Today I hit upon a brilliant new way of writing riffs for my songs. I have a ukelele from Hawaii (got it on holiday many years ago) which is horribly out of tune. What this means is I can pick it up, put my fingers in random places and come up with things I would never even think of on a guitar. Then, I pick up the guitar, find where the notes are (or where they are closest to) and play the riff out on guitar. Viola, a riff.

Which got me thinking, do any of you guys have alternate ways of writing riffs (or even chord progressions) for guitar?

Similar technique.Usually on keyboard or guitar. Just try to put my fingers into places where I wouldn't go naturally.
Also varying the strumming or picking pattern can completely change an idea.

You can do the same type of thing by de-tuning your guitar

I always prefer to 'see' the notes in front of me when I'm writing, or at least for my hands to know where the notes are. I always have some idea or pattern or whatever or where I'm going so when I know what things are tuned to, I can just let myself be guided through it...

But, if I want something different or to have a different perspective on things then different tunings is great. I might turn to the mandolin (E A D G) and my acoustic is tuned to open D most of the time at the moment, plus I'll hopefully soon be getting a mountain dulcimer which is another flavour to play with

If it works for you though, thats great the best sounds come when you break 'the rules' (there are no rules). I just always like to know where it is that my fingers are going (ahem...)

I also wrote some cool riffs by playing around with harmonics, finding out what notes I'm playing and then playing them regularly. Or by telling yourself you're gonna use something rythmic (like slapping the strings on the 4th beat only or stuff like that) to come up with something new. Ben Howard wrote some cool guitar parts in my opinion. Songs like "Everything"(!), "The Fear", "The Wolves" and "Old Pine".