NLP Modelling Project: Play Like A Guitar God!

Play Like A Guitar God

Learning Environment for Aspiring Guitarists with Busy Lives

Το άρθρο αυτό δημοσιεύτηκε αυτούσιο στο Διεθνές περιοδικό Rapport (Τεύχος Φθινόπωρο 2025) και αφορά ένα εκπαιδευτικό Project το οποίο εμπνεύστηκα και ηγήθηκα με αντικείμενο την εκμάθηση Κιθάρας.

I remember buying my first guitar 35 years ago when, as a 15-year-old kid, I dived into a whole new exciting world. It didn’t last long though (only a year), as I soon got bored because of the same boring old exercises that most guitar coaches were using. Since then, I tried three times to re-start playing the guitar, but the same obstacles appeared again and again, plus as an entrepreneur, NLP professional and a father of two, I had a fuller than full schedule! I found myself repeating the same cycle all over.

It was late 2022 when an idea popped into my head and stayed there persistently for months. At that time, I was considering becoming an NLP trainer and I decided it was now or never for me to apply modelling to some of my favourite guitarists and kill two birds with one stone: be convinced about the effectiveness of modelling, and cross off the #1 goal on my list: learn to play the guitar!

From January 2023 onwards, I dived deep into the lives of numerous guitarists I admired. I got my hands on a huge amount of content and looked for behind the scenes material. I enjoyed the journey of reconnecting with myself and my newfound purpose – and I developed significant guitar skills, which surprised me and my circle of friends, who could not believe their ears!

There are some guitarists who will choose to copy and follow, who will never stand out and will stay stuck in a rut – and there are those who will dominate with their abilities and sound, who will captivate the souls of their audience and be unstoppable in their game.

What distinguishes those guitarists who become pros and reach ‘god status’ other than the sheer amount of practice?

What exists between the ‘soul’ and the fingers of skilled guitarists?

And how can we mere mortals move towards guitar greatness?

If you have already joined in by picking up your air guitar, hearing the melody of your soul and seeing yourself in your mind’s eye roaming those stages playing the music you love, read on!

The Vision

The vision for this modelling project has multiple branches but primarily is to create a learning environment that will accelerate guitar learning with a focus on a particular guitarist’s style and the skills related to it, while making learning fun, refreshing and therapeutic. It was created for folks like me who lead busy personal and professional lives and have decided to follow their dream at an older age.

Some guitarists choose to copy and follow, and will never stand out, while others will captivate the souls of their audience and be unstoppable in their game.

We all know practice makes permanent, not perfect, so getting the initial learning model to work as ‘perfectly’ as possible is crucial. While the model focuses on effective learning, the amount of practice required is left to the player’s discretion and goals. It also focuses on creating a 360-degree learning experience that enables guitarists to improve without necessarily holding a guitar, and to develop as guitar players even when they sleep, by helping them to navigate through vast amounts of information and identify the most appropriate pieces to suit their own

journey.

The model is ecology-oriented, as it aims to gather information, insights and strategies for the aspiring guitarist to use to enhance their own model of the world rather than trying to ‘imitate’ another person by being delusional about becoming them.

Above all, the ultimate goal is to make any guitarist consciously aware of their modelling potential and start seeing the world and training through this prism, not just blindly following another model of creating guitar skills.

From Idea to Inception: Identifying the Problem

The concept of modelling is already present in the music world, in multiple ways, and it is huge! The so-called ‘modelling amplifiers’ digitally emulate the sounds of iconic amplifiers and speaker cabinets as well as the sound and effect presets of favourite guitar players. If you want the technical part of sounding like your favourite guitarist, you can have it almost instantly.

However, the real challenge is in the technique, the expression, the phrasing, the composition ability, the micro movements of the hands and body that make some guitarists excel. Above all, musicians are skilled modellers by nature, and accomplished musicians are master modellers!

Guitarists become dedicated to mastering the music of their idols note for note; they dress like them, use the same instruments as them, replicate the same specifications in their gear, talk like them, and are programmed by singing their melodies and lyrics from a young age. By the time they become professional musicians, they have managed to digest their direct influences into their own unique model of the world, and they present its output to their audiences in the form of music.

The Modelling Process

Music is expression, and musicians express their life experiences. So, it is vital to understand the circumstances that shaped them and create a model that connects them with their playing, composing and expressiveness.

By observing models (guitarists) and especially their output in a global perspective, we can observe their dynamic story: their performance, music, etc. changes as their life progresses. The key to this approach is to establish the link between the two by figuring out the model of the world that closely describes this connection.

By using your mind and body in the same way as an expert performer, you can improve the quality of your behaviour and performance. NLP models real human beings actually doing something. All you have to do is to step into the role of your favourite guitar god and ask them to guide you with their presence inside you, through a similar exciting and expressive journey!

