The Guitarist With No Bad Habits

Have you heard the urban legend of the guitarist with no bad habits?

It goes like this: “there was this guy, who my friend used to go to school with, a monster guitarist, who’d been taught so well as a child that he never developed any bad habits!“

His father showed him proper hand position when he was two,  and he went on to develop perfect technique, flawless tone, scales that flew from his fingers like a string of pearls or like machine gun bullets depending on your taste in music.

You name it, any technical challenge that has you cursing and moving on in frustration by the 20th attempt, he could pull off without even thinking twice. Basically, it was impossible for him to make any mistakes at all, because he’d long forgotten that they exist, sort of like most of us have forgotten that it was once a lot easier to crawl than it was to walk.

To the guitarist with no bad habits, we are all crawling, and this doesn’t make much sense to him, because it is so much easier and more fun to walk, don’t you know?

It could be that John Williams is the source of this urban legend…here’s an excerpted fan review of his Seville Concert DVD from Amazon

I have been a fan on John Williams for many years. Not many classical guitar players out there can express emotion through the instrument the way John Williams does. This guy doesn’t make mistakes. Every note is right on the money. Perfect. Excellent tone. John Williams is a true hero of the classical guitar.

To be a true classical guitar hero, it would seem, it helps to be a guitarist with no bad habits.. At least it helps you to earn the right to shoot your video concerts in the Alhambra.

Some people, watching a video like this, have also responded that he might have no bad habits, but he’s cold, removed from the heart of things, that he’s not putting any emotion into the music. (I’ve noticed that these are usually non-guitarists.)

But when I listen to the video without watching it, I hear a lot of emotion… and I’m reminded once more of when I first heard John Williams recordings as a kid and how much fire and passion seemed embedded in that prelude, and in every note that Williams recorded.

These days, more than fire and passion, what I hear is the hypnotic, zen-like unimpeded joy of playing gorgeous music with total focus and ease. That was always there, too. And now I’m interested in what mixture of habits, attitudes, passions, and musical gifts lead to the ability to perform like that. In an interview published on  Classical Guitar Review, Williams says, about technique

I guess I have been lucky to an extent, because having a well formed technique from an early age I haven’t really had to think too hard about it…..I don’t practise a lot. Contrary to popular belief, I do practise, but not in vast amounts. If I practised five hours a day, I’d have stronger hands, but I don’t.

Regardless of how Williams got to the top of his game, and how much real emotion is communicated in his performances, here’s the effect they had on me when I was in high school, as communicated by a picture that I drew back then:

Since I was living in the Philippines at the time and it was hard to find a teacher there, the habits I developed were a lot different from those of John Williams. I’m sure that John Williams inspired a lot of guitarists to practice like little manic impressarios, and I think this is because of the emotion and joy of playing that we heard in his playing, and I’m also sure that a lot of us were able to emulate the emotion and the joy of playing but never quite developed the same flawless good technical habits.

Is it ever possible to get to his level if your reflexes weren’t developed at a young age? Is it worth it to even want to? What other strengths can develop in lieu of the ability to walk where other guitarists mostly crawl or stumble? Is that last question a bit overly dramatic? (hint: yes it is.)

I’m trying to discover something useful, about how practicing, personality, circumstance all weave together to produce the habits that then create your musical personality and your way of expressing yourself on your instrument,

But the subject is vast. I’ll keep coming back to it.

Advertisement