Newsletter Vol. 1 # 31 – November 12, 2001

Dear Guitar Player,

Welcome to Guitar Noise News for November 12, 2001. This week we featured a new interview in our Guitar Picks section. The interview is with Bjørn Lynne, someone you really ought to check out at MP3.com and then consider picking up some of his CDs.

In this newsletter:

  • News
  • Topic of the Month
  • Guitar Pick: Exclusive Interview
  • Guitar & Bass Lessons
  • Recommended Books
  • CD Reviews
  • New Links
  • Email of the Week

You can recycle this newsletter by passing it on to a friend you think might benefit from Guitar Noise.

This newsletter is available.

Site News

What’s New
Updates on Guitar Noise are frequent. You can usually expect around three new articles or lessons per week. That means if you aren’t checking in on the home page 2 or 3 times a week you may miss something new. Right now our What’s New page contains everything that has been added within the past month. If you are looking for something more than a month old you might want to try our search engine or browse through copies of previous newsletters.

Browse the What’s New page.

Performance – Topic of the Month

In the months of October and November, we will be exploring many aspects of Performance. After all, that is what it’s all about – standing up and playing in front of others, either on stage, or in your basement. Most of the columns published this month will explore the things that make performing easier and more enjoyable. In addition, we will begin to publish reviews of live concerts. In anticipation of the Performance topic, we have expanded one of our forums to encourage you to post your own concert reviews, as well as announcements of your own gigs. So look for the “Performance” logo – and get out there and play!

Your First Gig – Sound Engineering Q&A # 7
by Dan Lasley (12 Nov 2001)
In honor of our Performance month, a frequent visitor to Guitar Noise decided to make that grand leap of faith and get a gig for his band. Of course, as most of us end up doing, this first gig is going to be right in his own backyard. I am going to use this gig as an example, but I’m going to modify the facts a little to fit my column.

Visit the Performance page.

Guitar Noise Interviews

Guitar Picks features interviews with guitarists and other musicians about their songwriting techniques and experiences with independant or major record labels. These frank answers by people who have already made it often deal with songwriting, inspiration, working within the limits of record companies’ wishes, and guitar techniques.

Bjørn Lynne
by A-J Charron (07 Nov 2001)
Bjørn Lynne is a multi-instrumentalist I discovered at MP3.com. And what a happy discovery it was! Bjørn’s genre reminds me of that of a young Mike Oldfield. Very talented, with his music saying all that needs to be said. A great musician and composer, Bjørn is certainly an artist you will want to know. In our exclusive interview with him, he tells us more about his career and direction.

Part three of our series on Amps & EFX is ready thanks to our gear guru Stefan.

Loop Garou – Amps & EFX # 3
by Stefan Leonhardt (12 Nov 2001)
Most amps today have more sockets than just “input”. Chances are, your amp also has two labeled “send” and “return” – the Effects Loop. What’s it good for other than a feature that might give the salesman more to talk about? Read up on it here.

Recommended Reading

Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist
This week I have selected a book on music theory that was written especially for guitarists. This book was first recommended to me in lesson by Jimmy Hudson. Jimmy writes: “I have had a lot of students come to me and say that they have been practicing for twelve hours a day and they just are not getting anywhere. I know almost every guitarist at some point has this problem. Generally speaking that means that you are noodling around for eleven and a half hours and practicing maybe for thirty minutes. There is a big difference between practicing and playing. Practicing is learning new material and refining stuff you have already learned. Playing is doing what you always do because it sounds good and you do want to be able to impress yourself. ”

This comes from Jimmy’s first lesson written for the site back in 1999, Getting The Most Out of Your Practice. And here is the book that Jimmy first suggested to me.

Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist
This is agood theory book to start out with. Theory for The Contemporary Guitarist is put out by the guitar summer workshop (alfred publishing) and is recommended by our instructor Jimmy Hudson.

CD Reviews

D.C. Cooper
Right from the beginning I enjoyed this album. It starts off strongly and continues throughout. A great hard rock album! No chance of confusing DC with Alice. Very different sounds and voices.

Nathan Mahl – Heretik Volume 1
Nathan Mahl is a name which brings me back many years and reminds me that I’m not quite as young as I used to be… When I was a teenager, Nathan Mahl were one of the great bands in the Ottawa region. Their sound at times is heavily Jazz influenced and displays good musicianship.

New Sites

After checking out our exclusive Bjørn Lynne interview you may want to stop by his site where you can sign up for his newsletter, check out his music and get your hands on some of his music.

Email of the Week

Sometimes we get a question by email where we don’t exactly know the answer. These questions take a bit of homework and a bit of asking around, and they require one to wear their thinking cap. Also they are usually answered by someone brave enough to tackle the question. Recently we got a question about “Nashville Charts.” I hadn’t even heard of them, but David was willing to take a stab at the question.

Nashville Charts
Can you please tell me what Nashville Charts are. I am totally ignorant, I guess, because this is the first I’ve ever heard of them…ouch my curiosity is now piqued!!!!

David’s Response
As far as I can tell (and fair warning, I may be wrong about this), Nashville “chord charts” aren’t actually chords or charts per se as much as they are a way of being able to play a song in any key. If their intention was to not have to read music they made it a lot harder on themselves.

In a nutshell, whatever key a song is, is #1. Then the other numbers are the chords according to the scale in that major key. So, for instance, if you are all agreed that you want to play in D major, then you’ll have this:

1 = D
2 = E
3 = F#
4 = G
5 = A
6 = B
7 = C#

Now what I can’t tell you is whether or not they distinguish between major and minor. Technically, if you are in D, as I’m sure you know, things should look like this:

1 = D
2 = Em
3 = F#m
4 = G
5 = A
6 = Bm
7 = C#dim

Maybe they write “2m” or something, I don’t know. If they assume it’s a major scale and use the normal minors, then what do you do when you grab a chord outside of the scale. How would a Bb fit into the key of D, for instance?

I can tell you that, to make matters more interesting, “7” “9” or even “sus” may come after the number (“1sus” for instance would be Dsus in our example) and that they also use the “/” symbol to indicate a bass note other than the one normally used. “1/5” would be a D chord with the A note in the bass. “4/1” would be a G chord with a D in the bass.

When I was in Europe I ran into something kind of like this in that someone would tell me that a song was in “Re” or “La Minor” using the “Do, re, mi…” as substitutes for C, D, E… but at least that didn’t shift for each key. My guess is that a lot of Nashville folk played backup to numerous singers and had to be able to play a song in whatever key was best suited to a given singer. It’s simply transposing, that’s all.

Now, “Nashville tuning” is another matter altogether. If you’d like I can go over that with you sometime.

David Hodge

If you have any other ideas or information about Nashville Charts please share it with us. Or if you are from Nashville you could drop me a line just to say “Hi!”

That is all for this week. Take care and I’ll be back next week.

Peace,
(I mean it)

Paul Hackett
Executive Producer