Guitar Noise

You might have read about the Next Big Nashville, the huge city-wide music festival that takes place in the fall and includes hundreds of regional bands and musicians in our recent article on America’s great “Music City”
We’ve just gotten the news that the call is out for musician’s interested in submitting their band for consideration [...]

Here is the second part of Jamie Andreas’ wonderful video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” In this video, Jamie walks through the verse section of the song, providing detailed step-by-step instruction on how to move effortlessly from one fingering position to the next. By applying many [...]

Even if you managed to somehow get through your life and not hear the album, Thriller, you have certainly listened to music (not to mention musicians and songwriters) influenced by this best selling album of all time.

Here’s something I couldn’t believe – Apparently it was only four years ago (July 1, 2005 to be precise) we started “Volume 3” of the Guitar Noise News. It was the start of the “bi-monthly” newsletter format that we currently have today, and it was certainly a bit ambitious. Even Nick had his own little [...]

Although it seems like ages ago, it was just around this time last year that we premiered the first of what has turned out to be a very popular series here at Guitar Noise, our lessons called “Turning Scales into Solos.”
While these lessons have been shorter in length than many of our other song lessons [...]

Sometimes it’s amazing when I think of how much material that there is here on Guitar Noise, and how most of it has come about in the last ten years. So, to celebrate our longevity, how about we look back from time to time at things that have happened?
For instance, going back just three years, [...]

Hello to all!
Our latest Guitar Noise Podcast picks up right where GN Podcast #26 left off. Having gotten the basics of this song under our belts, it’s time to explore what to do when (notice I didn’t say “if”) we get around to playing with another guitarist. So here we start out with a simple [...]

Some of you may agree with the “Easy” label, but our arrangement of this Bob Dylan favorite (from the album, “Nashville Skyline”) can be played very easily with the use of a capo, plus a very simple picking pattern. More important, though, is that is can be used as a great lesson to help you get used to switching between open position chords and basic barre chords. With some practice and patience, you should find yourself playing it well in no time.

If you’ve been a long-time reader of Guitar Noise, you’ll probably be aware that we’ve been long-time fans of Jamie Andreas and her Guitar Principles website. Jamie has been a strong tutorial presence on the Internet for ages and her teachings focus on posture, relaxation, muscle movement and memory and the other physical aspects of playing the [...]

Here is a rather faithful arrangement of the closing song from Bob Dylan’s immortal album, “Blood on the Tracks.” Using open D (or open E) tuning, as well as a steady (and incredibly easy) bass part, it’s easy to make this song sound really good. And, it’s excellent practice both for honing your finger picking technique as well as for developing a good sense of syncopation.

In our latest lesson in this series, we look at a basic rock progression and examine the choices we can make in terms of scales for soloing. Plus we get a look at the Mixolydian mode as well as discovering a new use for the Dorian.

Here’s a song I’m sure most of you know and maybe learned in some summer camp or musical get together. It’s a lot of fun to play and we’ve kindly provided the words and chords to the first verse and chorus:

For this Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll work on getting the basics down, plus have a [...]

What can you write about someone who, essentially, is a whole genre of music? About someone who posted in his high school yearbook that his ambition was to join Little Richard? About someone who’s latest recordings are as influential as the first ones he made close to fifty years ago?

Here’s a song arrangement that no one has to sing! Take aspects of “chord melody” arranging and mix them in with fingerstyle playing and you’ve got yourself a version of one of George Harrison’s terrific songs to perform. It’s not all that hard to learn and you can easily adapt it with your own embellishments and style.

I’m pleased to introduce a new series here at Guitar Noise, spotlighting the many, many musical Meccas in this wonderful world of ours. First stop – Nashville, Tennessee. And if you’re thinking, “That’s only country music,” you’ll soon realize that there’s a whole lot more going on!