Michael Adam Hedges (December 31, 1953 – December 2, 1997) was an American … Read Full Bio ↴Michael Adam Hedges (December 31, 1953 – December 2, 1997) was an American composer and acoustic guitarist born in Sacramento, CA. He studied classical guitar at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential solo acoustic guitarists of all time. His music features his own unique performing style which features harmonics, fingerpicking, knocking and slapping.

Michael Hedges was a conservatory composition major who applied his classically trained musical background in combination with radical innovation to “reinvent” the steel string acoustic guitar. He combined many unusual techniques on the acoustic guitar with a wide range of musical styles, and was also considered a dynamic performer in concert - in short, a “Paganini” of the guitar.

He is known for extensive use in several pieces of two handed tapping techniques (nearly a contrapuntal style of multiple voices). He used the fingers of his right (typically picking) hand to slap harmonic "chords" at the 12th, 7th or 5th fret (or elsewhere). He made use of right hand hammer-ons, particularly on bass notes, and often used the left hand for melodic or rhythmic hammer-ons and pull offs, as well as unusual strummings, that played, as mentioned, independent voices to the right hand. These techniques tended to convert the guitar into a quasi-keyboard like instrument for certain musical purposes. He also made extensive use of string dampening as employed in classical guitar, and was known to insist strongly on the precise duration of sounds and silences in his pieces. Other facets to his playing were percussive slapping on the guitar body and extensive use of artificial harmonics. He also played guitar-variants like the Harp Guitar (an instrument with additional bass strings that Hedges used to play Bach's Prelude to Cello Suite #1 in G Major in its intended key), and the Trans-Trem Guitar.

Michael Hedges was discovered by William Ackerman who heard him performing in a Palo Alto cafe (the former Varsity Theater) and immediately signed him to a recording contract (1980). For several years Hedges toured and performed in concert with Ackerman. He also appeared on several of Ackerman's albums. In turn William Ackerman produced Hedge's first two albums.

The first two records Michael Hedges made - Breakfast in the Field and Aerial Boundaries - were milestones for the acoustic guitar. He then branched out into singing and performing more popular forms of music, although he would periodically make a return to more guitar-centred music. His record Oracle won the 1998 Grammy for Best New Age Album. Hedges was in fact quite a multi-instrumentalist, playing piano, percussion, tin whistle, harmonica, and flute, among others on his albums. Bassist Michael Manring contributed to many of Michael's records.

Many acoustic guitarists claim a very broad range of influences and will not fit into any genre, but this was truer of Hedges than of any other. His musical education was largely in modern 20th century composition. He listened to Leo Kottke, Bruce Cockburn, Martin Carthy, John Martyn, John Fahey, and the Beatles, but his approach to composition owed much to Stravinsky, Varèse, Webern, and experimental composers such as Morton Feldman. He saw himself as a composer who played guitar, rather than a guitarist who composed music. He was often categorized as New Age due to his association with the Windham Hill record label. Somewhat in reaction to this, he would describe his music as "Heavy Mental", "New Edge", ""Thrash Acoustic", "Deep Tissue Gladiator Guitar" or "Savage Myth Guitar," amongst other terms.

Hedges was killed in a car accident in 1997 at the age of 43. His unfinished last recordings were brought to completion in the album Torched, with the help of his friends David Crosby and Graham Nash.

Ready Or Not
Michael Hedges Lyrics

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Ready or not
Here I come
Who shall I say is calling
Hold the line
Don't hang up
The shutter's open and
my image is refracting
Through wide wild angles of

Publicity

Ready or not
Tongue in groove
Lose yourself and wait for your
heart to speak
Your only cue
A needle starts to cut
Lasers start tracking
Slow acting acids of
Industry

As the whole world turns us around
I keep hearing life's echo sound
Songs of rhyming meaning
Hiding somehow
Ready or not

Ready or not
Here I come
Naked eyes and naked ears
Sighting in
Sounding out
Fear can always frighten up
a few disciples

But no thing can convert
True identity

Overall Meaning

The song "Ready or Not" by Michael Hedges is a reflection on the nature of identity in a world constantly driven by the media and the pressures of the music industry. The song is an extended metaphor, in which Hedges compares himself to a photographer or filmmaker looking for the perfect shot, and the listener to a subject, caught in the bright and unpredictable glare of the spotlight. By urging the listener to "hold the line" and "not hang up," Hedges is emphasizing the importance of staying true to oneself in the face of a world that values conformity and surface-level success.

The second verse of the song takes the metaphor further, with Hedges inviting the listener to "lose yourself and wait for your heart to speak." Here, he is arguing that true identity can only be found by tuning out the noise of the world and listening to one's own intuition. This idea is reinforced by the reference to "slow-acting acids of industry," which could be interpreted as a critique of the way record labels and radio stations slowly wear away at the artistic integrity of musicians.

The chorus, "As the whole world turns us around, I keep hearing life's echo sound, songs of rhyming meaning hiding somehow," finds Hedges grappling with the cyclical nature of life and the way that even meaningful experiences can be difficult to grasp and hold onto. Despite these challenges, however, the song's overall message is ultimately one of hope and resilience, as embodied in its refrain of "ready or not, here I come."

Line by Line Meaning

Ready or not
Even though you may not be prepared, I'm still going to come.

Here I come
I'm coming to find you.

Who shall I say is calling
Who should I say is asking for you?

Hold the line
Please don't hang up the phone.

Don't hang up
Please stay on the phone with me.

The shutter's open and my image is refracting
I'm being exposed and portrayed in many different ways.

Through wide wild angles of Publicity
Everyone is seeing me in many different ways.

Tongue in groove
Everything has come together in perfect harmony.

Lose yourself and wait for your heart to speak
Let go of your worries and listen to your own intuition.

Your only cue
Your only signal.

A needle starts to cut Lasers start tracking
The process has begun and there's no going back.