Monthly Archives: August 2008

We’re continuing the series of lessons that get us started playing guitar by ear. We’re going to begin looking at playing melodies first. Before we learn a melody by ear, you’ll want to make an observation for yourself about playing by ear on the guitar. As much as I love the guitar, I realize that [...]

This an intermediate level lesson for those of you who use only a guitar pick and would rather not work on finger-style playing, but would still like to play a complete song arrangement on your instrument. So here is the classic jazz standard, “Autumn Leaves,” from Peter to you.

While it’s vital to use a chord progression to help you decide on a scale, knowing the style or feel of both a song and a scale is just as important. This lesson focuses on the minor pentatonic scale and why it is used so much for blues (and other genres) in major keys.

The latest release from a young, ambitious five-piece band out of Crown Point, Indiana who definitely know how to rock.

We continue our exploration of playing guitar by ear. This time out we’re going to look at reasons for playing by ear. You want to play by ear for this reason above all others: it just feels good. That’s it! That’s why you began playing in the first place, isn’t it? You play because you [...]

In this lesson we’ll still be using “Handsome Molly” as an exercise to incorporate the various lessons we’ve picked up in our podcasts thus far.

Guitar Noise Newsletter for August 17, 2008 with news about the latest podcast, recent travels and a look at upcoming attractions. Written by David Hodge.

Let’s go into playing guitar by ear. I’ll base the content on the series found on Maximum Musician, but it will be revised here and there as inspiration strikes. Just what exactly does it mean to play by ear? When you hear someone say, “He plays by ear” it’s often said with awe, in the [...]

A quick visit to the Guitar Noise Forum will let anyone know that many of our members are big fans of the “Blues You Can Use” series of tutorial books. Mark Morrow found (and purchased) the “Blues You Can Use Book of Guitar Chords” on a recent visit to his local guitar store and shares his findings and thoughts with you all.

Some quick tips on learning melodies by ear in this issue. First off, learn scales and play them regularly. Most important: the major scale. Learn at least the five CAGED forms. (Get Fretboard Logic is this term confuses you). But the more forms you know, the more insights you get into how melodies work – [...]

Let’s take stock of the many things we’ve learned so far and, over the course of the next number of GN Podcasts, put them to use in song.

We’re going to continue doing what we call “modeling a melody” in this issue. And that just means figuring out some interesting things our favorite melodies do so *we* can do them, to craft our own melodies. We can use this information in improvisation and in composition. We explored the idea of SAMES and DIFFERENTS [...]

Guitar Noise Newsletter for August 1, 2008 with site news, time travel info a look at upcoming attractions. Written by David Hodge.