Yearly Archives: 2009

Our arrangement of this Jack Johnson song looks at barre chords, rhythm and string muting. Also included is a barre chord free arrangement for early beginners.

Former GNR guitarist Slash’s instantly recognizable image has made him the single most important spokesman for rock guitar.

Creating memorable live performances can help you get more gigs and can bring more people to those gigs. Here are some great tips from Tom Hess on how to rehearse for all the aspects of performing live.

Once again it’s that time of year where year-end lists pour in from all corners of the web. Just like we’ve done in previous years, we’d like to take a quick look at the most popular Guitar Noise lessons this year.

Here is another interesting and beautiful sounding chord melody arrangement. This time we are working with the old Christmas carol Away in a Manger.

This is our fingerstyle / chord melody take on I’ll Be Home for Christmas, a song from the 1940′s that’s been sung by almost everyone.

Welcome back to the One Finger Guitar Chord Primer. In this lesson we have a play-along to go with the two-finger chord shape we recently learned.

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #104 of Guitar Noise News! It truly seems like yesterday that 2009 was just starting, bright and full of promise. And now we are just about two weeks away from kicking off 2010. But lots of things have happened in the past year, even though we might have to think a minute or two about it.

We’ve been digging into the “One Finger Method,” but we’re going to take a break from that to do a bit of playing by ear. This new tip is a quick one. The idea behind this tip is to use just one finger on one string to play a simple melody. The melody we’ll use is from “The First Noel.”

Welcome back to the One Finger Guitar Chord Primer. In this lesson we’ll learn another two-finger chord shape. As always, take the time to experiment and practice the shapes and chord progressions in the previous lessons of this series.

As we get nearer the end of the year, YouTube is counting down of the most memorable videos of 2009. The first video on the list is a stop motion music video by MysterGuitarMan, which you should check out here.

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #103 of Guitar Noise News! Since the holidays are once again upon us, it’s a bit of a no-brainer to guess that the Guitar Noise “topic of the month” for December is “Holiday Songs for Guitar.” The first of December also means a new face for our featured artist for the month. Jimi Hendrix gets the nod for December. This month we pay tribute to this man whom many consider to be an important influence to anyone who plays electric guitar.

In his latest article, Tom explores some of the problems that beginners tend to have making and changing guitar chords. Whether you’re a guitar teacher or just someone starting out on the guitar, you’ll find some very valuable tips here on how to go about practicing chord changes.

More than forty years after his death, Jimi Hendrix remains the most iconic and important guitar god. Even if you’ve never heard anything Jimi Hendrix recorded, you can hear his spirit being channeled by almost everyone who’s ever played electric guitar.

Welcome back to the One Finger Guitar Chord Primer. In this lesson we’ll learn another two-finger chord shape, and use it to play along with the classic Greensleeves.

Welcome back to the One Finger Guitar Chord Primer. We’re going to learn a new tune in this lesson, Aura Lee, which is much better known as Love Me Tender. Aura Lee is going to teach us a new chord form. It’s our first that uses two fingers.

David looks at how to go beyond the chords on a typical Internet tab sheet in order to get more of the flavor of the original of this great Mark Knopfler song.

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #102 of Guitar Noise News! We have three new lessons this week (although one isn’t quite ready just yet). David also answers a beginner question he received by email along with all the regular site news.

Many guitarists consider practice and performance to be distinct activities. Gerald Klickstein, author of the new book The Musician’s Way, shows how they can be combined into an inclusive creative process.

Quite often, guitarists solo as if they are paid by the note, totally ignoring phrasing and melody, two key aspects of soloing. Tom Hess gives us a terrific lesson on phrasing, complete with video!