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Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 12 2014, 03:56 PM

Can You Cheat in Guitar Playing ?

I saw some comments on Youtube aimed at a guy who was using a hairband or some similar device to mute the strings. This is quite a common approach taken by people who use a lot of tapping in their playing. It's mainly for licks that span many strings and tend to produce a lot of unwanted and unavoidable noise caused by vibrations when tapping from nowhere or hammering on from nowhere. And guitar legend Greg Howe uses this as tapping is a major feature of his style.

But many people saw this as somehow 'cheating.'

I don't agree with this and I'll tell you why.

First of all, this method of muting is generally only used for tapping licks that go beyond the typical triad based EVH / Randy Rhoads phrases. The type of tapping licks used by Howe and many others does require a degree of muting that can not be provided by the hands. If one were using a hairband to mute the strings just for general 'easy' tapping then maybe the people crying 'cheat' might have a point but in these types of cases, it's a genuine asset and not a crutch for lazy technique. And by the way, did I say... Greg Howe !

My second point here is more generalised and covers any area of playing a musical instrument. I think that anything that helps one achieve the sound that they are aiming for is surely a good thing. When you look at the bigger picture, what are we all doing with these planks of wood, these drums, these synths, whatever your instrument of choice ? We're creating sound. In my opinion (and it is only an opinion) SOUND is the key word here.

Unless your audience only consists of music students / other musicians who are analysing your work for various reasons, then the majority of your audience don't hear techniques. They don't hear hand positions. They don't hear facial expressions. They don't hear the colour of your guitar. Or the shape. They only hear sound. The only thing that truly matters is how that collection of sound makes that person feel.

When you consider that the end result of all we do is sound, does it matter how we achieve that sound ? Surely, any ingredient that goes into that sound is allowed ? Or are some things allowed and other things not allowed ?

I can't find the quote but I will always remember EVH stating that his approach on the guitar was a process of making things easier for him to play. That influenced a lot of the triad based chord shapes that he used. They were easier to move around, you see. Surely our path is to make the instrument do for us what we want it to. Sometimes the path needed actually is the path of least resistance.

But this is all just opinion, as said before. So, what if the guys leaving the Youtube comments saying 'cheat' are true ? If using something to make your guitar life easier is a cheat then shall we look at everything else that we use to create our sound ?

Distortion is cheating, surely ? Using an amp ? Altering an electrical signal in any way is not the same as what that unplugged guitar sounds like is it ? And what about guitar picks ? Throw them away, you cheater !

So where do we draw the line ? I've thrown my cards on the table so let's have some discussion about this ! Tell me I'm wrong. Is there something I've missed ? Are we all cheaters ??

Posted by: Mith Jun 12 2014, 04:30 PM

End of the day the idea is to make music. Sure playing something with crazy good tech and that is unbelievably hard is impressive but still its not required to make amazing music. The funny thing about the people that probably say its "cheating" are probably miles away from being able to perform the feat themselves.

Some could say using light gauge strings is cheating or double tracking or active pickups, or drop D tuning, or any other alternative tuning. End of the day everything is just a tool to make music with and any tradesmen that avoids not using a tool is a lousy tradesman.

All in all, I'll cheat nonstop if its to get the music thats in my head out into the real world. The only place I draw the line is miming.

Posted by: AdamB Jun 12 2014, 06:06 PM

I agree with the above post.

For me, cheating sort of assumes it's a contest of some sort. Which in my opinion generally music isn't. I guess there's nothing wrong with having a music technique contest of some sort, in which case I suppose you could make an argument that one thing or another is cheating, but when you're just trying to make music then saying something is cheating makes no sense to me.

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 12 2014, 06:18 PM

Brilliant points from you both. I agree wholeheartedly with it all.

Posted by: Monica Gheorghevici Jun 12 2014, 06:37 PM

I'm agree with all of you. Bottom line it's to make music.
I don't understand why people don't pay attention to listen music and they made a hobby to judge players. Why they think if a guy use a hairband to mute strings it's cheating? Just because that hairband are visible? But how about famous guitarists which cuts all noises in a studio when record an album. This is a cheating or it isn't because people don't see that?
I personally think that all these (distortion, hairband, light gauge strings, etc) and all the things you use to make music are called evolution.