Although the full modelling process ideally needs direct access to the expert or model plus detailed strategies elicitation, in this project we deliberately left this part for the later stages and focused on creating a simple process accessible to all.

Musicians are skilled modellers by nature, and accomplished musicians are master modellers!

For the purpose of this project, we studied the following guitarists:

• Tony Iommi – Black Sabbath

• James Hetfield – Metallica

• David Gilmour – Pink Floyd

• Yngwie J. Malmsteen – YJM

• Gary Moore – solo artist

• Steve Harris – Iron Maiden

• John Petrucci – Dream Theater

• Criss Oliva and Chris Caffery – Savatage

• Slash – Guns and Roses

• Angus and Malcom Young – AC/DC

• Jimmy Page – Led Zeppelin

• Zakk Wylde – session artist

• Mark Knopfler – Dire Straits

We identified 10 categories of information that will allow aspiring guitarists to model their beloved guitar gods, plus two additional categories that require advanced NLP knowledge but

are worth mentioning.

We obtained the information in the categories that follow via biographies and other books, social media content, interviews, backstage observation, video clips and song lyrics, and from interviews of other people (especially their devoted enemies or estranged band members!) talking about the guitarists.

As Fran Burgess frames it in her book The Bumper Bundle Book of Modelling, change happens the moment the modeller begins to model – so let’s explore the areas of a guitarist’s life that could

provide vital information, strategies and subjective experience that will enhance the guitar learning experience without the need for a super-detailed procedure.

Emotional states

Each artist is globally characterised by a specific family of emotions that are mostly expressed in music and life choices. Chunking down on each era of an artist’s career and more specifically on each album and each song, we can find that it is characterised by specific emotions.

By entering a similar emotional state using NLP, we can model extensively the technique or skill of that guitarist as it was created. For example, Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen invented tapping (a popular flashy guitar technique) because at that time he wanted to impress girls and other musicians by sounding extraordinary.

Being in an ‘ordinary’ state proves ineffective for learning tapping, as it requires a different kind of energy to work. The Irish bluesman Gary Moore created an expressive playing technique to overcome his sadness and disappointment from a traumatic incident that scarred his face for life, and he was famous for his vibrato. To come close to emulating that, you need to enter that state and allow your sadness to rapport with his on the strings of your guitar.

How can one be the best rhythm guitarist in an aggressive genre if they didn’t experience that family of emotions throughout their life – and how can you play rhythm like them if you don’t access this state during the modelling phase?

Accessing the right state before trying to learn a certain skill is crucial!

Representational systems and senses+

There is a commonly held belief that musicians are auditory people, as music is sound. While most of them have super-sharp hearing, this is not necessarily true. Music is sound, created by various processes and via multiple channels that all resolve to an auditory output. But playing and composing music is a demanding, full-sensory activity and mainly a synesthetic process that goes far beyond the five senses. In order to understand playing an instrument, we need to expand the modelling process to include the senses of pain (nociception), balance (equilibrioception), body position (proprioception) and perception of time (chronoception).

Some guitarists, such as Steve Harris, the bass player in Iron Maiden, visualise shapes on the fretboard. He does not have any formal musical education; he just plays shapes.

Some play in a very emotive and physically demanding way and, as they say, “they leave a piece of their soul” on the fretboard each night, like Gary Moore.

Other guitarists can almost instantly play anything they hear, detecting even the tiniest details and micromovements. And some, such as progressive guitarists like Dream Theater’s John Petrucci and Tim Henson of Polyphia, create complex melodies, leveraging their advanced music education and deep knowledge of theory.

Going beyond the five senses, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Angus and Malcom Young of AC/DC are known for their tight and/or intricate rhythms. When modelling them, we had to put the

senses of equilibrium and balance into the equation, as they play with their whole body and not just the instrument.

Identifying and tuning into the preferred representational system of your favourite guitar god and how they use their senses to create their signature sounds, melodies and songs is a critical

piece of the puzzle to playing like them.

Vision and ‘Why’

Being driven by a ferocious ‘why’ can make a huge difference in life. Understanding the why behind your guitar god’s achievements can make aspects of their music more profound.

Whatever their ‘why’ is – becoming famous, creating music the audience likes, being the best guitarist, or the most innovative, expressing themselves, living the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, getting

the girl – dictates the guitar skills acquired and/or the kind of nmusic composed.

If one person can do it, we can all do it!

Understanding the vision of your favourite guitar god and allowing yourself to tune into it and walk through it as if it was yours can create increased understanding of their skills and music and will lead you to visit and examine similar musical, technical and melodic destinations.

Role in the band and life

The role of the guitarist in their band or life shares valuable insights about the kind of music they play and create. Leaders lead, even with their music, while session guitarists need supersharp skills to be able to play in any situation. Laid back people create laid back music with laid back styles etc. Tuning into the role and its vibe, physically, mentally and emotionally, can help you understand rhythm and choice of notes,

among other features.

