THE TAO OF BADASS GUITAR HOW TO UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL AND AVOID SOUNDING LIKE ASS BY BEN HIGGINS Copyright © 2016, 2017 by Ben Higgins Cover art © 2017 Tristan Greatrex DEDICATION: To Prometheus for the knowledge, Thor for the courage and Apollo for the inspiration TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION JUST STOP YOURSELF FEAR VERSUS DISCIPLINE TRIAL BY FIRE GOING ALL IN DIG THE WELL PLAY ONE NOTE ADJUST TO TASTE NO WRONG NOTES AFTERWORD ABOUT THE AUTHOR INTRODUCTION This is not a book full of lick ideas and exercises It’s not a technical ‘how to’ manual My intention was to give back to people something that we often lack or something that we once possessed but lost along the way As you dedicate yourself to learning the guitar, you’ll be beset by doubts, frustration and envy And that’s on the good days The temptation throughout all the challenges you face is to direct your focus outwards and to let your gaze fall on to what others are doing If you fixate your attention on them you might pick up some of that magic for yourself And it’s true, it does happen We all learn by observing the world around us But sometimes we forget to come back and recognise what we already have Take advice where you can get it Try anything and see if it works But ultimately, there is one thing I’d like to try and give to any guitarist or musician that is more valuable than any fancy lick or piece of expensive gear Faith in yourself Your mind, your body, your heart and your soul cannot tell somebody else’s story The only story it can tell is yours if you will let it Embrace your nuances and idiosyncrasies and you’ll discover that, as long as you follow your own path, there are no wrong notes Ben Higgins December 2016 JUST STOP YOURSELF I’m often asked how to do something This can be anything from ‘How do I write solos?’ to ‘How can I get my hands working in synchronisation?’ At the risk of sounding like some smug, self-righteous, guitar playing Zen Asshole, the answer to these questions can be found in the questions themselves ‘How do I write solos?’ Answer – ‘Write solos.’ ‘How do I get my picking hand and fretting hand to work together?’ Answer – ‘Make them work together.’ If I was a complete asshole (and I try not to be) I could just end this book right there It’s a bit like alchemy; everything you need to know could be written on the side of an emerald tablet, or so the legend goes But quite frankly, such a laconic teaching method really wouldn’t do You’ve parted with some money for this book (unless you’re an asshole too) so I’m not going to short change you Not just yet I’ll keep stringing you along for a little while longer That wasn’t a bad attempt at a pun either; it just flowed naturally, like the clear spring waters of enlightenment over the rocky terrain of life Yep, that was something an asshole would say Anyway, what I’m saying is that I wouldn’t be so mean as to throw you a terse statement masquerading as teaching advice and then bugger off into the night, cackling like a madman However, do be prepared to accept some black and white ideas that, in my opinion, help to cut through the fog of indecision and help you to actually start making some progress So, to refer back to the title of this chapter, I want to draw your attention to the idea that knowing what to stop doing is just as useful as knowing what to do Let’s say you have an issue with playing the same licks over and over again You’re bored of the way you sound and you want to start adopting some new licks Every time you pick up your guitar your hands soon start finding those familiar grooves and niches and before you know it, you’re hitting those same pentatonic licks that sound like a half assed pub guitarist that’s had too many lagers to numb the pain of playing ‘Mustang Sally’ for the five hundredth time Before we go any further, there’s nothing wrong with being a pub guitarist and there’s nothing wrong with ‘Mustang Sally’ either But I’m going to use ‘humorous’ imagery and analogies throughout so you’d better accept it or decide here and now that you’re going to delete my book, demand a refund and tell everybody you know what a big cock brain I am and that they shouldn’t ever buy my crappy excuse for a book That’s fine But you’ll never be able to quell that annoying little voice that keeps pestering you at night saying ‘But what if that book had all the answers? Maybe we were too hasty in deleting it Maybe we’ll never get better at guitar now and then we’ll get old and die and it would all have been for nothing If only I hadn’t given up on the book!’ Righto So you’ve picked up your guitar and you’ve fallen into your usual licks and moves How do you stop doing this? You’re beginning to see where this is going, right? Guess what the answer is You’ve got it Answer – ‘Just stop doing it.’ In order to realise that you’re going into autopilot and plinking around aimlessly, you have to have the awareness of what you’re doing Selfawareness is absolutely your friend in all of this How can you correct something when you don’t know that you’re doing anything ‘wrong’ per se? That’s where self-awareness comes in Once you’re aware that you’re noodling around you can stop yourself However, stopping yourself can be hard to do Why? Because this takes discipline It’s much easier to stay as you are, noodling away into oblivion Much easier than taking control and redirecting your energies into something else But this is where I invite you to exercise some discipline and physically stop yourself Stop playing Keep your hands still and take stock of the situation Done that? Good Now, tell yourself to play something different I don’t care how you do it but physically and mentally force yourself to play a combination of notes that is completely new to you And don’t go back to that box position I just saw you about to do it Stop! Have some goddamn self-discipline Try some of those frets to the side over there They’re not going to hurt you There’s no scary monster lurking in those frets, ready to eat you up if you stray too far away from your usual territory Now how did that feel? Not so bad was it? You’re still alive All you did was physically make yourself break out of your usual set patterns Now you’re going to ask me ‘But how do I link pentatonic box positions to modes?’ or some variation on that Don’t worry, you’ll get to that That’s just details The key is making the decision That’s the hard part That’s the bit that will stop you every time To arrive at that decision takes two things, which we’ve already encountered Self-awareness and discipline Self awareness is something that we can cultivate by taking more notice of our actions and surroundings I view discipline as a slightly more complex virtue that can be hampered by other contributing factors so we will take a closer look at discipline in the next chapter So, in this chapter we’ve discovered that it’s just as important to stop yourself doing something as it is to make yourself do something And all it takes is that decision That’s some black and white thinking right there isn’t it? Despite the harsh, Zen like approach it actually isn’t that bad You’re not outside in the freezing rain, trying to catch flies with a pair of chopsticks, wearing nothing but sandals and a Karate gi It’s just about recognizing habits that keep you in stagnation and then having the mind to change it there and then So, when it comes to stopping bad habits, just stop doing it When it comes to wanting to learn how to do something, just do it When you cut away the fog of indecision and the analysis paralysis of reading too many differing opinions, it really is just black and white FEAR VERSUS DISCIPLINE It’s all well and good for somebody to tell you to be disciplined but there’s one thing that gets in the way of us sticking to our guns That annoying thing is called fear Now, when I talk about fear I’m not describing that Fucking hell, why can’t my girlfriend look where she’s driving - we nearly fucking died again! kind of fear I’m talking about the silent, lurking phantom that rumbles away in your subconscious and secretly steers you away from doing certain things without you realising it You’re not aware of it as fear but fear it most definitely is I call it the ‘What if?’ fear Let me give you an example of how it goes You’ve come up with this really cool lick You’ve never heard anybody else play this lick before and you feel that if you could just nail this lick then you’re going to sound like a total badass But right now, this lick is beyond you It involves finger patterns that are totally unfamiliar to you and hell, you can’t even seem to play it through once without losing your way But hopefully tomorrow it’ll sound better So you go to it again the next day and it’s still tough There’s no visual or audible progress yet but you’ll keep at it But by now, the doubt’s already beginning to set in By the third day, you’ve abandoned this stupid lick because it was ‘never going to work anyway and I could have been spending my time on something that definitely would advance my skills.’ With a degree of resignation and maybe even a touch of sadness you go back to stuff that feels more familiar and trustworthy What happened there was that the ‘What if?’ fear come along and won the battle Basically it all comes down to a lack of certainty and a lack of trust in the process ‘What if I spend all this time practising this and it still doesn’t work?’ This is the underlying fear that stops us committing to practising certain 200million Seems insane doesn’t it? Yet we all do it We all compare ourselves to other people It’s a ridiculous habit that serves no purpose other than to make us feel worse and it will always succeed in doing that Another mindset that severely hampers progress in anything is ‘analysis paralysis’ It’s where we read too many blogs and watch too many videos with contrasting advice and now we don’t know what to do at all So we end up doing nothing and actually end up reading yet more articles and watching more videos to help lift us out of the fog of indecision If these mindsets could be personified by a mythological creature, it would be the vampire They suck all the motivation and joy out of what was supposed to be a fun pastime and leave you like a shrivelled husk, a wrinkly scrotum of doubt So let’s say you’re in one of those mindsets or even alternating between all three It’s no wonder you don’t take note of anything good that you’ve achieved It’s no wonder that you haven’t recognised any strengths that you have Because, believe me, you do have them You have to, by process of elimination We live in a world