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 12 2014, 08:44 PM

Great input, Monica.

We all seem to be feeling the same way so far.

But does anybody have a differing view ?

Is there a point where something becomes cheating ? Obviously, studio trickery springs to mind but are there any guitar related things that we can think of ?

Is it cheating if you play runs that sound as if every note is picked but they're not ? People may hail you as a speed picking king but if they knew you didn't pick every note would that opinion be revoked ?

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jun 12 2014, 10:32 PM

Well, as I"m always saying "GUITAR PLAYING ISN"T A CARD GAME, SO YOU CAN"T REALLY CHEAT". But folks do use various aids and such to get where they are trying to go which is all fine and dandy IMHO.

I work continuously on my muting technique for example, as I play 7 and 8 string guitars which are a huge pain in the neck to keep muted. I notice many players using "FRET WRAPS" to help deaden some of the low ring of the strings. Are fret wraps cheating? Well, again, not a card game. Whatever folks need to help them play and express themselves seems ok to me

I'd draw the line and using GUITAR PRO for a composition and then shooting a video acting like your playing something your not. Like that video I posted in the other thread with LUCAS MANN denigrating himself. Very sad.

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 13 2014, 07:35 AM

Yes, that's going to go down as a classic example !!

Posted by: Mith Jun 13 2014, 08:04 AM

Like really if you were gonna fake it why use guitar pro. I would of played it 1/2 tempo then speed it up. there are programs that keep the right pitch when you stretch or shrink the time.

Rule 1 of fake guitar
If your ganna fake it at meast make the tone sound good

Rule 2 of fake guitar
people will always notice, disable comments on you tube

Rule 3 of fake guitar
No profits because you didn't play it and lots alot of respect

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Jun 13 2014, 02:55 PM

There's no such thing as cheating in guitar playing unless someone else is playing and you dance around telling people you played it Let's take another example - Nuno's intro to 'He man woman hater' - he played the Flight of the bumblebee with a delay trick - is that cheating?

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 13 2014, 08:16 PM

Hell no ! Unless his fingers were on the guitar, triggering the notes then nothing would happen at all so no - not cheating

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jun 13 2014, 11:01 PM

Agreed! Not cheating And he didn't use guitar pro!

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Jun 14 2014, 07:09 AM

See guys - in music, there's no cheating Ah, there would be cheating when you go on a TV show and you playback. That's one of the most shameful things I have been forced to do, 2 times or maybe 3 in my entire lifetime so far. TV shows don't usually have live playing possibilities all the time and in order to get artists on the set, they want them to playback.

One time, I stuck the end of the guitar cable in my back pocket I mean the end that should go into the amp, as a sign of protest - the organizers were too dumb to understand and they were happy about the way I looked

How about you guys - any nice 'shame' stories?

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 14 2014, 09:33 AM

In some ways I don't think that's so bad because everybody knows what's going on, including the viewers... it's not the performer's choice (not usually) and it's just one of those things that works for tv. So in the above situation, although you may have thought it was silly or embarrassing, it was nothing that you should have felt ashamed about.

What's worse is when a performer makes a conscious decision to fool their audience by miming, lip syncing and passing it off as real.

Posted by: bleez Jun 14 2014, 09:53 AM

my old band were getting filmed for a promo video, I think it was friends who were doing it for experience as they were starting up a video business. They were filming one of our gigs and then mixing it with footage from a demo recording were doing in a studio. when they came to the studio I had finished all my rhythm parts so they asked me to just mime to playback in the studio as if I was recording. Being super excited at all of this I grabbed my guitar, a set of headphones and stood in the control room 'playing'....... didnt think to actually plug a cable into my guitar
unlike Cosmin, it wasnt in protest, I really was just THAT dumb

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jun 14 2014, 07:59 PM

I don't mind if the guy doing the performing is the one who actually played the track as long as they are not passing it off as "live". If it's a music video for example, or even a youtube video made by a musician/band to promote their work, seems fine to me It's flat out faking it that strikes me as offensive. So many folks work so darn hard to play and then here comes lucas mann.

