I’m supposing that everybody reading this right now is into Music, Guitar Music in particular. Music is defined as a "phenomenon of sound". The keyword, boys and girls is sound. A lot of people studying or playing music are too hung up on the technical aspect of it. You know the drill; theory, chords, arpeggios, tempo, harmonization and etc and etc. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the above-mentioned are valuable knowledge and essential tools for any aspiring musician. But that’s just what they are, tools. They certainly don’t make up or embody music, they’re just part of a bigger whole.

Let me take you back a few hundred years, to a time where schooled music is basically still in its adolescent years. There were no conservatories and how-to books and virtuosos were born not made. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven & Francisco Tarrega are prime examples of brilliant musical geniuses spanning from Baroque to Classical to Romantic. "What do these people have anything to do with the title of this article?" you might ask. Plenty. Well, basically everything.

There’s no doubt that these guys possessed complete mastery of the music of their era and while they do flaunt this mastery in their works, there is not a single opus they came up with that pertains solely to the techniques they used in it. Vague? Well, let me cite a few examples:

Johann Sebastian Bach is considered as the Ultimate Master of Counterpoint. His pieces, whether easy or difficult, clearly defines the title bestowed upon him. A small part of his musical legacy is "The Little Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach". This is a collection of short pieces Bach wrote for his wife, Anna Magdalena, for her to be able to play to their kids while at the same time honing her clavier skills. "Minuet in G" is probably the most popular piece in this collection and though the melody is really very simple, Bach’s polyphonic wizardry comes to the foray as the supporting lines add complexity and color. But amidst the big words I used, this Minuet was used to thrill kids, their own and of relatives, countless times. Something that is still done today every time someone sits behind the piano and plays it.

"Symphony No. 5" is probably Ludwig Van Beethoven’s "hit" among us guitar players ever since Yngwie Malmsteen incorporated its theme in his unaccompanied guitar solo in the "Trial By Fire: Live in Leningrad" album. The "tadadadaan" theme was inspired by the tax collector’s knock on Beethoven’s door every time he comes by to collect money from the broke-at-that-time Ludwig. Check the symphony out and keep this story in mind so that you can appreciate the feeling of dread the Beethoven felt when he wrote it.

We guitar players owe a great debt to Francisco Tarrega. He struggled the same way Andres Segovia did so that the guitar can be accepted as a "serious" instrument worthy of the stature of the piano and violin. He wrote many, many pieces specifically for the guitar as well as transcribing some of the works of Bach and Mozart so that they can be played on the guitar as well as on the instrument these pieces were written for. Tarrega wrote a beautiful piece called "Recuerdos del Alhambra". Throughout the piece, the tremolo technique (not to be confused with the whammy bar, tremolo is a technique wherein the melody is played with the ring, middle and index fingers respectively creating a speed picking, rrrrrrrr type of sound). Now Francisco did not write "Recuerdos" for the sole purpose of making life hard for classical guitarists. Tarrega visited Alhambra in his travels and he happened upon a beautiful waterfall. He used tremolo to represent his memories of the fading ripples in the water caused by the drops of water from the waterfall.

These stories I keep in mind whenever I compose, play, or record a guitar solo. There’s always this question of "What does this song make me feel and what should I play to help the song get its point across?" And the next question I ask myself is " What technique(s) should I use to help me realize what I have in my mind?" Technique alone does not make music but it helps you reach your goal and bring out whatever is inside you. If you ask Jeff Beck what he was aiming for when he recorded "Where Were You", I bet he wouldn’t tell you that he was aiming to prove that one can reach Floyd Rose-ish heights in whammy bar expression by using a standard Stratocaster tremolo bridge. He would probably tell you that he was aiming to make his guitar sound like a choirboy with an angelic voice singing in a church. Now where is the reference to whammy technique in the latter statement? There’s none but the "making the guitar sound like…." phrase is definitely there. Another example would be any interview with Steve Vai. He describes his songs not by the scales and tricks he uses but by how each song makes him feel. He describes "The Animal" from Passion and Warfare as his beast inside and the song certainly sounds like an animal raging. Then he goes into the detail of how he made it sound like an animal. Sound and feeling came first, technique and details came later.

Just for kicks try the following: