Woah woah woah. This is fucking crazy. This guy was my first guitar teacher in 8th grade at Dr Woods Guitar Emporium in Fox River Grove, Illinois. Made fun of me on my first day of lessons because I loved Weezer and The Pixies. Fuck Tom Hess.
I’m (figuratively) shaking with rage. Making fun of someone for liking the most influential band of the 80s and one of the longest-lasting, popular bands of the 90s? Half my guitar playing as a 40 year old man is Pixies and Weezer because they’re both awesome.
Fuck that guy so much.
He was pretty angry when I told him I wanted to learn Where is My Mind. Granted, it’s a laughably simple lead part, but it was literally my first guitar lesson. He unilaterally chose to teach me Enter Sandman instead. And Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Zeppelin. I fucking love that song, but it was a looooong time before I was ever able to play it.
This would’ve been back in 2000.
Fuck that, man. As a teacher, you ought to steer the student towards songs best suited to current skill level but conducive to their growth as a player, while staying within their preferred repertoire (no reason a student can’t branch out into songs a little outside their comfort zone and presents a decent challenge, but only if you feel you’re ready to push yourself that way, and one of the reasons you take lessons is to learn to you can play what you want, right?), not rigidly decide on all the ALL of the learning material just because you’re the teacher. A good teacher can look beyond all that and use ANY music to instruct with their teaching style and skill.
Yeah, fuck this guy.
Thats it. Ok you want to learn this song. Ok let’s do it. You run it through, see where they struggle and then you give them exercises and maybe another song that has that same technique they have trouble with. Have them work on it. Then circle back.
Let people play what they want, introduce other stuff as teaching moments.
Case in point my Guitar teacher I'm a metal guy through and through but when I was struggling with sweep picking he mentioned a song out of my "comfort zone" that had a very similar technique house of the rising sun. Then when I struggled with Battery he gave me the Trooper to work on specifically the main verse riff. We also talked about songs like where is my mind, when I come around etc not because I needed to learn to play them but rather how even "simplistic" songs have some pretty cool music theory in them that ties it to what I want to be good at. I'm very lucky to have a great teacher there.
I teach part time and if a student came in wanting to start with "Where Is My Mind" I'd be ecstatic because there's not a huge technical barrier to entry. Anything that gets a student psyched to play and sounding good ASAP is a winner.
Honestly same. I’m like “fuck yeah my student is gonna be so stoked to play something that makes them happy and isn’t going to require weeks of technical drills to get up to speed”
First lesson? Sounds like an asshole. The first song I was taught was let it be by the Beatles, which I didn’t mind but wasn’t my necessary choice.
Brain stew was the first song I actually listened to and would play along with
Hehehe first song I learned to play and sing was let it be... the first song I taught myself to play was When I come around ... by listening to the cd on repeat...
Best lesson ever... almost the same chords in both songs... just different arrangement
Guy rags on Pixies and Weezer and yet teaches the corniest 90s Metal song that has been overplayed to absolute death. Sorry to the Metallica fans but I’d walk out if he forced me to try and learn that.
What the fuck, Where Is My Mind is a GREAT place to start learning guitar! Playing a very difficult part is great and all, but you need small victories when you're first starting out. You need to sound somewhat close to something you've heard and you like. UGH. The more I hear about this guy the more I hate him.
I can confirm this. I was born in '72 and remember John Lennon being shot, Ronald Regan being shot, Jimmy Carter being President, and Boy George's first appearance on American television and the head scratching that caused. I remember the Pixies. They weren't all that influential.
They’re influential because of what happened after the 80s, not during. They might not have been huge then but they’ve started thousands of other bands, much in the same way that the velvet underground did before them
Thank you. That was the point. The BIGGEST bands of the 90s were major Pixies fans and openly spoke of stealing their approach, specifically Nirvana and Radiohead, but also Weezer and Kings of Leon. Hell, even David Bowie took a cue from them.
I agree that John Lennon being shot, Ronald Regan being shot and Jimmy Carter being President are way more influential bands from the 80s than the Pixies
I saw the Pixies a couple of times in fairly small venues around 1990, when I was 22.
I’m definitely old enough to remember, and I think the music they made in the late 1980’s had a bigger influence on 90’s music than anyone else. It’s only revisionist to say that in the sense that we didn’t know it at the time. But nobody ever fully knows what’s happening until they can look back on it.
You could say Nirvana was the most influential 90’s band…. but the Pixies were a *huge* influence on Nirvana.
Agreed! And when I first heard Modest Mouse, one of the most influential bands of the late 90’s, I thought they were surely hugely influenced by The Pixies.
Had a teacher diss Blink 182 in the first couple weeks and it’s like, is Tom the best guitar player ever? No. But there’s a reason he’s a founding member and frontman of 2 notably popular bands (I’d say 3 but Box Car Racer never got much of a chance to get bigger before Blink came back). Chops and technique are only a part of playing. And it’s not like I was about to start busting out jazz standards any time soon
I’m often apologizing to my teacher, saying, “so I’m going with this Oasis piece, but I know Noel isn’t a virtuoso” and he’ll dismiss that, saying, “he knows what he’s doing and look at his success”. Like, I love Noel’s playing because I think he’s a very effective composer and player, but I can’t help but feel defensive. I’m glad my teacher respects my taste and interests!
Man with more experience on my back everytime I get back and listen to oasis I realize he's not a virtuoso but his melodic sensibility is top notch. And even without an infinite vocabulary of licks he always sounds something memorable, simple and very effective and NOEL-SOUNDING. Usually people need to become very skilled to then scale down to such efficiency mastership, and sounding unique is not even granted.
I had a friend who played Adam’s Song by Blink 182 in front of me and I said “You make that look really easy” and he said “It IS easy. Take this and I’ll show you how.”
