Dean Ween Shares Timeless Guitar Hacks

I love Ween, and over the years I've always enjoyed the strange ways that Deaner has chosen to interact with his fans. Whether it's a now-defunct Q&A site called AskDeaner.com (he once explained how he enjoys leaving used McDonald's bags in National Parks as a joke), his weird photos from the road, or his deep sea fishing guide service, he's forever coming out of left field with something new. So it didn't surprise me to stumble on some brown guitar tutorials led by the man who gave us the sweet riffs from "Big Jilm" and "With My Own Bare Hands".

Here is just a bit of his timeless advice on playing guitar:

I have two modes I play in. I have the happy thing and then the angry thing...Everything that I play is either a variation on "Maggot Brain" or "Blue Sky".

When you wear your guitar, it either goes below your dick, or over your dick like George Harrison. But never covers your dick.

About the time we started making our fourth record, Chocolate and Cheese all I knew was barre chords...That's all you really need to know to start a band. And then eventually you branch out and start including minor chords. Unless you're The Ramones.

A taster is anything that, well, distinguishes itself from the rest of the chord progression. [plays lick] It could be anything. You know, anything that's tasty is a taster. Like The Frap, which seems like a really small thing you take for granted, but it's something that people can hear and feel, but they don't know what it is.

Basically what The Frap is, instead of playing this like [plays lick]. You drag the pick across the strings before you hit it [plays The Frap].

My buddy Billy Tucker, when he was teaching me these valuable lessons like below the dick or over the dick, but never covering the dick, the other thing he taught me was to miss big, which I've never forgotten. It's like if you're gonna go for something, and you're gonna blow it, there's at least a fifty percent chance, like miss big. It's like golf. If you're gonna swing and you suck, swing as hard as you possibly can. In the off chance you get lucky and it goes straight you look much cooler.

To really appreciate the essence of Jimmy Page you need to get the bootlegs, cause he's the brownest guitar player ever. Like, talk about missing big. But uh, he's the king of the way-too-far bend. So it's like if you want to bend a note like we were playing before, he'd go [plays exaggerated bend with The Frap], with the Frap, with the guitar around his ankles, you know, not covering the dick. These are very important things here. You know, when you're a twelve-year-old that's like a $500 lesson right there. With strings ringing open in the wrong key.

The other thing I love about Jimmy Page is that he'll play something and it'll just be, like, the strings will be ringing open and it'll be fraps and it'll be this indiscernible garbage but it'll end up on a Jimmy Page note [plays licks that end on the Jimmy Page note]. As long as you end it there...