Guitar Noise

Sometimes a simple sounding fingerstyle acoustic guitar part takes a bit of thought and tinkering to create. David looks at how to go beyond the chords offered up on a typical Internet tab sheet in order to get more of the flavor of the original recording of this great Mark Knopfler song.

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!

First time contributor Dmitry details the work and thought process involved on taking one’s guitar along a trip, using his latest vacation as an example of how well things can work out!

Creating chord melody arrangements can be addictive! And you can start out as easy or as complicated as you’d like. Brandon Carrasco takes us step by step through his first time out, turning this timeless lullaby into a wonderful single guitar piece.

Here is Hank’s second Guitar Noise lesson, an accompaniment to “What a Wonderful World” as performed by Louis Armstrong. He draws on some of the ideas used in his first arrangement, “Smile”, and provides some nice movement in the bass line. Since this is an accompaniment arrangement designed to support vocals, most of the chord voicings will incorporate the melody note on the upper strings.

Here is my very first arrangement, a finger style chord melody of the beautiful Charlie Chaplin tune “Smile.” Walking through the process step by step, you’ll see how an initial “busy” arrangement consisting mainly of eighth notes and arpeggios was pared down to make it easier to play and to allow room for some nice movement in the bass line.

If you have read Nick Minnion’s article “Could You Teach Guitar?” and finished with a resounding “Yes!” then the next question is “How?” This article hopes to answer that question with a detailed look at how to teach the all-important first lesson.

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about how to turn a song into a single guitar arrangement and the first part of the answer is that you have to learn the song! In this lesson we break down this White Stripes’ song into its component parts – bass, rhythm and lead (learning them on the electric guitar) – so that we can later create a single acoustic guitar arrangement of this song.

In the final installment of her video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” guitar teacher extraordinaire Jamie Andreas takes you step by step through the bridge section of the song with very clear and detailed instruction. I learned quite a bit from Jamie’s videos and I hope you do, too!

In this second installment of her video lessons on the Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” guitar teacher extraordinaire Jamie Andreas guides you through the verses of the song with very clear and detailed step-by-step instruction, designed to help you with the fingering involved in the tricky chord changes.

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.

Guitar Noise bids a heartfelt “welcome back” to Jamie Andreas of Guitar Prinicples (www.guitarprinciples.com). Jamie has honored us by putting together a series of video lessons of performance notes for our Guitar Noise arrangement of George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” She has a wonderful way of explaining the hows and whys of finger positioning and you’re in for a treat. Enjoy this first lesson and rest assured more are on the way.

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.

Peter Simms has written a little ditty that shows us how to make your single guitar sound like a small combo band. We’re going to focus on fingerstyle with a melody, bassline and chords.

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!

If you’re going to play an emotionally charged song, you can’t hide behind a single strumming pattern. In this lesson we take one of the highlight songs from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and arrange it for a single guitar, using many strumming and crosspicking techniques we’ve gone over in our Guitar Noise Podcast series. You’re going to have a lot of fun with this one!

Let’s offer a warm “welcome back” to Nick, who brings us a look at the interlocking relationship of three important creative aspects of musicianship – improvising, composing and transcribing – and how you can use them to move up from being someone who just dabbles with the guitar to a serious musician.