I still feel like I am in high school

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No, I don’t ride the bus anymore nor do I have to eat cafeteria food and take mandatory classes anymore but on other levels, I still feel like I am in high school.

I am still surrounded by guys who obsess about football, cars as well as trucks, smoking, drinking, getting in fights, and blasting pop country or rap music depending on the demographic. I feel alone because no one is interested in history, dinosaurs, science fiction, and rock music the way I am and I feel sick due to suffering from sleep apnea, underdeveloped muscles, fat hanging off the worst areas of my body, and the heat is making it worse. I am made fun of for my physical attributes and even assumed to be gay. I try to work out in PE but my body doesn’t respond to my efforts. My body odor is also strong because I am allergic to antiperspirants and can’t wear sports deodorant. I am also “nose blind” so I can’t smell my stink but others can.

The girls love the bad boys who yell at them and physically harass them in various ways while they snarl me off when I try to approach them. Most of them call the music I like “Satanic” or “noise”, even if it’s something like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I hope being nice and a “gentleman” as I was told to be will get me a girlfriend but it doesn’t work out. One girl even tells me to close my arm because my pit stinks. I see the girls also caressing and cuddling with other guys but I am left out.

I have a guitar because I want to play in a band for a living but few share my passion for rock music and even though I am taking lessons, I can’t play a single song. There are some guys who are getting a band going and I talk to them about joining but they essentially make me an understudy except I never get to actually cover for anyone.

My older brother gets more attention than I do and the girls are telling me things like “Your brother is so hot!”. Others sometimes confuse me for him and it frustrates me. He always has a girlfriend while I don’t. My mother is doing everything for him such as giving him a personal phone, vehicles he wants, and planning for him to go to A&M.

I go home alone while everyone else goes to a party. My older brother will throw some but I can’t join in since I am shy, don’t drink, don’t smoke, suck at the guitar, and I am ignored for the most part. I have online friends but they are doing more than I am and some are moving on from me. I have an unrequited love spell with one who always has a new boyfriend every few months and she cuts contact with me.

Even back in high school, I had people hating me and not wanting me to improve just like my detractors do.

I thought you said you can play that Black Flag song?

Can you compose two or three riffs with similar level of complexity that you can play?

I wish I hada recorded all the riffs I came up with I didn't think were good enough because they were too simple.

Literally the entire trick to writing several riffs for the same song is to just reuse the same few chords in different patterns, sometimes varying the length of the riffs or the pace depending on the genre. If I figured this out 12 years ago I wouldn't have given up at guitar and I wouldn't be struggling to make up all the ability I lost by not playing for ages. I gotta ignore how much I suck now to keep from getting discouraged because I can't get better if I give up.

Are you able to play along to a drum beat? Every time I don't have ideas to play around with I've started just playing two or three chord progressions along with a drum loop. With a little bit of understanding of how scales work I've started to know how to build the next riff even if it includes other chords than the ones I used in the first one.

I don't know what tuning you like, but considering only the lowest string:

0 1 3 5 6 7 9 11 12

Use the power chords of those notes and higher octave variations.

Repeat the same shapes in other directions:

Say if you play 0 - 3 - 5, 7 - 9 - 12 or 7 - 9 - 0 might be a good way to follow since it imitates the same intervals but in reverse. Then try all the other variations, then start putting chunks of them together. Something like 9 - 3 might sound good but be easier to play on the A string instead of moving your left hand back and forth.

Do you know how to use pedal notes? That's where you use one note over and over again with some sort of motion against that pattern, like a stereotypical Slayer riff that plays a pattern of chords against a bunch of chugging on the open low E string. Riffs like that can be a nice contrast against a few power chord driven riffs, if they deliver the feel you're after.

Don't stick to the positions I named, those are just what I like. Build some other combination that sounds good to your ears. If you record yourself as you play through and just kinda stick to one set of chords you'll end up with more riffs than you'll know what to do with.