of subjectivity, where we determine values such as strong or weak, good or bad Yet these values cannot exist without their opposites It is impossible for a human being to possess only weaknesses You have to possess strengths by default It’s the same with guitar Hold onto that idea You do have strengths, you just haven’t seen them yet because you’re too busy looking everywhere else but yourself for the answers You’ve been too busy being a scrotum of doubt Feel free to use that mental imagery if it helps You’re welcome So let’s imagine that you’ve stopped putting yourself down just long enough to admit that you’re actually pretty good at string bending Ok, so what should you do? I’ll tell you You should milk that for all it’s worth and get damn good at string bending Use what you have and really make it a feature of your playing Don’t devote your time to learning something if it doesn’t make you go ‘Hell yes, I want to be able to do that!’ If something makes you feel like ‘Well, I should know how to do that’ rather than ‘I want to do that’, then forget about it for now You can always go to it later There are certain fundamentals that most guitarists would agree that you need A good sense of timing, the ability to play basic chords, good coordination between the hands, fairly good use of muting and control of your sound/tone But if you’re overlooking some of your own quirky, instinctive ideas because you think you need to learn 8 finger tapping then it’s possible you’re neglecting your natural attributes in favour of trying to acquire new ones By all means, learn new skills but make the best of the ones you already have It’s what makes you sound like YOU So, if you are pretty good at string bending, get damn good at string bending When you’ve got damn good at string bending, become great at it It’s like digging a well You can only dig the well where you are standing If you dig down and keep going, you’ll hit the rewards If you keep looking up from your labours and taking a lustful peek at what others are doing, then you’ll amble over and try digging in their spot as well No matter how many times you do this, you’re never digging your own well You’re just starting several holes and moving off after a few shovelfuls Dig the well where YOU are YOUR answers are there PLAY ONE NOTE This chapter is going to deal with two issues; the first one is procrastination and the second one is composing I’m going to hit you right away with a massive spoiler The first one prevents the latter There we go Chapter over Next! Ok, that’s not playing fair But Golden Lotus Bollocks, Zen master of all artistic wisdom is at the gambling table and today he’s dealing nothing but cold, hard ‘fuck you’ truths so if you’re brave enough to drink of my potion of clarity then let’s get intense Procrastination affects us all like a bastard The thing about procrastination is that it’s a perfectly natural response to feeling like we’re either overwhelmed and don’t know where to start or if we feel like we’re about to take a risk Better to stay in the safe zone because the safe zone is familiar ‘Maybe I’ll make a start on that project tomorrow but for now I’m gonna keep watching this Youtube walkthrough of Assassins Creed XXXV because fuck work!’ It’s ok to admit that you procrastinate Everybody does Try to imagine how many times I’ve procrastinated over the course of getting this effing book finished Even Leonardo Da fucking Vinci, Mr Renaissance Man himself, was a notorious procrastinator He’d take on all sorts of commissions and start gazillions of projects that he never saw through to completion It doesn’t mean anything about who you are There is no shame in it It’s just something we do until we decide to act It’s like having a support act that stays on stage longer than usual before the headliner’s pumped themselves up enough to come out and wreck the place The headliner’s still gonna come out and fuck shit up, the concert’s still gonna happen but we’ve just got to wait a bit longer to enjoy the show The chances are that you’ve come across the most common advice for dealing with procrastination; just make a start Do one small thing When you’ve done that thing then maybe, if you feel like it, you might do one more small thing Before you know it you’ve done several small things that have added up to a sizeable dent in the seemingly Herculean task that you’d pictured in your head Writing a book is the perfect example of this Start with a word at a time A sentence at a time Oh shit, would you believe it? I’ve written a whole paragraph! That’s how it happens One small action sets things in motion but the key is to keep it small Don’t look at the big picture and get overwhelmed at the thought of it, just start with the small tasks As I said before, you’ve maybe encountered this approach already and for good reason; it works But what I want to do is to help take away that shame and stigma attached to procrastinating In the post millennial world of constant advertising and social media boasting, we’re pressured into being productive all the time What do you mean you’re not an entrepreneur, you traitorous cunt? What do you mean you don’t have five different blogs, bringing you in a passive income whilst you plan how you’re going to ease yourself out of your job and make a fortune being a social media personality? It’s