What Can Bruce Lee Teach Us About Guitar?


Bruce Lee was very much into practical philosophy, steeped in the wisdom found in Daoism, Zen and Stoicism. He would read a lot, take on insights and enquire into them in his own experience. This informed his intentions in his own life as an actor and in developing his own style of Martial Arts.

Perhaps one of his most prominent Philosophical influences was that of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who made a huge impact on Bruce when he was recovering from a back injury. Bruce read a large amount of his works and reflected on them in his book ‘Striking Thoughts’ which features Bruces own notes and understandings.

Krishnamurti was born in India, brought up around a lot of the philosophy and religion of that culture, he was seen as a ‘new guru’ by the Theosophical society from a young age, however, he saw something beyond these authorities. At a speech for the Theosophical society, after having gained many followers, he made the following statement.

“I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. ... This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies” – Krishnamurti

He advocated that to truly learn, to be whole human being, you have to suspend your judgements, concepts and open to the actuality of the moment. We are often so caught up in our ideals, memories and thought process that we often miss the reality in front of us. We miss who we actually are for who we think we are, which is simply memory. We often run around trying to keep this ‘memory’ intact.

This causes a lot of suffering and reduces our capacity to live freely, to be receptive to what is, to move beyond systems and concepts and live in accordance with life as it emerges. This philosophy could be seen to have many correlations with Zen, Daoism and other traditions.

However, K tried to get people to look for themselves, even when using a system, to be aware of the difference between ‘wearing it’ or actually enquiring, living, seeing for yourself if something works, why something works. In a way, it’s the true spirit of Science, to investigate, to listen, to look at what is right in front of us without condemning or justifying a belief.

This all sounds great, perhaps even idealistic. However, perhaps it's important to remember that this is something to be lived, not talked about. Bruce Lee managed to take this understanding into his Martial Arts, into his life.

He saw that different schools of Martial Arts all had something useful, they all had systems and ways of doing things. However, some practitioners were prisoners to their method, these practitioners hadn’t taken the art form into themselves, they were simply applying it.

Their application made them rigid, made it hard for them to be flexible. Whilst most of us hopefully don’t have to engage in combat daily, we can change that word for “conflict” … daily we find conflict, between deciding what to do, situations not going the way we want, difficulty in our lives. The conflict becomes difficult if we are too dogmatic about how things should be.

This is not to say things aren’t difficult, but the attitude and flexibility of approach allows us to go with the waves of life.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” – Bruce Lee

So how does this apply to Guitar? I’m sure Krishnamuri or Bruce Lee would suggest finding out for yourself? But maybe we can get some practical take aways from this. We can maybe investigate this in terms of Learning, Practicing, Improvisation/Creativity and developing your own sound.

When we are learning, are we just learning things rote? Or are we really listening to what’s going on, how it feels, listening for the dynamics. Have we internalised the song, riff or lick, or is it just suspended in a TAB document or just a pattern that you play? Have you taken the idea into yourself, your own playing. To do this, we need to be open, to listen, to slow down, to feel, rather than jump in with conclusions… which leads to practice.

We often find it hard to focus, we are distracted by social media, our own doubts, “Is this going right?”, “this doesn’t sound like Vai at all”, “I suck”, “I’m the best”… all of these things are abstractions, the only impact they make on our practice is to distract us.

Can we simply listen, feel and play, connect to the actuality of the practice, rather than “I can’t wait until this is over”… Now its important to add, thoughts will occur, we’re human, but its how much importance we put on them which matters, and which ones we pay attention to.

Thought is useful, it’s a tool, knowing that the riff doesn’t sound like Vai yet, is a barometer, but its also a distraction from the action as well. It won’t sound like Vai if you don’t focus, pay attention.

This could be approached in a similar way. Improvisation can feel totally different depending on our attitude. One attitude is to come from force, to try and make the licks you have fit into the improvisation, to show off, to try and make it ‘good’…even though its improvisation, its not happened before, so how do we know what is good?

The other attitude to test out is one of receptivity and contrast. Listening to what you’ve played and like a conversation, responding with the next phrase, using less, listening more. Eventually ideas start to have a coherence, you respond to the actuality of your guitar tone, the music, the rhythm and the harmony.

You use what you have in new ways, rather than having to accumulate and reproduce ‘knowledge’, it becomes music itself. Much like the conflict/combat analogy, when we are open, listening, we can respond appropriately to the situation. The caveat is, what’s appropriate isn’t determined until the moment it happens.

Finally, finding our own sound. Musicians are on a quest to either sound like someone else or sound like themselves. Both are noble pursuits; however they are missing something. We can’t help but be ourselves, and the artists we love can’t help but be themselves.

What we admire in other musicians is often a reflection of what we recognise, what we love, its our own potential being manifest elsewhere. Some musicians ‘try’ not to sound like someone else, in this very trying, they become unrecognisable, unable to connect to other musicians or audiences. Some musicians “try” to sound like someone else, in this they lose themselves, they create a prison that they can’t get out of.

Perhaps though we can only sound like us through negation of trying or not trying. Just being. We are always expressing ourselves; we don’t have to try. Another one of Bruce Lee’s philosophical influences was that of Alan Watts. In the subject of finding your own sound, perhaps this quote is worth digesting:

“You can’t bite your own teeth. You can’t taste your own tongue. And you can’t touch the tip of [your] finger with the tip [of the same] finger. And that is why there is always an element of profound mystery in the problem of who we are”

― Alan Watts

We trust our practice, our curiosity and openness is naturally building up our own expression. What we pay attention to becomes the inclination of the mind, and in music, that becomes fuel for our expression, our desire to play in a certain way in the moment.

We can’t force a tree to grow, we can only nurture it, give it the right conditions as best we can, in its environment, which includes the whole of the universe.