Monthly Archives: December 2007

Indie bands were really the first musicians to fully support music downloads. Big name artists – already making a very decent living off music – were understandably skeptical about making their songs too available. Slowly but surely most of the bigger name bands got on board. In November 2007, Led Zeppelin finally made their entire [...]

Let’s look at a simple but pleasing pattern to break up the monotony of the standard scale pattern. We can call this the Stardust pattern. These are all eighth notes. |-8-5-6—5——-|—————–| |——-8—6-8-5-|-6—5———–| |—————–|—7—5-7—5—| |—————–|———–8—7-| |—————–|—————–| |—————–|—————–| —————–|————-| —————–|————-| —————–|————-| -8-5-7—5——-|————-| ——-8—7-8-5-|-7—5——-| —————–|—8—6-8-5-| |—————–|—————–| |—————–|—————–| |—————–|———–5—7-| |—————5-|—7-5-8-7—8—| |—5—7-5-8-7—|-8—————| |-6—8———–|—————–| —————5-|—6-5-8—-| —5—6-5-8-6—|-8———-| -5—7———–|————| —————–|————| —————–|————| —————–|————| If [...]

In his follow up to the basics of soloing, Josh demonstrates the major scale and the pentatonic and their usefulness in helping you improve your lead playing.

Another new Guitar Noise writer makes his debut with this introduction to the wonders of open C tuning.

Let’s explore a tip that has a lot to do with music — no matter what instrument you play. We’re talking about singing. What do we guitarists need to know about singing? Maybe we should scrap the whole topic and let vocalists pick this up. But maybe we should investigate a bit. What’s the point [...]

As David pointed out in his recent newsletter, it’s going to be Bastille Day again before we know it. Before we let things get that far, I want to share my warmest wishes for this holiday season. Over the past year it’s been my pleasure to correspond with many Guitar Noise users – by email, [...]

In his first of hopefully many pieces for Guitar Noise, Tom Mariotti looks at how to go about organizing your practice sessions in order to get the most out of the time you put into them.

I got this note from Jim of Pennsylvania and thought I’d share it with you all: My joy of music story is of a friendship that has bloomed from music. When I moved to central Pennsylvania I did not know anyone. As I got acclimated to my new job I met some people and eventually [...]

Never mind that there is now a Guitar Hero III; and never mind how mind-numbing and time-wasting this is; most importantly, never mind that this won’t help your guitar playing in the least – sometimes you just have to say “so what!” Here’s a free version of Guitar Hero II that you can play online. [...]

Guitar Noise Newsletter for December 16, 2007 with all the latest site news and updates. Written by David Hodge.

Our arrangement for this moody piece uses many of the ideas from our O Tannenbaum! lesson. You’ll find yourself having a lot of fun even though you’re supposed to be blue!

What does “guilt” have to do with playing guitar? It has to do with practicing. Guilt over how often you think you ought to practice, versus how much time you’re actually spending on the frets. But more to the point, guilt related to the guitarist you are compared to the guitarist you think you want [...]

Our good friend Dan Denley is giving away a Martin acoustic. A $1400 Martin acoustic! Dan is the brains and fingers behind Lead Guitar Secrets and Blues Guitar Secrets, which we’ve had special offers on before. Today Dan is releasing his next series of DVD guitar lessons called Acoustic Guitar Secrets. I haven’t watched all [...]

Timing is a critical part of making music. Without notes playing in their proper time, you have one enormously bad glob of harmony. But timing is also important in practicing music, in the discipline of making music. For one thing, a metronome will improve your ability to play in time. Always play with a metronome. [...]

Here’s a simple chord melody arrangement of this holiday classic. And, as a bonus, it’s a great exercise for practicing your chord changes in a timely manner.

Once again I’m looking at the most quintessential unplugged albums from the 1990s. Regular readers of this site will already know that Neil Young is one of our perennial favorites. Among other things, his Unplugged album, serves as a great introduction to his music for those less familiar with his work. Neil Young – Unplugged [...]

Guitar Noise Newsletter for December 03, 2007 with all the latest site news and updates. Written by David Hodge.

For many guitarists, playing and songwriting go hand in hand. Since both skills improve with practice, why not try practicing on both simultaneously?

Hello to all! Even though we can certainly do it every day all year ’round, there’s something about this particular time of the calendar that makes us reflective. At Guitar Noise, we try to encourage everyone to share their music and their joy of music whenever possible. We even have a whole page devoted to [...]