this implied guilt coming from complete strangers on the web selling you ideas and a lifestyle that adds to this overall sense of shame that you’re not good enough, not busy enough, not creative enough Fuck that You are enough And if you want to procrastinate then you’re allowed to because even the guy who painted the fucking Mona Lisa procrastinated and he’s more famous than that Lifestyle Blog Writing Coffee Shop Dwelling Brunch Eating Fuck Face So… procrastination happens Accept it Allow self awareness to embrace this normal human condition and reject any uninvited shame or guilt that attaches itself to it Now that we’ve addressed that, let’s look at one of those things that all guitarists ask how to do yet manage to avoid doing Composing Specifically the art of composing a solo I’ve been asked about this more times than anything else so let’s get down to it Are you ready for this? Taking what we’ve learned from above we do this Start with one note It’s that simple Just pick your guitar up and fucking play a note Do you like the note? Yes? No? If so, then add another note If you don’t like that note then change it Keep adding or deleting notes until you end up with a collection of notes that form a melody It really isn’t that hard when you sit down and go through the process There’s nothing physically taxing about sitting on your ass and plucking away at some strings What’s difficult is the thought of doing it That’s the part that overwhelms and that’s the part that brings out our tendency to procrastinate But we’ve discussed that and we’re starting with ONE NOTE Anybody can do that If you want to tackle a task then make that task easy Make that task so goddamn easy that it’s impossible to fail The Japanese have a word for this They call this approach ‘Kaizen’ It’s a philosophy applied to the continued improvement of industry by implementing small, achievable changes that eventually lead to greater improvements over time The idea isn’t to make huge, sweeping changes but small alternations that avoid overwhelming the individual with a sudden increase in demand Here, the demand is small One step at a time One note at a time If you want to start writing solos then write one note Then add another note You’ve written two notes There are solos in the world with less If you wrote a four note solo then that’s already three more notes than the solos in ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ by The Ramones and ‘Cinnamon Girl’ by Neil Young What counts is not how many notes you write What counts is that you make a start I’ll make a bet with you If you’re reading this now within reach of a guitar I bet you that you can put a three note melody together before you start the next chapter It doesn’t matter if it sounds good It just has to exist Once you bring something into existence then it’s your personal sense of taste that will shape your creation We will cover the topic of taste in the next chapter but first, I’ve got a bet to win So go on, pick it up and show yourself that you can be a composer ADJUST TO TASTE So you’ve placed a collection of notes together and already I can hear your next question bubbling away below the surface, shaped by doubt and waiting to burst free and puncture your efforts ‘How do I know if it sounds good or not?’ You don’t Nobody does The only question you need to concern yourself with is ‘How does this sound to me?’ Do you like it or not? Any composer’s first steps are always tentative but what’s important is just to create something The only person you need to please is you because (hopefully) you’re doing this for your own personal enjoyment and you’re not beholden to anybody else’s opinion The first acts of creation are more important than the quality of the creation itself I remember some of the earliest things I wrote They were so simplistic and naïve when I look back at them but that doesn’t matter They had to exist I needed to bring them into being in order to go through every necessary step to get to the later stuff By doing it you’ll start to make your own decisions about what sounds good or what sounds like ass You might come up with a melody and two weeks later decide that it sounds too much like a child’s nursery rhyme That’s ok I did the exact same thing By going through this process you learn things like how tempo can affect a melody, not just the notes themselves You’ll discover how to use pauses between notes to create an interesting phrase You’ll see how you can take something from your favourite bands and change one or two of the notes around and create something new And you might decide a week later that it all sounds like shit but you couldn’t have arrived at that decision if you hadn’t gone through the process in the first place And that is how you start to acquire a sense of taste You don’t need to look to others to dictate what you should play because you’re making those musical decisions yourself Because you’re a composer You can write You can do this One note at a time But wait, Mr Higgins, what if I’m playing with other musicians and I have to write something for our band and they might think it sucks harder than a high class hooker? It’s not just me I’m trying to please then What about all the pressure and stuff? Well, when other people are involved it does add the extra dimension of approval but I’d