MARTY FRIEDMAN's Advice To Young Guitarists: 'You Must Create Opportunities To Play In Front Of Other People'

In a new interview with China's SKYline, former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman was asked what he thinks about younger players focusing too much on developing their techniques and possibly lacking emotional expression and creativity in their playing. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, technique is important. You have to be able to play the instrument. So, of course, practice of anything is good. But what I always say is you must create opportunities to play in front of other people. It doesn't matter if you're kind of a beginner, middle, super pro. When you play in front of people, your body says, 'I must play my best because I don't wanna mess up in front of people.' It's a pressure. That pressure makes what you play much more effective. If you're by yourself and you make a mistake or you play badly, there's no pressure, no one cares, nothing happens, but when you're playing in front of people, your body forces you to work harder. [It's] more [about] connection and your own personal fear of looking like an idiot. You don't wanna look like an idiot. So when you do that, you get much more effective practice time. So that means practice in front of your sister, your brother, your family, your friends. Say, 'Look, I'm trying to play this new song now. Listen.' That's much better than playing in your room. So even if you're in a very beginner's band, try to make little shows. Play in the park or play at a small club or restaurant because then what you do is gonna stick to your body."

Back in October 2023, Friedman spoke to Sweetwater's Nick Bowcott about the importance of establishing your own creative voice when playing guitar. He said in part: "That's the way to have an identity, really. It's one thing to practice, and practice, obviously, is extremely important. But at the same time, thinking of your own, 'Why am I doing this? What am I making music for? What do I have to say? What do I wanna say? What is my expression gonna be?' And it doesn't have to be all figured out at once. You learn it as you go. It changes as you go. But I think a lot of young people would benefit to know that you don't have to be as technically accurate as the latest TikTok guy who's just unbelievable. What you have to be is exactly yourself, what you want to represent yourself as. And I think a lot of people see the guy who practiced with the metronome for months and years and plays these flawless 16th notes at 200 beats per minute, and they say, 'That's what I wanna do.' And if that's your goal, that's absolutely fine, but you're not gonna get really good advice from me from that because it's very simple to do that — very, very simple to do that: take anything and practice it. What you and I are talking about today is how to somewhat develop your own voice over the same chords everybody has. Everybody has A, everybody has F, everybody has E and all these chords. And how do you do that? You just try a lot of different things, and you have to decide for yourself, 'I like this.'"

He added: "There's only one of you. Every single person is an individual. Every single person has something inside of them that's different from the next person. You think a lot of these guitar players, they sound the same. Well, it's because they're learning the same way. They're just learning these theories, and they're learning from lazy guitar teachers, and they're learning these techniques and tricks and sweep picking and tapping and all this. It's the same shit everybody's learning. So, at some point, you have to decide in very small detail which of these things that you really wanna represent yourself with. And I think I probably said that a thousand times."

Friedman's autobiography, "Dreaming Japanese", will arrive on December 3 via Permuted Press.

In July, Friedman announced 2025 U.S. tour dates in support of his latest solo album, "Drama", out now on Frontiers Music Srl. The trek will kick off on January 25 in Las Vegas and wrap up on February 22 in Los Angeles.

Marty's presence in the world of music, the world of guitar and Japanese pop culture is mystifying, bizarre, and nothing short of inspiring. His first major impact in music was in the game-changing guitar duo CACOPHONY, which he founded with equally enigmatic and now-legendary guitarist Jason Becker. He then spent 10 years as lead guitarist in the genre-defining thrash metal act MEGADETH before moving to Tokyo due to his love for Japanese music, language, and culture.