Playing Honest

Guitarist Greg Chako shares some advice on how to approach your playing.

In music, we spend years developing technique, vocabulary, and style.

We practice scales, study harmony, transcribe masters, and work toward fluency on our instrument. All of that matters. It is the foundation. But at a certain point, something else becomes more important.

Honesty.

Playing honest is not just about what you play.
It is about who you are when you play.

And that raises a deeper question:

How well do you actually know yourself?

Not in an abstract or philosophical sense, but in a very real, lived way—
being aware of what you are carrying, feeling, and bringing into the moment.

Because it is difficult to play honestly if one is not, in some measure, honest with oneself.

The Russian writer Anton Chekhov once said,
“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.”

That idea applies directly to music.

Because when you perform—especially in improvisational music such as jazz, where the music is created in real time—there is very little separation between the two.

Playing is, in many ways, like standing in front of a mirror.

Except the mirror is not only for you.

It reflects outward.

What is inside—
your clarity, your confusion, your joy, your tension—
has a way of coming through, whether you intend it or not.

No amount of technique can fully conceal that.

And in a sense, it shouldn’t.

A listener may not understand harmony or technique—
but they can feel the difference between
something performed and something experienced… something true.

The listener knows.

They may not be able to explain it — but they can feel it.

This is why responses to music often seem contradictory.

People may say they don’t like a certain style,
and yet respond deeply to a particular performance within it.

Because what they are responding to is not the category—

It is the connection.

There is no real shortcut around this.

You cannot bypass experience.
You cannot bypass difficulty.
You cannot bypass the process of understanding yourself.

Because ultimately:

You do not just play music.

You play what you are.

There is also a quiet confidence that comes from this.

Not the kind that comes from comparison,
or from trying to measure up to someone else —

but the kind that comes from knowing that what you are expressing is your own.

When that is in place, something changes.

You can hear another musician —
even a great one — and respond with admiration, curiosity, even awe.

But not intimidation.

And not jealousy.

Because you are no longer trying to be them.

The goal of any serious artist is not simply to become more skilled.

It is to become recognizable.

As Horace Silver suggested, the aim is to reach a point where someone can hear just a few notes and say:

“That’s them.”

At a certain point, you realize there is no value in trying to be anyone else.

There is no point in trying to be anyone else—because that job is already taken.

What remains is a different kind of work.

Not imitation.
Not comparison.
But discovery.

The gradual process of aligning:

• what you hear
• what you feel
• and what you express

until they begin to reflect one another honestly.

Technique gives you options.

But honesty gives you voice.

And voice is what people remember.

In the end, the goal is not to play more.

It is to play true — to the music, to the moment, and to yourself.

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