“The game shaped my experimental approach to guitar. On really tricky levels, I’d put the controller in my lap and hammer the buttons super-fast”: Yasmin Williams on how Guitar Hero inspired her lap-tapping acoustic technique

For neo-folk fingerstyle and lap-tapping guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer Yasmin Williams, 2021 was a big turning point.

It was the year the inventive guitarist reached more than 700,000 people via NPR's now-iconic Tiny Desk Concert series, released her breakthrough album Urban Driftwood, and performed a game-changing set at the Newport Folk Festival. Since then, her career has taken flight – a trajectory Williams credits to Guitar Hero.

“I played Guitar Hero II every day after school when I was 12, until I beat all the levels,” she tells The Guardian. Within weeks, she transformed into a Hendrix and Nirvana aficionado, and soon after, graduated to an Epiphone SG, with the game even inspiring some of her techniques.

Yasmin Williams: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert - YouTube

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“The game shaped my experimental approach to guitar,” she explains. “On really tricky levels, I’d put the controller in my lap and hammer the buttons super-fast.”

After getting over the shredding phase, Williams realized that playing an acoustic was her true calling, with a YouTube video of folk and blues musician Elizabeth Cotten performing in 1969 cementing her decision. “She drastically changed my trajectory,” she asserts.

“I took lessons for a few months, mainly just blues and rock stuff. Then my teacher showed me Blackbird by The Beatles. I just loved using my fingers and stopped using a pick after that,” she disclosed in a 2021 Guitar World interview.

“My teacher was like, ‘What happened?! I can’t really teach you any more fingerstyle because I’m not that kind of player!’ So I quit that. I didn’t like lessons anyway – I didn’t like being told what to do. I was a stubborn kid, I guess.”

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After that moment, Williams played acoustic exclusively, which led to her penchant for lap-tapping. “I find writing songs a lot easier that way because on acoustic I’m not trying to emulate anyone or anything. I wasn’t playing covers or in anyone else’s style – I was just playing what I wanted to play.”

Williams' latest album, Acadia, was released on October 4 via Nonesuch Records. She is currently touring North America with Brittany Howard and Michael Kiwanuka.