Values

Values play a major role in the motivation of people and we might hear the core values of a guitarist in their music and playing style, see them in their appearance and any visual content, and feel them in the music.

Approaching values via the Spiral Dynamics model and examining the crucial decades of the guitarist’s life, their birthplace and/or the decade when a song was written can be very effective in identifying values and connecting them to the music and the skills.

Chunk Down to Their Musical Influences

The guitarists who influenced your model to become a professional guitarist can be a valuable source of information to understand a specific skill you want to learn. They can be used as calibration standards to identify similarities and differences and understand your model deeper. You can learn which skills were passed on almost identically, which part of the skill comes from

copying and which was developed by the guitarist themselves.

Sometimes, a skill can be understood better if it is traced back to its source or original inventor, such as Eddie Van Halen and the tapping technique. Although many guitarists have pushed the

boundaries of tapping way beyond him, the strategy behind the technique becomes more evident when you hear the story behind its invention.

Replicating a guitar god’s physiology is a crucial step in modelling, as it gets you in a similar state more easily.

Beliefs And Life Mottoes

Every guitarist has a motto or two that describe his music. For example, Yngwie Malmsteen’s is: “I don’t understand why less is more. For me, more is more!” With this in mind, he created lightning-speed music, pushing in more notes per second than any other guitarist.

Metallica’s James Hetfield’s belief that “music was the voice I didn’t have and playing it …it was me telling the world about me…” led him to compose music that narrated his struggles in life

through unconventional musical arrangements.

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd’s belief that “I can never be a fast guitarist” directed him to explore a more melodic territory; he is considered to be the most melodic guitarist in the world.

Eddie Van Halen and Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) were raised in poor families, and they couldn’t afford anything other than a cheap guitar. Both embraced an ethic of “What do I need effects for when I have a guitar?” and both managed to pull amazing, unique sounds out of it with just their fingers and a pick, changing the world of music forever.

Identifying the mottoes and beliefs guitarists operate from offers amazing insights into their music and guitar playing.

Physiology and Fashion Styles

Replicating a guitar god’s physiology is a crucial step in modelling, as it gets you in a similar state more easily. Taking it one step further, if for whatever reason you can’t dress like them or stand like them, simply observe their stance and style and connect this to their music and skill, as it can tell a very useful story about whether they are similar or totally different to artists in the genre!

Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) lost the fingertips of his right hand in a factory accident just before the band recorded their debut album. By replacing them with homemade(!) prosthetic parts, he

created a unique sound and a whole new music genre.

AC/DC's Angus Young once said in an interview: “Everyone was seeing me as a rock icon, sort of possessed, running around on stage wielding a guitar, and I was experiencing it like a tiny guy

holding a huge guitar and trying to tame it and balance it!” The body uniqueness of both these guitar gods is present in more than one way in their music.

Environment

The word ‘environment’ has a double meaning here, referring both to the external environment (country, family etc.) when these musicians were learning guitar, but also to the environment where they became recognised as guitarists.

Some guitarists are arena players, some are studio players, some are street players, some play small venues or remain bedroom players. It doesn’t mean they did not play well in other settings, but in those settings they developed their sound.

Skills and their underlying strategies can vary a lot depending on this. For example, an arena player can be a performer in multiple channels and might create simpler three-chord songs or tailor the sound and the songs to complement the show. On the other hand, players in smaller settings might approach the process in a completely different way in order to reach their

audience’s soul.

Instruments and gear

Different guitars create different possibilities and favour – or not – specific techniques and sounds. The same skill can have different strategies depending on the instrument used. If you really want to understand how Eddie Van Halen became so skilled in tapping, try learning it on a heavily modified early 80’s guitar with the technology of that era.

Modern guitars and effects make it much easier to learn, but less technical! If your chosen guitarist is a multi-instrument player, the possibility of transfer of learning, strategies and skills from one instrument to the other is very common and can influence their playing in a similar way to how the knowledge of multiple languages influences the richness of the subjective experience of a multilingual person.

Bonus #1: Metaprograms in The Lyrics

If the guitarist is also a lyricist, discovering the story behind the lyrics and observing the metaprograms within a song or a number of songs can offer insights to the music and their skills.

A guitarist using, for example, options and challenge metaprograms can change bits and pieces of a melody in almost every bar and rarely plays songs the same way twice. In contrast, a guitarist with the metaprograms of maintenance and ease will be more consistent and predictable in their music and skills performance etc.

Bonus #2: Metaphors in Lyrics

All artists and bands have some metaphors they recycle in their songs and lyrics, and there is often a connection between these metaphors and the music they create and play. Identifying these recurring metaphors and calibrating them into the music can make a huge difference in finding the difference that make the difference in the way a guitar god stands out from the others.

