Technique: Are You Going To Use It ? Options

[Ben Higgins]

Technique: Are you Going to Use it ?

There were a few definite periods in my guitar practising that I felt that I 'had to' master certain techniques. This was regardless of whether I used them much when composing.

These days, I take a much more relaxed view towards the technical side of guitar playing. Basically, 'Am I going to use it ? If so, how am I going to use it in my song writing ?' And another question I ask myself is 'When I do use it, is it for brief moments or does it feature in long, drawn out periods ?'

In other words, in the great scheme of my guitar playing, how much does this particular technique (or lick) feature ? Most of the time, the answer is 'Not THAT much'.

So, with that in mind, my approach is to get a technique to a satisfactory level where it works musically, tonally and rhythmically. Other than that, to focus on the technique beyond that is perhaps redundant. I don't want to build my guitar playing around a particular technique and be known as 'That guy who is the master of XYZ technique'. The music should come first in my view. If the only thing people focus on when they hear your music is how awesome you are at picking, or sweeping, then perhaps you're relying on that technique as a feature rather than phrasing ?

If you're aiming for a career as a session musician or such like, then it's a bit different. You have to know your way around a lot of stuff but I'm talking about the hobbyist or just the composer who's writing for themselves. How much further do you need to go with that technique ? Is there another way you can work with what you've already got ? Often, when we start looking at what we CAN do instead of what we CAN'T do, we realise that we've actually got a lot of different tools to express ourselves.

That's how we have the Steve Vai's, the Joe Satriani's, the Marty Friedman's and the Yngwie's. All those guys are drawing from the same hat of techniques but they're using them in a different ways. And they all will have a differing level of proficieny (or time served) in each technique. If you lined them up and made them play the exact same licks to test them, I'm sure they'd all cope differently. But when it comes to making music, they all make it work their own way and the results sound great.

So, with that in mind.. are there certain areas where you're spending time hammering away at a certain technqiue or lick that could be better served constructing something just as good out of a different combination of techniques ?

Instead of all alternate picking, how about a mix of legato, picking and tapping ? How about string skipping instead of sweeping ? How about all of those things ?

What do you guys think about this subject ? Can you think of an example where you substituted one technique for another and it worked better ?

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