like to think that any group of people you’re playing with are not such assholes that they’d kick you to the kerb if you couldn’t come up with the best solo since Stairway to Heaven on your first try, or even your one hundredth try The chances are that you’re playing with people who are developing at a similar level to you and are not going to expect you to become Mozart incarnate on the guitar all of a sudden and if they do, well fuck them If you’re playing with people that are at a higher level than you then I’d hope that they’re experienced enough and mature enough to give constructive criticism and help you with it We all started somewhere The great thing about composing something is that you have time to do it In the comfort of your own home with your guitar in your lap you’ve got time to try things and change your mind, always honing it until you’re happy If you’re in the studio, recording a track that has to be mixed and finished that day and you’ve been tasked to come up with something in five minutes then maybe there isn’t the luxury at that point to labour over it but by the time you’re in that situation you’d have been writing for long enough that it doesn’t feel like the ‘first time every time.’ So relax, you’ve got time to get it wrong in order to get it right Now, remember what I said earlier about making your own decisions about what sounds good or what sounds like ass? That’s a significant point that you need to hold onto It references the subtitle of this very book How to avoid sounding like ass is a very subjective thing Who decides what sounds like ass and who doesn’t? If you’ve made it this far through this wonderful, life changing book then you already know the answer to that, don’t you? By exercising your creative muscles and decision making abilities the one person who has the overall say over your guitar playing soon becomes apparent It was you who picked up the instrument You who put in the time and the dedication You who stumbled and fell You who regained hope and enthusiasm It’s ALL you NO WRONG NOTES So, if it’s all just YOU then we shouldn’t have too much trouble with this final principle By now you’ve gradually accepted the savage truth bombs hurled at your head by Zen Asshole, likes a monkey flinging his shit at horrified onlookers at the zoo He sits is his favourite spot in the temple, like a shrivelled old testicle, dispensing begrudging wisdom and rejoicing inwardly at your struggles, like Pai Mei in ‘Kill Bill’ but without all the threats of dismemberment and slightly less sociopathic Let’s talk about technique Specifically about how people get hooked up on how things should or shouldn’t be played When it comes to the execution of techniques people can get quite defensive and combative about it, which is very curious when you think about it Why do people invest energy in defending their idea of how something should be played? There are people who think that you should pick every note or you’re a cheater Or that there is such a thing as ‘true’ legato and legato that isn’t legato If you’ve been paying attention during this swift but enlightening journey then there’s clearly only one response to this kind of wankery ‘Who gives a fuck?’ Time for a reality check We can obsess about the minutiae of technique all you want but when you’re done dicking around with the details there’s something you should know Something we ALL should get straight This is ALL about sound We’re playing a musical instrument Everything we do in regards to this wonderful thing that gives so much to our lives and the lives of others is ALL about fucking SOUND Ultimately, do you like the way it sounds? Yes? Good Hopefully other people will like the way it sounds too If not, no matter That’s music in a nutshell That’s all there is to it That’s the same for any act of artistic expression It’s all about how it makes you feel I don’t give a fuck how something was played, do I like the sound? That’s important Not arguing with bell-ends about how this guy is faster than this guy or this guy picks properly or that guy ‘cheats’ etc… When it comes to sound, there is no cheating It’s all about how it sounds to the listener and the feelings it invokes, if any The listener doesn’t care how it was generated, only how it makes them feel The only people who care about how you did it was other musicians who either think they could have done it better or are just pissed because they can’t And those kinds of opinions don’t matter It’s like Bruce Lee says in ‘Enter the Dragon’ as he points his finger skyward whilst a student looks on “It’s like a finger pointing a way to the moon Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” People that argue about technique are still concentrating on that fucking finger Don’t be one of them You already know how you can be spending your time more productively; in the arena of Trial and Error, where you find the courage to write a short solo, where you find the courage to play with conviction, where you find out that you already have some strengths, where you find the courage to say ‘This is the sound I want to create’, where you start to trust yourself enough to make your own decisions about what sounds good and reject all uninvited criticism Don’t concentrate on the finger In fact, don’t even concentrate on the moon BE the fucking moon In life