Monthly Archives: December 2004

Guitar Noise Newsletter for December 26, 2004 with all the latest site news and updates. Written by David Hodge.

Let’s wrap up (no pun intended) this season’s selection of Christmas carol arrangements with a lesson that uses a little of everything that we’ve been working on. Also it will give us a chance to start exploring putting the melody further up the neck while still coming up with an easily playable chord accompaniment.

Guitar Noise Newsletter for December 19, 2004 with all the latest site news and updates. Written by David Hodge.

Fingerstyle guru Mark Yodice has given us a wonderful arrangement of Silent Night in open D tuning. What a terrific holiday gift! I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I have been doing this past week!

David’s arrangement of this much-loved Christmas carol focuses on the use of chord arpeggios rather than using straight chords for an accompaniment. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you will pick it up!

First time contributor Chris Korsak hails from Portland, Oregon, where he works as a guitar instructor. In his lesson, you will learn some guitar riffs to such Black Sabbath songs as: Iron Man, The Wizard, Paranoid, and Sweet Leaf.

Our arrangement of this traditional German Christmas carol may only use two notes at a time, but we will learn a lot about how two notes can imply a rich textured harmony. This lesson features MP3 files to help you get the sound just right.

As I wrote down the usual list of items that teachers tend to discuss when asked this question, I realized that most of them, if not all, could be lumped into a single category: Impatience. Perhaps this is a bit of my trying to lump a lot of stuff into a small and neat package, [...]

Guitar Noise Newsletter for December 12, 2004 with all the latest site news and updates. Written by David Hodge.

First off, I’d like to direct you to a great discussion about this very topic that took place on the Forum pages a little while back. Please read Teaching Methods. One of the arguments here, that when you learn another instrument such as piano, saxophone or even drums, that the teacher will teach you to [...]

Guitar Noise Newsletter for December 05, 2004 with all the latest site news and updates. Written by David Hodge.

Next in our series of Christmas lessons we are going to work on The Little Drummer Boy. Way too often, guitarists tend to under-use or, worse, ignore the little finger when playing. Many beginners don’t start working with it until they absolutely have to and at that point it’s almost like learning to play all over again. Includes MP3 files.

When I started teaching, all of my students were adults. They had no visions of being the next Jimmy Page or Jimmy Rogers. They simply wanted to play and play for their own enjoyment. And this meant playing songs, as few people find satisfaction in playing a string of exercises over and over again. As [...]

Sheryl just got back from Europe this past week and was kind enough to answer a few questions for us at Guitar Noise. I think that you’ll find her insights into jazz and songwriting to be both helpful and enlightening.