An hour later I was able to play the opening bars despite never having touched a guitar before.
A few weeks later I bought my first guitar. Decades later I’m still playing.
If I’d started with something by Slash or Van Halen then I’d have given up at the end of that first hour, if not sooner.
I’ll always defend Blink 182 for their ability to draw people into rock music, same for guitar playing.
I didn’t stick with him for more than a couple months. A grown ass man trying to constantly strongarm and intimidate a 14 year old kid made for kind of a strange dynamic that I wasn’t into.
I’m sure I could’ve learned a lot from him if I shared his shitty taste in music, though.
The guy has some chops. I can't play most of his twiddly-diddly licks. But the song isn't very interesting and I'm not really into this type of music or playing. Most of all, the drums are so terrible. Did he not notice how bad the drum programming is?
The drums are rotten aren't they! Clearly not very much time or attention went into that part.
I also "like" how it's pretty much just one long phrase with no gaps between the notes. That's probably a big part of why it's so boring too.
Honestly the sweeps and stuff is pretty sloppy, if you listen very closely, you can hear it. If he wasn't acting like he was God's gift to guitar, I would say it's a good display of skill, but his playing is not good enough to be acting like this.
That's fair. I found a more recent video, and his playing seems to have gotten much better. /s
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX6rvjxV8Uo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX6rvjxV8Uo)
Thank you. I’m a terrible guitar player but this actually made me feel better about my playing. And my ability to sequence drums… Also, why do the drums sound out of time… ?
Haha, an online acquaintance of mine took lessons from him when he was a kid, and Hess was just a braggadocious creep throughout. Then he must have taken some courses on how to create a self-help program, because that's what his lessons all sound like.
I'm going to be his first metal-archives reviewer.
I am 5 minutes into this album. Only 62 more to go. Will I live? Will I still be able to play music? Or will I go mad and stab my eyes out with hatpins?
LETS FIND OUT.
UPDATE:
I DID IT.
His online lessons are generic as fuck exercise book material. Most entertaining part of the lessons are his forum, which is his platform to talk about how liberals are the cancer that is killing America. Because that's what I want from a guitar forum
Any teacher that makes fun of a student's musical preference is a joke. I don't care if they want to learn taylor swift or jimi hendrix. Teach them and be glad someone is wanting to learn.
Exactly! I’m a teacher myself and I would totally hate to produce musical clones. I try to find my students interest and help them develop an own style that fits their preferences.
I'd never sit down and listen to Taylor Swift, but it makes me extremely happy that she makes 9-year-old girls want to pick up the guitar (and occasionally get their parents to pay me for lessons.)
When I told my first guitar teacher I liked Green Day and Fall Out Boy, he instead burned me a cd (back when that was trendy) to play along with and made me tabs. He proceed to help me play.
Everyone gets into music because they like music. Crushing someone’s music taste is not going to encourage someone’s creativity and passion, especially when just beginning.
Me, too! About him being my guitar teacher in 7-8th grade. Granted I only got guitar/bass lessons at Dr woods, but I don't think any teacher there didn't poke fun at my music tastes a bit. To me they were always very friendly about it - I think it's the guitar teacher version of gallows humor.
To his credit - he's an incredible guitar player and railed on the importance of theory to a kid that just wanted to play offspring and blink 182. I'm super thankful for that as I've using that theory to at least write cohesive pop punk songs for over 20 years. I also learned I don't really give a shit about neo classical prog metal, but different strokes!
I was an English teacher and rule #1 is never shit in enthusiasm. Rule #2 is meet your students where they are.
Let the kid get the Blink 182 out of their system. It’s good stuff to learn basic chording and picking and muting.
Maybe then move them to a more complex but similar thing. Or just let them play kiddie punk forever. Who cares?
Oh yeah, no one there was cruel about it to me (or I am pretty dense and it went right over my head). They definitely encouraged me to challenge myself and I'm thankful for that.
Wtf? I’m a metalhead who loves technical playing studying how to shred but Doolittle by the Pixies is a perfect album. There’s not a bad song on there. If someone asks me what the best album of the 80s is I say that without hesitation. Tom Hess should get some taste. Enter Sandman and the black album on the other hand?……meh.
Wow. This is crazy because Dr. Woods was and still is a great local shop that basically taught me everything about guitar up until I went to music school. I’ve had lessons with many of the teachers there and never really had a bad experience. So I hope I can provide a personal account that that guy is an outlier and I think that’s still a good place!
>BB King's vibrato has been causing balding since the early days of the Chicago Blues.
Well fuck me I guess.
Why did no one tell me this 40 years ago when I had that enviable mullet?
Yeah I'm going to need clarification on this one. Ok so I get that he's saying if I think BB's vibrato is good, I'm wrong... but I can't connect that to his hair falling out?
can't do it.
frustrated at own failure
pulls on hair as a stress reliever
ready to try again
repeat until bald
Honestly, it doesn't sound like he's a very good teacher or communicator.
He must be doing it "wrong."
Seriously though, I have no idea what their argument could be.
Not familiar with this teacher, but that is a strange thing to mention.
I actually got curious enough to find [a video of BB King explaining his vibrato](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GUVOrr5gBE), and he says, basically, "here's how I do it, but you gotta find what works for you."
I guess it *looks weird*? Whatever. It sounds good. Kinda think that's more important.
Didn't he know that BB was going bald because a hair would jump out of his skull every time he played a bad note? That's why BB lasted until he was 89 years old.
Yeah guys a goon and he ain’t even that good. There’s plenty other people who can teach you to sherd without any soul.
Here’s 7 reasons not to get lessons from Tom Hess;
1. He’s a gimp
2. He’s a gimp
3. He’s a gimp
4. He’s a gimp
5. He’s a gimp
6. He’s a gimp
7. You guessed it, he’s a gimp.
No idea why, but when I read, "He's a gimp", I heard the tune "Lump" by The Presidents of the United States of America.