we’re taught that we should avoid things like cognitive bias; looking only for evidence that supports our already held beliefs and rejecting anything that doesn’t support it We’re supposed to be reasonable, hear the other side of the story We’re supposed to be balanced We should listen to our critics, give them the benefit of the doubt We shouldn’t reject opinions that don’t match our own Yes, yes, yes All very good, lovely and so very reasonable Except when it comes to art Art is the one place where you don’t have to do any of that Artistic expression is the one place where you get to be as biased and unreasonable as fuck Where you get to shut yourself off from all outside influence and see what you have inside of you I’d guess that most of us are already reasonable in our everyday lives and our dealings with others, am I right? Unless you’re one of the (un)lucky ones without a conscience or sense of responsibility then you probably do your best to be balanced, considerate and rational So why the hell would any of us want to hamstring our artistic expression with the same expectations? Why ruin the one thing that is supposed to be an escape from all that shit? It’s like people who go on holiday only to spend the entire time dicking around with their laptops on the beach, answering emails and having a five way Skype bukkake with their boss and co-workers What’s the fucking point? Expressing ourselves through our guitar playing is one of the few areas where we get to say ‘This is what I like and I don’t care what you think.’ Being able to embrace this way of thinking is the key to making the progression from ‘polite player’ to ‘badass guitarist.’ Oh, and before you think that you can’t see yourself being a badass guitarist, know that I’m not talking about a certain level of technical ability that can wow other people I’m talking about YOU feeling like you are expressing yourself through your instrument in a way that YOU feel good about How many punk guitarists who could barely play were still undisputedly badass? How badass were The Ramones even though they had that one note solo? Do you still think that being a badass guitarist is beyond you somehow? You have that same spark inside you that every single human being has We can choose to ignore or suppress it or we can start looking at it with interest, prepared to see what might come out Just make sure that, when it does come out, you have a guitar ready So, as I near the end of this literary golden shower of guitar based musings, let’s remind ourselves of this chapter’s key takeaway points: This is all about sound There is no such thing as cheating when it comes creating sound There are no wrong notes As you begin to accept this, Zen Asshole looks on, his rugged exterior betraying nothing but secretly proud as fuck with you The wizened old bastard AFTERWORD You do realise that I don’t actually have it all figured out don’t you? Don’t think for a minute I’m the guy who has mastered this thing and now gets to dispense pearls of wisdom to everybody else like some ragged old sage hobbling from village to village with his trusty wooden staff and his cape Because there’s always a cape Fuck no The spirit in which I write this is in the spirit of your friend sat down at the same table, having a conversation in a ‘Yeah, don’t you just hate it when that happens?’ kind of way We’re all in this together It doesn’t matter if we perceive ourselves as ahead or behind We’re all on the same mountain, finding our path In the end, all we will have is the stories that our lives told The more I see of life and the more I learn, the more I realise is how similar our stories really are Some of the details vary but we’re all trying to avoid sounding like ass Sometimes we even succeed So here’s to you I wish you every success on your journey as you being to avoid sounding like ass ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ben Higgins started playing guitar at the age of ten At some point he definitely sounded like ass but he’s collated his years of hard earned wisdom and condensed it into the book that you see right now He’s released seven albums since 2012 and teaches people guitar through various mediums, possibly even telekinesis but this is unconfirmed His first crime fiction novella ‘The Hammer’ was released in 2014 He lives in Somerset, England and likes metal, fast cars, reading books, donuts, countryside, real ale and 9 gauge strings because fuck working harder than you have to Ben can be experienced further at www.benhigginsofficial.com ... Start putting some heart into the way you strike the strings Remember; this is your tone This is your sound This is you coming through into the guitar and out the other end Your sound is your story so let your story be told because nobody else... over the strings, ie; over the middle pickup or closer to the bridge or the neck which will colour the sound How we then hold the pick itself will colour the sound even further So you can see how the old cliché about tone being in the player’s fingers actually does have some measurable... How do you start getting the best out it? This is where the previous concepts of the ‘What if?’ fear and trial and error come into play Whenever you try to alter your approach to the guitar you’ll nearly always have to deal with a touch of the ‘What if?’ fear