For example, songs by Criss and Jon Oliva of Savatage revolved around the metaphor of ‘the stage’. They wrote lyrics such as “still the orchestra plays” and “when the crowds are gone” and “cause the person I am are the parts that I play…” to express the tragic story of a nomadic artist who enjoyed the stage and the lights but suffered in other areas of his life. This story is everywhere in their music.

So, now what?

As stated earlier, the aim of this project is to provide the aspiring guitarist with material that will enrich their model of the world and make the process of learning to play the guitar fun, fast

and effective.

Once you have selected your guitar god and gathered this information, one way to use it is to combine it into a mental construct in the form of an internal story or metaphor. We all know that fantasy and reality are regulated in the same way by the brain. Create a story using the ‘why’, the roles, the beliefs and mottoes, the metaphors, metaprograms, emotions and other insights gathered during researching, and by observing and calibrating your guitar gods in the areas discussed above.

This can create a suitable environment around you for you to retrace the steps of any guitarist faster and more easily. Once the story (metaphor) is created in your head, challenge it in any way you can and watch for the insights it will offer you regarding your advancement as a guitarist.

The more creative you can be in the way you challenge it, interpret it, reframe it, and transfer the learnings to real life and your playing, the more value you will get out of it. Examining this metaphor on multiple levels can provide you with endless material for learning and modelling

skills on demand.

We have observed that the more the metaphor’s content, patterns, processes, neurological levels, conflicting parts and roles stay misaligned (and/or missing), and the more meta model violations are present in its narrative and internal dialogue, the more the guitarist will stay away from enjoying an effective learning process.

However, once the metaphor starts to become congruent and its plot comes closer to the learner’s subjective reality and skills (while still leading it by being a few realistic steps ahead), the influence it exerts on the learning process can be phenomenal. The metaphor becomes engaging and motivating as it contains the right mix of tangible reality and vision – and this is a hard-to beat combination in creating unshakable motivation. When all is done well, the plot of the metaphor will begin to show up in the learner’s life. The results we achieved prove this!

Online and Offline Application

Using this method over the last two years while playing the guitar, we discovered that music can flow automatically into the style of the guitarist modelled. We also noticed increased persistence, patience and flexibility in replicating a skill when this skill felt like a really ‘important chapter’ in the story of the learner, and not just another exercise from a guitar coach.

The most important result, though, was experienced ‘offline’. By offline, we mean while watching videos or listening to music for learning purposes without actually engaging in a learning activity

with the guitar in hand. By processing this content using the mental construct discussed above, we experienced an internal feeling of “…now I know how to play it…” just by observing or listening to the musician play it! We experienced a ‘slowing down of time’ which made even the most complex melodies and/or skills feel more attainable and within our reach.

In certain circumstances, such as being on vacation without a guitar, we came back to find we had improved, just by following this method!

NLP Tools Used

Throughout the process of the integration of the information gathered and the utilization of the model, the NLP tools and techniques we used were the following:

• Mental Rehearsal

• Circle of Excellence

• Changing Personal History

• Timelines

• Metaphors

• Belief Change Related Techniques/

Beliefs of Excellence

• Self-hypnosis for personal development

and performance

Real-World Impact: Applications and Opportunities

Over my years as a student of music education, I have experienced first-hand the limitations of traditional teaching methods, even those claiming to be innovative and accurate models of the great musicians!

Factors such as limited flexibility, lack of control from the students’ point of view, a ‘blind’ focus on technique and the fixed schedule of the guitar teacher are among the main reasons people drop their dreams of becoming musicians.

Trying to fit creativity into box-like thinking and nominalized playing styles such as ‘blues’, ‘fusion’, ‘jazz’, ‘pop’, ‘metal’ and ‘rock’ creates more limitations than it solves. Looking into the lives of accomplished guitarists with the magnifying lens of NLP, we could see that only a handful of them had a structured approach to learning music. Rather, they responded to life events and circumstances, and they were led by strong instincts and sometimes unconventional ‘whys’. They

focused on expression rather than ‘limiting labels’” or, as Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath put it: “We weren’t trying to invent heavy metal – we were just loud, raw and honest. The world labelled it. We just played what we felt.”

The aim of this modelling project was to map the learning experiences of the great guitar gods using real-life cues and resources rather than classroom-created ones. Life happens out there, and by using NLP modelling we can uncover life skills and make them accessible to all.

Going beyond music, moving people from unconscious incompetence to at least conscious incompetence using NLP and the great gift of modelling is a big part of our vision for the world.

When people understand that they can do things the same way the people they admire do them, no obstacle is going to be

discouraging enough for them. If one person can do it, we can all

do it!

Going beyond music, moving people from unconscious incompetence to at least conscious incompetence using NLP and the great gift of modelling is a big part of our vision for the world.