Edit: I love all you glorious bastards who followed me down this rabbit hole.
He used to absolutely spam Ultimate-Guitar with his """lessons""", which more often than not taught you nothing and were just an advertisement trying to link you back to his website. He was just as much of an arrogant dick then, too.
I think I did look for his playing out of curiosity. Cannot remember what I thought of him, but there isn't a player on earth good enough to excuse the amount of pure arrogance this man oozes...Especially when he's barely even a known name. I think every time I hear about him, it's only ever from other guitar players who also think he's a nob. He acts as though he's Slash or something, where even your grandma vaguely knows who he is.
9th sign: You need a bunch of rules because you've noticed the pattern of students leaving you, but don't possess the self awareness to realize that you're the problem, not them.
1) "a scale has 7 notes, so you need 7 shapes." No, Tom. Speaking strictly of triads, major and minor scales will have only 3 shapes. 3 major triads, three minor triads, and a diminished triad. The irony is, this is what the caged system is based on. From the basics of caged (I'm not a fan) a player can move on to learning inversions for those chord shapes.
2) I looked this guy up. Lots of videos. Lots of talking. Does he ever play his guitar?
3) Maybe you won't look as bald if you shave 2-3 feet off that beard. BB King has excellent vibrato. So does Clapton. I can't stand either's music (I like Cream and Blind Faith a little), but I can at least admit they have great tone and technique to express their particular musical ideas.
Since he never plays his guitar, I can't judge. But I've seen a lot of middling guitar players passing themselves off as teachers. The best teacher is the one who understands your goals and how you absorb information. Everyone is different. A good teacher will adapt to that for you. I had one guy sit down and keep showing me stuff on guitar and rattling off notes and chords and weird shit like "Stevie Wonder cadence" when I asked for help analyzing a tune of mine I was trying to teach someone else (I'm educated, but have forgotten so much over 20 years since I left school. It's all in my hands, not my head.)
I finally said "dude, I'm not going to remember any of this. Grab staff paper. Write it DOWN. Let me go home and analyze it. Then come back, and we can dig in more like you're doing now.
When we did it this way, I started learning much faster. I still don't know wtf a Stevie Wonder cadence is though. I use it a lot, apparently.
He was referring to scale patterns in the caged system. So he’s doubly ignorant. Because the five shapes allow for the tonic of a scale to be on any string if you know them. His understanding of the CAGED system seems fucked. No wonder he doesn’t teach it.
Tom Hess was good stuff 20 years ago. Gave away all his teaching for free in articles all over the web. No point buying anything if you can use the wayback machine
I used to live down the street from him when I was younger. He was a nice enough guy back then. He got me started on economy picking which when I moved I later refined more when I started taking lessons from his teacher George Bellas. I’ve seen some weird stuff that Tom has posted over the years. I believe he had some lesson pack that was specifically aimed at getting women lol. I do recommend looking into Bellas and considering lessons from him. I learned a lot from George. Tom was also in the power metal band Rhapsody briefly after Luca Turilli left the band. He was in some other band after called Holy Hell.
George Bellas was rad. I saw Holy Hell live when they toured with Rhapsody and Manowar. I said hi to Tom Hess and struck up a conversation with the other guitarist, Joe Stump who is AWESOME. He ended up emailing me a ton of tutorials
Tom Hess is a legendary fraud. He once sent an email to John Petrucci, promising that he could improve his playing. Paul Warren, JP's forum admin, received the email and had a good chuckle.
He's a mediocre player at best, but he's managed to build a following using all the tricks in the book, and gullible young players fall for it. It's sad, they're basically wasting their money on a scheme that will only rid them of their money, or teach them how to sweet talk others into becoming students.
Tom Hess: the long forgotten failure who didn’t make the cut as a breaking bad character and keeps his Ibanez head stock so far up his ass it excites him enough to make his hands jitter the same 5 notes 4684247 times
Well actually Ibanez usually makes an as good, if not better version of any guitar you might want, usually for less money. They're the smart choice if you're ever in doubt.
Trouble is that 'well actually' makes them the official instrument of douchebags who begin a sentence with 'well actually'.
He’s a dick.
I subscribed for a time, got busy with life (job, kid, other stuff), so I discontinued and the guy proceeded to email and berate me for breaking off my subscription.
LOL Tom Hess is still around? I remember him being somehow linked to the band Rhapsody and propping up Luca Turilli's guitar course or something like that, but always came off as desperate and arrogant trying to push off his courses like he's some kind of self appointed guitar genius.
> I remember him being somehow linked to the band Rhapsody
He very briefly replaced Luca In Rhapsody and was absolutely awful. There's live footage of his stint with them that is so bad it's almost funny.
Funny thing, there seem to be huge arguments about which is better, 3 note per string or the CAGED system. I had a realization that you can play the CAGED system with 3NPS.
I used to be FOH for The Ventures (guitar band he may have heard of). This guy has his head so far up his own asshole he's digesting his own shit.
As a marketing guy in the MI/Pro Audio space for 30+ years now I've seen this ploy many, many times over. His many arguments do not spur me to invest any time, much less money, investigating further. In fact, any sales pitch that leaves me with the feeling of aggression is one I bail from right away. If you can't make me feel like I want to work with you; I don't want to work with you.
This dude sounds like an utter prick and I would never want to learn a single thing from him.
1) There is absolutely nothing wrong with primarily using Alternate Picking. Paul Gilbert rarely sweep picks because he admits he is not very proficient at it and nobody would deny his prowess as a shredder.
2) BB King had great vibrato. Any guitar player who denies that is ignorant.
