As a teacher, I’ve always believed that you can’t ‘teach’ students. All you can do is help them teach themselves.

It’s a philosophy I found echoed in a passage I discovered recently, in The Wabi-Sabi House by Robyn Griggs Lawrence, a book on interior decorating of all places (albeit with a heavy dose of Japanese philosophy).

The essence of education is not to transfer knowledge; it is to guide the learning process, to put responsibility for study into the students’ own hands. It is not the piecemeal merchandising of information; it is the bestowal of keys that allow people to unlock the vault of knowledge on their own. It does not consist of pilfering the intellectual property amassed by others through no additional effort of one’s own; it would rather place people on their own path of discovery and invention.

-Tsunesaburo Makiguchi

Words of wisdom that should be enshrined in every guitar dojo in the world.

It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not these days. Fact and fiction are as unreliable as the shifting sands. What’s yesterday’s fact is today’s fiction.

Take medical facts, one day, trans fats are good for you, the next, they’re called Franken-fats. Or politics, yesterday’s yes-we-can visionary is today’s establishment sellout.

Even in the rarefied world of classical guitar playing, yesterday’s god (perhaps a certain gentilhombre of the guitar) is today’s has-been.

Clearly, you can’t rely on anything. It’s a world run by obfuscators.

To help you navigate this brave new world, I’ve decided to put together my own guidelines for would-be obfuscators, a kind of manual that will help you understand their bogus modus operandi.

First, there’s no such thing as truth. To obfuscators, truth is whatever you want it to be. If you’re selling a hot new product, whatever you say IS the truth. (This is useful if you’re a guitar teacher.)

Next, muddy the water. Create confusion in the minds of your followers (or students). Avoid transparency at all cost. Because transparency will give your game away.

How do you do this?

First, say it in the most complex ways possible. Use fancy words, preferably, those that sound authoritative or academic.

Second, say it with as many words as possible. If you can do it in ten pages instead of two, do it in ten. If you can do it in fifty pages, even better. The more words you can lay down, the more convincing you will appear.

And back it up with data, loads of them. Don’t worry about validity, people don’t have time to check details, as long as it sounds authoritative, it’s good enough.

If you can, use scientific terms to back up your theories. If you’re a preacher, quote from the Bible. If you’re a guitar teacher, make sure you use hardcore terms like extensors and flexors.

If possible, put some impressive sounding credentials after your name. Nothing impresses more than a PhD after your name.

To reinforce your credentials, drop names of famous people like Segovia or the latest classical guitar heartthrob. Yes, you can tell stories about how Segovia called you up on your birthday. If you’re too timid to make this claim, you can always say you’re one of his students. This is a failsafe tactic because the man is unable to disown you.

Create myths and legends about yourself. Make up stories, anecdotes, don’t worry about historical accuracy again. No one bothers to check them anyway. And even if someone does bother to check them out, who will believe them?

Create elaborate rituals. Nothing impresses like little personal touches that speak of your genius, especially in public events like masterclasses or concerts. But be sure you rehearse these rituals to make them more convincing.

Keep on hammering on your key issues. Reinforce them in the minds of your followers. Someone once said, I forgot who it was, “People will believe anything if you repeat them enough times.”

And while you’re doing this, don’t forget to demoralize your followers. Yes, if you want their respect, you have to kill every bit of self-esteem in them. Reduce them to mindless robots who will follow your every command, because if you allow them to think, they will start questioning you at some point.

The best way to do this is to completely ignore their strengths and focus on their shortcomings. And shortcomings they will have aplenty, because that’s why they came to you in the first place, that’s why they’re looking for guidance.

In guitar terms, tell them everything they know about guitar playing is wrong, and they have to start from scratch. The hand’s got to be fixed, the seating position’s got to be fixed, the fingers’ got to be fixed. Not enough follow-through? That’s got to be fixed too.

Tolerate no dissension. Once you allow a voice of dissent, you’ve started them on that slippery path to reason and independence from you.

And never fail to remind them you’ve got the keys to the kingdom. You’re the only one who can save them from the fires of hell or the anguish of eternal guitar mediocrity.

Yes, this means creating a dependency complex. But hey, if they don’t become dependent on you, how do you expect them to swear unwavering loyalty to you?

Just some random thoughts on the subject. I might have missed a couple more points along the way.

