Monthly Archives: January 2010

This tip has to do with a key aspect of learning, enjoying and understanding guitar that I think is mostly absent from both schools and private studios.

Practicing the electric guitar can be problematic in the best of situations, and downright hard when you have to worry about your volume levels. Mark Mills returns to the pages of Guitar Noise with a very cool solution that lets you practice at a more than reasonable volume while not disturbing either your family or your neighbors.

How many times have you done something absolutely fast in practice only to flub it in a “real” situation, like playing with your band or just jamming with your friends? Tom outlines and explains seven simple steps to help you work on developing your speed on the fretboard straight away and also to be able to keep that speed you perfect in practice when you perform.

In this lesson we’ll see that going up is sometimes the same as going down on the fretboard. We’ll need this knowledge of inversions when we start deciphering chord charts.

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #106 of Guitar Noise News!As more of the (seemingly endless) book deadlines are passing, I’m thinking that it’s long past time that we’ve had a Guitar Noise Seminar of some sort. So I’m thinking that it might be good to start scheduling maybe one or two for this spring, say possibly early May or early June.

Let’s return to the one-finger lesson series. The chord we’re learning today actually uses two fingers. It’s a minor chord, which means it feels kind of sad or final.

This is an arrangement that most beginners can handle, plus we get into some discussion about choosing keys and chord voicings when creating arrangements.

Here’s a tip on hearing and playing with key centers. This could help players who can already play a few songs. They can even be three-chord songs.

If you’re traveling along the paths of learning guitar, you will eventually find yourself at a plateau in your learning. Longtime Guitar Noise Contributor, Jamie Andreas of Guitar Principles, explains why simply changing the way you look at being on a plateau, looking at it with the eye of a Guitar Master, can help you move forward in a short time.

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #105 of Guitar Noise News! I’m actually writing this newsletter up on Christmas Day, so I’d like to take a moment to wish everyone a “Happy Christmas,” although it will be a belated one by the time you read this.

Someone who can successfully transcribe fast melodies is someone who uses everything he knows about music to make educated guesses at what he’s hearing. In other words, the more theory you know – especially theory related to the genre of the music you’re transcribing – the better.