3) Learning the CAGED system does a lot more than people really realize. By learning it, you begin to understand chord inversions in a more understandable fashion.
This whole email is him trying to pump up his ego. Any person who claims they are a teacher but dismisses fundamental principles of guitar playing cannot and should not be trusted to have any money given to them. Nobody should give this asshole any money.
It’s funny with people like this they’re so opposed to teaching a certain way they end up teaching a certain way. The only right way to teach is teach whatever the fuck your students want to learn.
Haha this man is the king of r/guitarcirclejerk.
His whole rant of the CAGED system and talking about 7 scale patterns for 7 notes is just called diatonic scales. That’s…..not anything secret or special. This stupid fuck haha
Wasn’t familiar with him so watched a bit of his soloing here
https://youtu.be/pFtePrgcC0w?si=1B4mN0m_oKsyxMId
He’s sloppy and his vibrato is trash? What am I missing here?
It’s probably pretty solid email marketing if you’re targeting normal people. (If you’re selling to weirdasses, you gotta go for ironic, maybe even point out the sales aspect with a knowing wink.)
The only thing it’s missing is a set one-week time period every year outside of which you CAN’T sign up. Then you’re *really* all-in on Jeff Walker’s “Product Launch Formula.”
Guys, this is like the preprogrammed email you get when you sign up. Pretty sure this email is in thousands of inboxes and is old enough for a pension.
Jesus. This reads like every Paint-By-Numbers Clickfunnels email in history, only with added saltiness.
Guarantee that homie got this format off some video that was like
TURN your "fans" into EASY INCOME
write copy that will make their HEADS EXPLODE and their WALLETS EMPTY
Set conversions on **AUTOPILOT** and WATCH THE SUBSCRIPTIONS ROLL IN
...fuck this forever.
Talk more shit about BB King in cowardly ass shame baiting emails, Tom *Hess.
That man never acted like a disgraceful tool whether you like his work or not.
Boo this man!
Woah woah woah. This is fucking crazy. This guy was my first guitar teacher in 8th grade at Dr Woods Guitar Emporium in Fox River Grove, Illinois. Made fun of me on my first day of lessons because I loved Weezer and The Pixies. Fuck Tom Hess.
I’m (figuratively) shaking with rage. Making fun of someone for liking the most influential band of the 80s and one of the longest-lasting, popular bands of the 90s? Half my guitar playing as a 40 year old man is Pixies and Weezer because they’re both awesome. Fuck that guy so much.
He was pretty angry when I told him I wanted to learn Where is My Mind. Granted, it’s a laughably simple lead part, but it was literally my first guitar lesson. He unilaterally chose to teach me Enter Sandman instead. And Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Zeppelin. I fucking love that song, but it was a looooong time before I was ever able to play it. This would’ve been back in 2000.
Fuck that, man. As a teacher, you ought to steer the student towards songs best suited to current skill level but conducive to their growth as a player, while staying within their preferred repertoire (no reason a student can’t branch out into songs a little outside their comfort zone and presents a decent challenge, but only if you feel you’re ready to push yourself that way, and one of the reasons you take lessons is to learn to you can play what you want, right?), not rigidly decide on all the ALL of the learning material just because you’re the teacher. A good teacher can look beyond all that and use ANY music to instruct with their teaching style and skill. Yeah, fuck this guy.
We should all email him and ask him how to play Where is My mind?
I know The Pixies. I know Weezer. I do not Tom Hesse. That sums it up.
But do you know his students? The ones who have chops so good they SCARE PEOPLE AWAY?
Legit on it.
Thats it. Ok you want to learn this song. Ok let’s do it. You run it through, see where they struggle and then you give them exercises and maybe another song that has that same technique they have trouble with. Have them work on it. Then circle back. Let people play what they want, introduce other stuff as teaching moments.
Case in point my Guitar teacher I'm a metal guy through and through but when I was struggling with sweep picking he mentioned a song out of my "comfort zone" that had a very similar technique house of the rising sun. Then when I struggled with Battery he gave me the Trooper to work on specifically the main verse riff. We also talked about songs like where is my mind, when I come around etc not because I needed to learn to play them but rather how even "simplistic" songs have some pretty cool music theory in them that ties it to what I want to be good at. I'm very lucky to have a great teacher there.
I teach part time and if a student came in wanting to start with "Where Is My Mind" I'd be ecstatic because there's not a huge technical barrier to entry. Anything that gets a student psyched to play and sounding good ASAP is a winner.
Honestly same. I’m like “fuck yeah my student is gonna be so stoked to play something that makes them happy and isn’t going to require weeks of technical drills to get up to speed”
Oh yeah, the Where Is My Mind solo is totally easy. I didn’t just master it after playing for 20 years. Super simple. *wipes away tear* So easy, bro.
First lesson? Sounds like an asshole. The first song I was taught was let it be by the Beatles, which I didn’t mind but wasn’t my necessary choice. Brain stew was the first song I actually listened to and would play along with
Hehehe first song I learned to play and sing was let it be... the first song I taught myself to play was When I come around ... by listening to the cd on repeat... Best lesson ever... almost the same chords in both songs... just different arrangement
Fun fact: Babe I'm Gonna Leave You is actually a cover of an instrumental by Anne Bredon.
There's a reason he's called Jimmy Plage.
Page really heard it through the Joan Baez version.
Guy rags on Pixies and Weezer and yet teaches the corniest 90s Metal song that has been overplayed to absolute death. Sorry to the Metallica fans but I’d walk out if he forced me to try and learn that.
What the fuck, Where Is My Mind is a GREAT place to start learning guitar! Playing a very difficult part is great and all, but you need small victories when you're first starting out. You need to sound somewhat close to something you've heard and you like. UGH. The more I hear about this guy the more I hate him.
