I just can't write anything anymore. Not a single thing without it sounding like some other lick I know. I tried going through Vai's Martian Love Secrets really hard, but it just doesn't help. When I try to play a chord that brings out an emotion, I play a chord that I've heard before that brings out that emotion. Any time I try to write a song and I think I have something original, I'll hear where I've stolen it from a day, a week, or even a month later. I may hear a song on the radio, just on the street that I absolutely pay no attention to and more or less forget it, but when I try to sit down and write something, parts of these songs I just totally forget about come back to me, and I can't break out of their patterns. As soon as I play a chord and it sounds good to me, it's from another song, and when I think it is something original when in fact it's not, I structure all the other chords around the song, and it ends up sounding cliche. I just can't do anything *original* anymore no matter what I do. I learn new scales, new chords, but that's all they are...scales and chords. I just can't be original like I used to be. Any help?
I know this is kind of hard to understand, but it's a weird problem. I just can't break free of stuff I've heard before no matter what I do!