I’ve become a big fan of Anthony Bourdain. And recently, reading the Les Halles Cookbook, (courtesy of the Palo Alto City Library) I caught this bit of wisdom, artfully articulated in typical Bourdain style.

I am deeply suspicious of any cook who is less than enthusiastic as well about sex, music, movies, travel—and LIFE. A few years back, dining with friends at one of the “best” restaurants in the country, we sat back, after many courses of lovely but sterile, artfully arranged plates of food, curiously unsatisfied. I wondered aloud what was wrong. One of my companions suggested that the chef “cooked like someone who’s never been properly fucked in his life.”

Now, why did that statement make such a big impression on me?

Because I didn’t realized there’s so much in common between cooking and playing guitar.

One of the secrets of speed is to capture the energy in momentum and use it to propel your fingers forward effortlessly.

To do this, you’ll have to play in a smooth continuous action – the approach to the string, the plucking, and the movement back for the next stroke – should all be done in one smooth continuous motion.

Try this on the guitar:

Bring your ‘i’ finger towards a string, perhaps the third string.

Now, pluck the string. As soon as your finger strikes the strings, relax it completely and start moving it to the next note.

There’re two critical points about this.

1, The moment of impact must be the moment of release.

2, It’s also the beginning of the next stroke.

In other words, the end of one action must be the beginning of the next. Even as you strike the string (the end of the stroke) your finger is already moving to the next stroke.

When you connect your actions this way, you will produce incredible momentum in your fingers. Each action will flow seamlessly into the next with no break in continuity.  You will feel as if you’ve created an automated engine in your fingers, each note propelling you to the next, smoothly and effortlessly.

This seamlessness in your actions is especially crucial in arpeggios, tremolos, scales, or anything that requires a continuous flow of actions.

That’s the technique of rolling with the momentum.

As soon as you start the action, keep moving, don’t lose the momentum, instead, use it to propel yourself to the next action.

You can read more about the concept of the automated engine in the AOV for Guitar and its core principle of fluidity in the AOV.

The secret of speed in guitar playing is not speed but finger independence.

Forget about ballistic movements, about explosiveness — that may work for other sports and the martial arts — but on the classical guitar, what you need is finger independence.

Think of it this way.

Try plucking four quarter notes at 152 with one finger, let’s say the ‘i’ finger, and you’ll find it’s not so hard to do. You can move that one finger quite comfortably at that tempo.

Now try playing a tremolo (four 32nd notes) at 152 with four fingers (p a m i) and you find it’s not so easy to do.

What’s changed? You’re still essentially playing each finger once at 152.

What’s changed is the added number of fingers involved. The fingers are interfering with one another as you play.

The problem comes down to finger independence.

When you have more fingers involved, each one of them will cause the others to  move with them as they pluck, a phenomenon called sympathetic motion.

The real secret of speed in guitar playing is to minimize this effect as you play.

Once you can produce a sympathetic-motion-free movement in your fingers, speed automatically occurs.

Some people will try to counter the effect of sympathetic motion by brute force.

I actually took lessons years ago with one of these people. His solution to counteract sympathetic motion is to get students to practice kicking out the other fingers in the opposite direction when plucking with one finger.

I’ll let you imagine the consequences of just such an unnatural exercise.

No, you can’t fight nature, you’ll have to work with it.

There’re two ways to reduce sympathetic motion naturally.

1. Move the fingers upward in circular motion. As soon as your finger clears the string, release all tension and allow it to move upward to re-position itself for the next stroke. This will produce a circular or oval shaped trajectory at your fingertips as you play.

2. Minimize the follow-through. After you’ve plucked the string, any movement after that is superfluous and unnecessary.

There’re other factors involved in achieving speed – such as looseness, lightness, fluidity (all basic components of virtuosity as described in the AOV). All these techniques and strategies are described in detail in the AOV for Guitar too.

But the crucial factor is still finger independence – allowing each finger to move freely and without interference from the other fingers.

A central theme of the Tao Te Ching is that of wu wei, of nondoing.

I’ve written about it as a rather impractical idea. But that’s only if you interpret it literally, using what lawyers call the ‘plain meaning rule.’

But if you interpret it another way, it can also be taken to describe a state of effortless mastery. Stephen Mitchell put it most eloquently in the foreword to his translation.