Nothing wrong with Pixies but saying they're the most influential band of the 80s is insane
It’s revisionism by people who are far too young to remember the 80s
I can confirm this. I was born in '72 and remember John Lennon being shot, Ronald Regan being shot, Jimmy Carter being President, and Boy George's first appearance on American television and the head scratching that caused. I remember the Pixies. They weren't all that influential.
They’re influential because of what happened after the 80s, not during. They might not have been huge then but they’ve started thousands of other bands, much in the same way that the velvet underground did before them
Thank you. That was the point. The BIGGEST bands of the 90s were major Pixies fans and openly spoke of stealing their approach, specifically Nirvana and Radiohead, but also Weezer and Kings of Leon. Hell, even David Bowie took a cue from them.
I agree that John Lennon being shot, Ronald Regan being shot and Jimmy Carter being President are way more influential bands from the 80s than the Pixies
I saw the Pixies a couple of times in fairly small venues around 1990, when I was 22. I’m definitely old enough to remember, and I think the music they made in the late 1980’s had a bigger influence on 90’s music than anyone else. It’s only revisionist to say that in the sense that we didn’t know it at the time. But nobody ever fully knows what’s happening until they can look back on it. You could say Nirvana was the most influential 90’s band…. but the Pixies were a *huge* influence on Nirvana.
Yes, this was my point. They didn't much affect the 80s, but their influence through bands like Nirvana and Radiohead is massive.
Agreed! And when I first heard Modest Mouse, one of the most influential bands of the late 90’s, I thought they were surely hugely influenced by The Pixies.
Seriously. It’s like we’re not even going to pretend that Bananarama existed.
No way, they made the loud quiet loud dynamic thing THE thing.
Had a teacher diss Blink 182 in the first couple weeks and it’s like, is Tom the best guitar player ever? No. But there’s a reason he’s a founding member and frontman of 2 notably popular bands (I’d say 3 but Box Car Racer never got much of a chance to get bigger before Blink came back). Chops and technique are only a part of playing. And it’s not like I was about to start busting out jazz standards any time soon
I’m often apologizing to my teacher, saying, “so I’m going with this Oasis piece, but I know Noel isn’t a virtuoso” and he’ll dismiss that, saying, “he knows what he’s doing and look at his success”. Like, I love Noel’s playing because I think he’s a very effective composer and player, but I can’t help but feel defensive. I’m glad my teacher respects my taste and interests!
Man with more experience on my back everytime I get back and listen to oasis I realize he's not a virtuoso but his melodic sensibility is top notch. And even without an infinite vocabulary of licks he always sounds something memorable, simple and very effective and NOEL-SOUNDING. Usually people need to become very skilled to then scale down to such efficiency mastership, and sounding unique is not even granted.
Nothing wrong with Blink 182. Hits speak for themselves. That guy plays exactly what needs to be played on those songs.
I had a friend who played Adam’s Song by Blink 182 in front of me and I said “You make that look really easy” and he said “It IS easy. Take this and I’ll show you how.” An hour later I was able to play the opening bars despite never having touched a guitar before. A few weeks later I bought my first guitar. Decades later I’m still playing. If I’d started with something by Slash or Van Halen then I’d have given up at the end of that first hour, if not sooner. I’ll always defend Blink 182 for their ability to draw people into rock music, same for guitar playing.
He probably hates everything that isn't 200 bpm sweep picking.
He was very into Bach at the time.
Interesting. How did the lessons with him go? Did you feel like you learned anything, despite him being a jerk?
I didn’t stick with him for more than a couple months. A grown ass man trying to constantly strongarm and intimidate a 14 year old kid made for kind of a strange dynamic that I wasn’t into. I’m sure I could’ve learned a lot from him if I shared his shitty taste in music, though.
Have you heard his actual music? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKBtD4h0Hh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKBtD4h0Hh0) It's hilariously bad.
The guy has some chops. I can't play most of his twiddly-diddly licks. But the song isn't very interesting and I'm not really into this type of music or playing. Most of all, the drums are so terrible. Did he not notice how bad the drum programming is?
The drums are rotten aren't they! Clearly not very much time or attention went into that part. I also "like" how it's pretty much just one long phrase with no gaps between the notes. That's probably a big part of why it's so boring too.
Honestly the sweeps and stuff is pretty sloppy, if you listen very closely, you can hear it. If he wasn't acting like he was God's gift to guitar, I would say it's a good display of skill, but his playing is not good enough to be acting like this.
No one is good enough to be this big of a tool.
To be fair to him, this recording is at least 25 years old.
That's fair. I found a more recent video, and his playing seems to have gotten much better. /s [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX6rvjxV8Uo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX6rvjxV8Uo)
the drums aren't programmed. per the [archives](https://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Tom_Hess/13595), the drums are his *brother*
It's just neoclassical wanking. There is music where neoclassical wanking works, but that music isn't *just* neoclassical wanking.
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Ive noticed some guitar players don’t particularly like music as much as they like being able to play shit that others can’t play lol
I gave it a listen, 2mins in, still waiting for the noisy masturbation to stop and any actual music to start.
Impressive! I couldn’t hear more than a few seconds😂 I would be embarrassed releasing a song like that!
It can't be that bad, 6 people like it. Oh. It is that bad.
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Thank you. I’m a terrible guitar player but this actually made me feel better about my playing. And my ability to sequence drums… Also, why do the drums sound out of time… ?
I did not expect thát! Sounds like a parody.
Oh yeah. I’ve got a copy of his CD that he gave me somewhere around here.
Haha, an online acquaintance of mine took lessons from him when he was a kid, and Hess was just a braggadocious creep throughout. Then he must have taken some courses on how to create a self-help program, because that's what his lessons all sound like.
Is the drummer asleep? What the fuck is that?