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 14 2014, 08:24 PM

That's exactly it. Flat out deceiving your audience is just sad, sad, sad.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Jun 15 2014, 08:32 AM

Well, yeah, definitely - a music video is a music video, but we are talking about performances in which some folks are trying to make people believe it's live.

Who's Lucas Mann?

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jun 16 2014, 01:06 AM

Lucas mann is the guy in the video from the band Rings of Saturn that I Posted above. He's faking playing and instead using guitar pro in this vid and it's painfully obvious what he is doing. VEry sad and very lame.


So the only person who can cheat and does, is Lucas

Posted by: Darius Wave Jun 16 2014, 09:52 AM

Word CHEATING is maybe not proper by IMHO the case is a bit more twisted to give one and only, right answer.

Of course time to time I'm a victim of mentioned comments. One of best ever I remember made me laught for weeks

"Nice solo but next time play it with no wah wah - it hides the mistakes. I have a friend player who told me he always turns on the wah when He's not sure he can play somethings precicely"

Wah, Distortion, hairband are just a tools but very often also an excuse

I always try to ask my students to give themsels a lot of additional question like


1. Hairband - do I really have to use it?...is it possible to learn to do things without that tool? Try to practice a lot. If You find it's impossible - then use it. Don't try to make things easy way if You feel it's possible to reach by practicing. It's not the mark of developement
2. High Distortion - Do I play with it because I'm not able to play hard enough to get satisfying tone with lower distortion? Does that solo need high distortion because of other reasons than sustain, harmonics etc? Am I able to play that on acoustic guitar?

3. Wah wah? - Is no excuse Wah wah is just a....wah wah


It's all about being self demanding for yourself - that helps to reach some goals and helps You to become a bettr guitarist.

I never ban people for using any of mentioned but unfortunately some Young players with no instructor care can easily misunderstand the purpose of using those and stop their own developement using those as an excuse.

Good points Ben

Posted by: Mith Jun 16 2014, 09:57 AM

I guess when you look at it from the point of learning there is a diffrent perspective. You should always try and practice in a way that trys and makes you play with the best tech.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Jun 16 2014, 10:44 AM

I think that making music should be out ultimate goal and how we do it should only be a minor concern

What's the most unusual/unconventional manner of playing you guys have tried and what results did it yield?

Posted by: Ben Higgins Jun 16 2014, 01:48 PM

Yes, good points. This is the other side of the coin. People often rely too much on a 'gimmick' instead of their own creativity !

It's a good thing that you ask your students these questions... I hope you make them hit the floor and give you 200 push ups if they don't give a satisfactory answer !



I think picking with the guitar pick over the fingerboard was about as unconventional as it got for me in trying new things. I'm quite conventional in my actual physical techniques.

Damn, I'm boring

Posted by: Mith Jun 16 2014, 04:31 PM

What about Jonny Cash's trick on putting a bit of paper in the strings

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jun 16 2014, 05:29 PM

That same idea came up earlier Some folks use fret wraps to help out when their muting needs a bit of assistance or other various reasons. Was generally not counted as cheating Whatever works to help you play what you are trying to play is probably pretty ok at least til you can play without whatever it happens to be I'd guess.

The line I drew in the sand was using guitar pro and acting like you were playing it yourself

Posted by: Mith Jun 17 2014, 12:19 AM

na it wasn't to mute strings. it was to make a snare sound
Still not cheating but interesting none the less

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jun 17 2014, 12:31 AM

For whatever reason I agree not cheating.

Posted by: Darius Wave Jun 17 2014, 10:07 AM

Ha ha They're usually not satisfied thatmuch when I make them do things the hard way It like"How? Why? Couldn't I just do it this way?" I say...no because You have to be ready for everything if You want to be a good player someday. Let the time decide where the compromise is and where not...buit never go the easy way at first