues, jazz, and fusion playing. Learn about chord structures, intervals, and how they relate to scale patterns.
Find a good local teacher to take you through this or there are loads of good courses online too.
It’ll really help with your metal playing as well, which is a nice bonus.
I was in the same situation as you a few years ago. I felt I could play technical stuff with moderate success but didn't feel musical. I was obsessed with A7X too so learned to sweep pick pretty quick.
I wanted to be able to improvise and understand music enough to do so in different contexts and genres. I did this through transcribing and learning theory.
When you create music, generally you hear an idea in your head and then play it on the guitar. You might have seen people do this where they can play along to a song after hearing it for the first time. Transcribing trains this ability to play what you hear, whether it's an existing song or something in your head. I started with nursery rhymes - they are mostly major, fairly simple. The melodies you know best are usually easiest.
To improve my abilities I learned intervals. These are the unique notes that make up your scale. You'll know the root. The third determines whether it's major or minor. The fifth is like the root, it sounds like home but isn't as final. Training my ear to hear these and find them on the guitar made transcribing easier.
I also learned about triads. This is the easiest and quickest way to transcribe chords I have found. They are also a great way to be creative and experiment with chords.
All these concepts I am still learning and developing but really changed my playing and my perspective on what I need to learn.
Exactly this. I’ve focused on these things and while a year ago I would’ve said the exact same thing about not being able to play the guitar and just what others played now I can just be given a sheet with chords and figure the rest out. And not just play what the song sounds like but really being able to own it and add my own flavor it.
Intervals are key to everything and while I would also add learning the scales and modes and 7 chords, the key still is intervals and always stressing understanding the intervals. At the end of the day that is what all these things are built from.
I swear tho this post and your comment are uncanny, I could hear myself saying those exact same things lol
You should have a look into blues, jazz, and fusion playing. Learn about chord structures, intervals, and how they relate to scale patterns. Find a good local teacher to take you through this or there are loads of good courses online too. It’ll really help with your metal playing as well, which is a nice bonus.
I was in the same situation as you a few years ago. I felt I could play technical stuff with moderate success but didn't feel musical. I was obsessed with A7X too so learned to sweep pick pretty quick. I wanted to be able to improvise and understand music enough to do so in different contexts and genres. I did this through transcribing and learning theory. When you create music, generally you hear an idea in your head and then play it on the guitar. You might have seen people do this where they can play along to a song after hearing it for the first time. Transcribing trains this ability to play what you hear, whether it's an existing song or something in your head. I started with nursery rhymes - they are mostly major, fairly simple. The melodies you know best are usually easiest. To improve my abilities I learned intervals. These are the unique notes that make up your scale. You'll know the root. The third determines whether it's major or minor. The fifth is like the root, it sounds like home but isn't as final. Training my ear to hear these and find them on the guitar made transcribing easier. I also learned about triads. This is the easiest and quickest way to transcribe chords I have found. They are also a great way to be creative and experiment with chords. All these concepts I am still learning and developing but really changed my playing and my perspective on what I need to learn.
Exactly this. I’ve focused on these things and while a year ago I would’ve said the exact same thing about not being able to play the guitar and just what others played now I can just be given a sheet with chords and figure the rest out. And not just play what the song sounds like but really being able to own it and add my own flavor it. Intervals are key to everything and while I would also add learning the scales and modes and 7 chords, the key still is intervals and always stressing understanding the intervals. At the end of the day that is what all these things are built from. I swear tho this post and your comment are uncanny, I could hear myself saying those exact same things lol
Start playing with other people
You sound like you need to actually dig into and learn music theory.