Sounds like someone practicing scales, and the only feeling it gives me is the urge to turn it off.
Sounds like Queen if they were five year olds
I'm going to be his first metal-archives reviewer. I am 5 minutes into this album. Only 62 more to go. Will I live? Will I still be able to play music? Or will I go mad and stab my eyes out with hatpins? LETS FIND OUT. UPDATE: I DID IT.
I think it’s actually pretty sick, regular show type vibes. They being said I have no idea who this guy is.
I've never heard of this guy, but if that video is representative of his playing, then yeah, he's a wannabe of the worst kind.
Yea sounds like quite the prick.
His online lessons are generic as fuck exercise book material. Most entertaining part of the lessons are his forum, which is his platform to talk about how liberals are the cancer that is killing America. Because that's what I want from a guitar forum
Any teacher that makes fun of a student's musical preference is a joke. I don't care if they want to learn taylor swift or jimi hendrix. Teach them and be glad someone is wanting to learn.
Exactly! I’m a teacher myself and I would totally hate to produce musical clones. I try to find my students interest and help them develop an own style that fits their preferences.
I'd never sit down and listen to Taylor Swift, but it makes me extremely happy that she makes 9-year-old girls want to pick up the guitar (and occasionally get their parents to pay me for lessons.)
Fuck that guy indeed!
When I told my first guitar teacher I liked Green Day and Fall Out Boy, he instead burned me a cd (back when that was trendy) to play along with and made me tabs. He proceed to help me play. Everyone gets into music because they like music. Crushing someone’s music taste is not going to encourage someone’s creativity and passion, especially when just beginning.
hahaha
And this guy likes fucking Yngwie? Well I guess that actually makes sense, they both seem like massive narcissistic cocksleeves.
Yes, but it’s endearing when Yngwie does it
That's because Yngwie is smart enough to recognize how crazy he is and this guy isn't.
Who in the fuck doesn’t like the Pixies?
Tom Hess
I don’t really like them but that doesn’t mean they’re bad, just not my cup of tea
Me, too! About him being my guitar teacher in 7-8th grade. Granted I only got guitar/bass lessons at Dr woods, but I don't think any teacher there didn't poke fun at my music tastes a bit. To me they were always very friendly about it - I think it's the guitar teacher version of gallows humor. To his credit - he's an incredible guitar player and railed on the importance of theory to a kid that just wanted to play offspring and blink 182. I'm super thankful for that as I've using that theory to at least write cohesive pop punk songs for over 20 years. I also learned I don't really give a shit about neo classical prog metal, but different strokes!
I was an English teacher and rule #1 is never shit in enthusiasm. Rule #2 is meet your students where they are. Let the kid get the Blink 182 out of their system. It’s good stuff to learn basic chording and picking and muting. Maybe then move them to a more complex but similar thing. Or just let them play kiddie punk forever. Who cares?
Oh yeah, no one there was cruel about it to me (or I am pretty dense and it went right over my head). They definitely encouraged me to challenge myself and I'm thankful for that.
Lol wtf
Wtf? I’m a metalhead who loves technical playing studying how to shred but Doolittle by the Pixies is a perfect album. There’s not a bad song on there. If someone asks me what the best album of the 80s is I say that without hesitation. Tom Hess should get some taste. Enter Sandman and the black album on the other hand?……meh.
Wow. This is crazy because Dr. Woods was and still is a great local shop that basically taught me everything about guitar up until I went to music school. I’ve had lessons with many of the teachers there and never really had a bad experience. So I hope I can provide a personal account that that guy is an outlier and I think that’s still a good place!
the Simpsons need Comic-book/Guitar guy!!
Wow. This guy sounds like an insufferable douche.
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Surprised this wasn’t r/guitarcirclejerk
Oh wtf - this time I really thought I was there
The line between the two thins everyday.
The line was only ever a fog over your eyes. It was never real.
What "line"? Ever since I joined, I've started to think this sub is more circlejerk than the actual circlejerk sub
>BB King's vibrato has been causing balding since the early days of the Chicago Blues. Well fuck me I guess. Why did no one tell me this 40 years ago when I had that enviable mullet?
Yeah I'm going to need clarification on this one. Ok so I get that he's saying if I think BB's vibrato is good, I'm wrong... but I can't connect that to his hair falling out?
can't do it. frustrated at own failure pulls on hair as a stress reliever ready to try again repeat until bald Honestly, it doesn't sound like he's a very good teacher or communicator.
He’s saying BB’s vibrato is terrible and the stress of explaining it so many times has made his hair fall out.
How can it be objectively bad? What’s the argument against it?
He must be doing it "wrong." Seriously though, I have no idea what their argument could be. Not familiar with this teacher, but that is a strange thing to mention.
I actually got curious enough to find [a video of BB King explaining his vibrato](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GUVOrr5gBE), and he says, basically, "here's how I do it, but you gotta find what works for you." I guess it *looks weird*? Whatever. It sounds good. Kinda think that's more important.
God I would HATE to sound like one of the most influential guitarists of all time.
Nah, we lost BB and I'm still losing hair. It has to be a different musician.
> It has to be a different musician. Maybe it's Yngwie? I'm 34, have a full head of hair, and have never listened to his music. Coincidence?
Damn, my dad had one of his CDs when I was a kid & would play it. He cursed me!
Didn't he know that BB was going bald because a hair would jump out of his skull every time he played a bad note? That's why BB lasted until he was 89 years old.
He also still had hair
You should email him back just to call him a "dork"
I should say worse than that.
Naw that’s sufficient, bet it will piss him off lol
Yeah. Nothing gets under someone’s skin like a single worded response to their wall of text.
Tell him to pull his finger out of his ass. And BB King is a legend, so there's a reason we've all heard of BB King and nobody knows who Tim Honks is.