“A good athlete can enter into a state of body-awareness  in which the right stroke, or the right movement happens by itself effortlessly…  the game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; …”

That’s great, but how do you get to that stage?

How do you get to the point where the notes play themselves, where you achieve a kind of oneness with what you do?

And this is where the Tao Te Ching falls short.

It fails to mention that effortless mastery comes at a price.

It talks about the effortlessness of water flowing to the sea, but water has to get to the mountains first before it can flow to the sea.

The Tao makes no mention of this fact.

(In the natural world, nature takes care of that. The sun evaporates the water from the sea and it condenses in the mountains to fall as rain. That’s a whole other subject altogether — using nature to work for you.)

It is in the last line of Chapter 28 that we get a glimpse of what effortlessness is all about in the Tao.

“A great tailor cuts little.”

The Tao here is referring to skill. Skill is what makes the difference between effortful and effortless. Because it requires a great deal of skill to know how to ‘cut little.’

Skills is at the heart of effortless nondoing.

If you have good skills, everything you do will seem effortless. Just watch a great player like John Williams and you will see how effortless he makes playing the guitar seem. He’s the tailor who cuts little.

But where does all that skill come from?

From a great deal of effort, years of patient practicing and experiencing.

The sentiments in the Tao are echoed by many other books on effortless mastery and living.

They all praise the concept and advocate a philosophy of effortlessness. But like the Tao, none of them mention the fact that effortless mastery comes at a price.

And that’s the irony of life, to achieve effortlessness, you have to be prepared to put in a great deal of effort.

That old law of no free lunch still holds true here.

Skills are crucial to everything we do.

How to ride a bike, how to cook a great dish, how to play guitar, all these require specific skills and knowledge.

Even a simple thing like dismantling an old lock, I found the hard way, requires skill.

On a recent trip to Malaysia, I had to replace an old lock that had jammed. No big deal, I thought, I’ve replaced quite a few locks in my life. But I’m used to American locks where all you have to do is unscrew the lock and the thing comes off automatically.

Not these Malaysian locks, there’re no screws to be seen. After tinkering with it for a while, I managed to get the cover plates off, but how do you get the rest of the darned thing off?

There was absolutely no way to get it off. In frustration, I violated my most sacrosanct principle, which is never to force. I took a hammer and literally beat that battered old lock through the hole.

It took a great deal of effort and I almost took the door off its hinges knocking the lock.

With the lock off, I went to the hardware store to get a new lock. Inside the box, I found detailed instructions on how to install the new lock and, to my dismay, instructions on how to remove the old one as well. All I needed to do, apparently, was take a small tool (which was  included in the box) and pry off a little pin holding the whole thing together.

That’s what I mean by skills and knowledge.

A little knowledge would have saved a great deal of grief and effort.

In a sense, my whole life has been centered around finding these skills and knowledge. I’ve written elsewhere about looking for that magic trick that enables me to do what I need to do in the simplest and easiest ways possible.

From acing exams to playing scales and tremolos on the guitar to interacting with my fellow human beings, my life has been a constant journey of searching for new ways to streamline my life and create a more optimal experience.

And I’ve found that there are basically four ways to acquire these skills and knowledge:

1. From constant practice and experimentation.
2. From watching others do the act.
3. From teachers.
4. From books.

One book I would recommend is the AOV for guitar, which is a book of skills on how to master different techniques on the classical guitar.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the AOV is about fundamentals, not techniques.

What’s the difference?

Techniques are the physical manifestations of fundamentals.

Think of building cars.

If you’re going to build a car, the technique would be the actual design of the car, and the principles, the considerations that drive that design, such as aerodynamics, fuel efficiency, etc.

Yes, you can come up with any design you want, but unless it follows the same basic principles of good car design – aerodynamics, efficiency etc – it probably won’t run very well.

The same is true of guitar playing or anything else we do, you can come up with the latest trends, innovate all kinds of new approaches, but if they go against the basic principles of economy and efficacy, they won’t be very effective.

And that’s what the principles in the AOV are about.

They’re the basic fundamentals that drive everything we do.

Use them to evaluate the efficacy of new techniques. Apply them to make sure that you optimize the use of your resources. And constantly monitor your body to make sure you do not forget them as you strive to develop your capabilities to the max.