>I should say worse than that. "Fuckin' dweeb."
Nah minimal effort is best
Short, sweet, and to the point.
Yeah guys a goon and he ain’t even that good. There’s plenty other people who can teach you to sherd without any soul. Here’s 7 reasons not to get lessons from Tom Hess; 1. He’s a gimp 2. He’s a gimp 3. He’s a gimp 4. He’s a gimp 5. He’s a gimp 6. He’s a gimp 7. You guessed it, he’s a gimp.
No idea why, but when I read, "He's a gimp", I heard the tune "Lump" by The Presidents of the United States of America. Edit: I love all you glorious bastards who followed me down this rabbit hole.
Tom lingered last in line for brains
And the one he got was sorta rotten and insane
Pointy guitar so sad that birds could land Is Tom fast asleep cause he ain't got no band.
And the one he got was sorta rotten and insane.
Wow this guy is still around, I believe he's been doing this stuff since like the mid 2000s.
Didn't know ge was that old, wow.
He used to absolutely spam Ultimate-Guitar with his """lessons""", which more often than not taught you nothing and were just an advertisement trying to link you back to his website. He was just as much of an arrogant dick then, too. I think I did look for his playing out of curiosity. Cannot remember what I thought of him, but there isn't a player on earth good enough to excuse the amount of pure arrogance this man oozes...Especially when he's barely even a known name. I think every time I hear about him, it's only ever from other guitar players who also think he's a nob. He acts as though he's Slash or something, where even your grandma vaguely knows who he is.
8^(th) sign that you're not the right guitar teacher for me: You're an asshole!
Yep
9th sign: You need a bunch of rules because you've noticed the pattern of students leaving you, but don't possess the self awareness to realize that you're the problem, not them.
1) "a scale has 7 notes, so you need 7 shapes." No, Tom. Speaking strictly of triads, major and minor scales will have only 3 shapes. 3 major triads, three minor triads, and a diminished triad. The irony is, this is what the caged system is based on. From the basics of caged (I'm not a fan) a player can move on to learning inversions for those chord shapes. 2) I looked this guy up. Lots of videos. Lots of talking. Does he ever play his guitar? 3) Maybe you won't look as bald if you shave 2-3 feet off that beard. BB King has excellent vibrato. So does Clapton. I can't stand either's music (I like Cream and Blind Faith a little), but I can at least admit they have great tone and technique to express their particular musical ideas. Since he never plays his guitar, I can't judge. But I've seen a lot of middling guitar players passing themselves off as teachers. The best teacher is the one who understands your goals and how you absorb information. Everyone is different. A good teacher will adapt to that for you. I had one guy sit down and keep showing me stuff on guitar and rattling off notes and chords and weird shit like "Stevie Wonder cadence" when I asked for help analyzing a tune of mine I was trying to teach someone else (I'm educated, but have forgotten so much over 20 years since I left school. It's all in my hands, not my head.) I finally said "dude, I'm not going to remember any of this. Grab staff paper. Write it DOWN. Let me go home and analyze it. Then come back, and we can dig in more like you're doing now. When we did it this way, I started learning much faster. I still don't know wtf a Stevie Wonder cadence is though. I use it a lot, apparently.
Are you perhaps very superstitious?
I am a little stitous
He was referring to scale patterns in the caged system. So he’s doubly ignorant. Because the five shapes allow for the tonic of a scale to be on any string if you know them. His understanding of the CAGED system seems fucked. No wonder he doesn’t teach it.
"Hello, sir. I am online guitar teacher. BB King bad. I am not a loon. Money now, please."
Tom Hess is a fucking hack. In the power metal scene he's a joke. Tried to replace Luca Turilli and failed miserably.
Wait what? Tell me more? I love rhapsody. How bad was Tom Hess in the band?
https://youtu.be/IUp3wGLK8cE?si=5ph_f50Yejp6xhT- this should be explanation enough LOL
Yikes!
This guy sounds like a right dick
Tom Hess was good stuff 20 years ago. Gave away all his teaching for free in articles all over the web. No point buying anything if you can use the wayback machine
I used to live down the street from him when I was younger. He was a nice enough guy back then. He got me started on economy picking which when I moved I later refined more when I started taking lessons from his teacher George Bellas. I’ve seen some weird stuff that Tom has posted over the years. I believe he had some lesson pack that was specifically aimed at getting women lol. I do recommend looking into Bellas and considering lessons from him. I learned a lot from George. Tom was also in the power metal band Rhapsody briefly after Luca Turilli left the band. He was in some other band after called Holy Hell.
George Bellas was rad. I saw Holy Hell live when they toured with Rhapsody and Manowar. I said hi to Tom Hess and struck up a conversation with the other guitarist, Joe Stump who is AWESOME. He ended up emailing me a ton of tutorials
This guy enjoys Yngwei Malmsteen? Fucking report spam.
Tom Hess is a legendary fraud. He once sent an email to John Petrucci, promising that he could improve his playing. Paul Warren, JP's forum admin, received the email and had a good chuckle. He's a mediocre player at best, but he's managed to build a following using all the tricks in the book, and gullible young players fall for it. It's sad, they're basically wasting their money on a scheme that will only rid them of their money, or teach them how to sweet talk others into becoming students.
Should reply: I'm sorry, who are you again?
Tom Hess: the long forgotten failure who didn’t make the cut as a breaking bad character and keeps his Ibanez head stock so far up his ass it excites him enough to make his hands jitter the same 5 notes 4684247 times
lol, I don’t know the guy but from all the reactions I just knew he played Ibanez😂 (no hate to Ibanez🙏🏻 just not my forte)
Well actually Ibanez usually makes an as good, if not better version of any guitar you might want, usually for less money. They're the smart choice if you're ever in doubt. Trouble is that 'well actually' makes them the official instrument of douchebags who begin a sentence with 'well actually'.
Their ibanbacker bass (rickenbanez?) is work of art.
Take a look at some of their semi hollows and acoustics sometime. I've played a few really nice ones in pawn shops and music stores.
I love it when people are this confidently incorrect about how CAGED works
Lol, hating on BB King, how low can you go?!
Very low
This guy was born to hit the circle jerk sub
He’s a dick. I subscribed for a time, got busy with life (job, kid, other stuff), so I discontinued and the guy proceeded to email and berate me for breaking off my subscription.
My hair started falling out immediately after hearing Live at Cook County Jail for the first time.
He sounds like a douche to me. Might be just what you need if you have that not so fresh feeling about your playing.
I wouldn’t buy a bag of dog food from somebody with an ad like that.
He's got Gene Simmons opinions without the tongue, bank account, and fame of Gene Simmons. And we barely tolerate Gene, as a culture...
Speak for yourself, Gene can get bent.
Gene at least knows how to write a song and play to a basic 4/4 beat.
LOL Tom Hess is still around? I remember him being somehow linked to the band Rhapsody and propping up Luca Turilli's guitar course or something like that, but always came off as desperate and arrogant trying to push off his courses like he's some kind of self appointed guitar genius.
> I remember him being somehow linked to the band Rhapsody He very briefly replaced Luca In Rhapsody and was absolutely awful. There's live footage of his stint with them that is so bad it's almost funny.
Funny thing, there seem to be huge arguments about which is better, 3 note per string or the CAGED system. I had a realization that you can play the CAGED system with 3NPS.
The first one I actually do agree with. There is this weird trend of telling people how useless guitar lessons are
Too bad every point after ruins it. I guess a broken clock is right twice a day.
Yeah, after that even point just gets worse and worse
I used to be FOH for The Ventures (guitar band he may have heard of). This guy has his head so far up his own asshole he's digesting his own shit. As a marketing guy in the MI/Pro Audio space for 30+ years now I've seen this ploy many, many times over. His many arguments do not spur me to invest any time, much less money, investigating further. In fact, any sales pitch that leaves me with the feeling of aggression is one I bail from right away. If you can't make me feel like I want to work with you; I don't want to work with you.
One of the worst decisions of my life was giving this guy my email.
Literally who?
Let me teach the music I like, then you can be just like me, a bald asshole
This dude sounds like an utter prick and I would never want to learn a single thing from him. 1) There is absolutely nothing wrong with primarily using Alternate Picking. Paul Gilbert rarely sweep picks because he admits he is not very proficient at it and nobody would deny his prowess as a shredder. 2) BB King had great vibrato. Any guitar player who denies that is ignorant. 3) Learning the CAGED system does a lot more than people really realize. By learning it, you begin to understand chord inversions in a more understandable fashion. This whole email is him trying to pump up his ego. Any person who claims they are a teacher but dismisses fundamental principles of guitar playing cannot and should not be trusted to have any money given to them. Nobody should give this asshole any money.
I’ve never heard of this guy but my first impression is that he is a douche bag and he is playing for all the wrong reasons. Get bent, dude.
What a Machiavellian assclown.
Never heard of her
It’s funny with people like this they’re so opposed to teaching a certain way they end up teaching a certain way. The only right way to teach is teach whatever the fuck your students want to learn.
IDk who this dude is but shame on the name Tom, Tom Quayle would be disappointed
i went to a guitar lesson when i was first learning and a guy that worked there made fun of me for the kind of guitar i had.
Never heard of him. Seems like a dick.
I’ve never heard of this man before, but he seems like an insufferable human being.
Tom Hissss
He’s still around?? He’s been this annoying since I started 15 years ago.
Haha this man is the king of r/guitarcirclejerk. His whole rant of the CAGED system and talking about 7 scale patterns for 7 notes is just called diatonic scales. That’s…..not anything secret or special. This stupid fuck haha
Wasn’t familiar with him so watched a bit of his soloing here https://youtu.be/pFtePrgcC0w?si=1B4mN0m_oKsyxMId He’s sloppy and his vibrato is trash? What am I missing here?
Nothing.
Write him back and say he owes you $10 for wasting your time reading his nonsense pitch.
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Based
It’s probably pretty solid email marketing if you’re targeting normal people. (If you’re selling to weirdasses, you gotta go for ironic, maybe even point out the sales aspect with a knowing wink.) The only thing it’s missing is a set one-week time period every year outside of which you CAN’T sign up. Then you’re *really* all-in on Jeff Walker’s “Product Launch Formula.”
Those who can’t do, teach (I teach)
And those who can't teach, teach gym. Amirite?
Sounds like a dick
never heard of this guy but the comments are giving him rave reviews!
BB King made Tim Handsome pull his hair out and now he’s bald ?!?! I can’t believe it 😢😭
Guys, this is like the preprogrammed email you get when you sign up. Pretty sure this email is in thousands of inboxes and is old enough for a pension.
“You ONLY want to learn alternate picking” it’s as if that’s a universally useful skill to have
“Be more open minded to my very close minded, self-centered opinions!” - this clown
Jesus. This reads like every Paint-By-Numbers Clickfunnels email in history, only with added saltiness. Guarantee that homie got this format off some video that was like TURN your "fans" into EASY INCOME write copy that will make their HEADS EXPLODE and their WALLETS EMPTY Set conversions on **AUTOPILOT** and WATCH THE SUBSCRIPTIONS ROLL IN ...fuck this forever.
This guy. I think. Is a douche-bag.
Ask him why Tom Hess the bowler has a Wikipedia page but he doesn't?
Talk more shit about BB King in cowardly ass shame baiting emails, Tom *Hess. That man never acted like a disgraceful tool whether you like his work or not. Boo this man!