Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

You are receiving this newsletter because you requested a subscription. Unsubscribe instructions are at the end of this newsletter.

In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Lessons and Articles
• Email of the Week
• Things To Do People To See
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

This week is Thanksgiving week here in the United States. Of course, as I’m writing, it’s actually the week before! And people wonder why I have no sense of time!

Anyway, we’ve got a LOT of stuff coming up from now ’til the end of the year, articles and lessons and stories and reviews and perhaps I’d better just get started right in on things!

New Lessons And Articles

Where to start? One amazing personal story on how to get started in the music business. Two Nicks! November’s Easy Songs for Beginners’ lesson. And we kick it all off with the first installment of our “Joy of Music” pieces. Here’s what’s new at Guitar Noise since we last chatted:

The Joy Of Music – 2002 (part one)

Throughout the rest of the year we at Guitar Noise want to remind people of why we run this site and, much more importantly, why we play music in the first place. We encourage you to share your thoughts and stories concerning “The Joy of Guitar” or “The Joy of Music” with all of us. It doesn’t even have to be much more than a paragraph, we just want to hear from you. Email Dan Lasley, Darrin Koltow or myself and we’ll take it from there.

The “Business End” Of The Music Industry
by Sonata Jones

I think that we at Guitar Noise are pretty lucky to have so many people willing to share their musical experiences with us. If you frequent the Forum pages, you’re probably familiar with Sonata. In her first article for Guitar Noise, she tells us how she went about starting up her own record label and then producing her own CD. It’s an inspiring tale from an inspiring person.

Could You Teach Guitar?
by Nick Minnion

Nick Minnion, founder of Nick’s Music Studios in England and creator of www.teachguitar.com, has kindly written a piece especially for Guitar Noise readers. Have you ever thought about teaching but then thought that you might not be qualified? Nick dispels a lot of the myths about what it takes to teach but also sets up some pretty high standards. This is valuable advice from someone who has been teaching for most of his life.

Scoring Points
by Nick Torres

The musicians of a band take the time to prepare how to play a song, so why shouldn’t the vocalist do the same? Guitar Noise’s own vocal musician, Nick Torres, introduces an incredibly simply concept – knowing how you want to sing a song. He then guides you, in his inimitable fashion, through the process of preparation. He even gratuitously mentions Heidi Klum (and I have to admit that I’m so off the grid I had to look up who she is). What more could you ask?

Fire
Easy Songs For Beginners #19
by David Hodge

Sometimes the simplest of songs present the biggest of challenges – how do we take a basic song of four or five chords and make it memorable? Well, one way is to use all the dynamic power built into your guitar, working in bass lines along with the chords and playing with the dynamics of a song. This song is a lot of fun, whether your favorite version is by Bruce Springsteen, the Pointer Sisters, Robert Gordon or Elmer Fudd via Robin Williams.

Email Of The Week

This week, let’s heed the words of Graham Nash: “Teach your children well…”

First I would like to thank you for putting together a great website! It has been incredibly helpful, and I have really enjoyed all the information.

My two year old daughter loves humming tunes and singing (although very out of key). My wife and I decided to buy a non toddler keyboard for her which we leave in the living room for her to explore. She bangs on it every once in a while, and makes up lyrics (which she imitates from Elmo’s World). Neither my wife nor I play the keyboard though, and upon reading an article recently written by a teacher, I decided that it would probably be more interesting for my daughter if one of her parents actually played something musical.

I used to play the guitar (classical) when I was in my early teenage years, and have recently decided to get back into it. Naturally my little girl was immediately more interested in the guitar since I actually spent time playing it. She likes to strum the strings while I hold the chords for her. I intend to continue practicing my guitar at home (not just for her, I actually fell back in love with it), and I was wondering how I could best nourish her interest. She is too young to hold chords on her own, and the articles I have read basically indicate that age 5 is about as early as you would want to start with a guitar. In the meantime, do you have any advice for keeping her interest in music?

Thanks for writing and thank you as well for your kind words concerning Guitar Noise. I’m glad that our site is being of help to you.

Concerning your daughter, two years old is a little young for the guitar. They do make half-sized guitars but that’s still a lot for a two year old to handle. But there are lots of ways to motivate her and fun things you can do together.

If you want to get her actually playing, let me suggest two things – the dulcimer and the ukulele. You can obviously see that a uke would fit the bill as far as getting her into the strumming and all. If you tuned it to an open chord (it’s supposed to be (I think) GCEA, so instead use GCEG or GBDG) then chords would be easily formed as well.

Dulcimers are fun and easy to play as well – two strings serve as a drone while you finger the melody. Since this instrument sits in the lap, it would be easy for the two of you to play together.

Now, before you go and spend money on a dulcimer, consider this- they are not that hard to make. One of my friend’s (at the time ages 3 and 4) got homemade ones at Kindermusic and had a great time playing them.

As far as other ways to promote interest in music, well, kids love percussion. Triangles, tambourines, maracas, small drums, anything will do. And you might be happily surprised if she can learn to keep the beat while you play!

And that’s really what it comes down to – play together. If it’s an activity that you both look forward to, then she’s sure to have a lot of interest. But be patient. Your “sessions” together, though many, will undoubtedly be on the short side.

I hope that this helps.

If you have a question for us please remember that many questions have been asked in different ways, and the answer may already appear somewhere on Guitar Noise. If you have a question please check the help pages.

Things To Do – People To See

HEY!!! Are YOU or YOUR BAND playing sometime in December? What about next year? It’s never to early to plan ahead. Let me know and I’ll be happy to pass the word along. Guitar Noise is read by people all over the world, so who knows? You might find yourself meeting someone and you’ll have something in common already.

This week:

The “Official CD Release Party” for “The Power of 3″ is tomorrow, November 25th at SMOKE (2751 Broadway, New York City). Sheryl Bailey 3 will be playing starting at 9 PM and it should be a grand time.

Sunday Songwriters Group

And if there wasn’t enough news to spread around, here’s some more:

The Sunday Songwriters Group now has its own dedicated forum page! It’s amazing how an idea can become such a grand reality.

SSG – Week 7

“Back To The Basics”

A very elemental exercise this week – write a song of any genre on any topic. HOWEVER, your song must mention each of the famed four basic elements – earth, air, fire and water. You can mention them singly or together. You can give them cameo appearances or starring roles. It’s totally up to you. But it’s no fair using “mud” as two elements!

See you on the boards!

Thoughts and Feedback

Apparently I’m not the only one who misses my old Guitar Columns. Thank all of you who took the time to respond.

If time would allow it, I’d love to be able to write a column and a lesson for each week. I’ll have to work on some resolutions concerning my free time!

If you’ve read any of my “old stuff” (does that sound as pompous as I think it does?), you know that I do think that resolutions are good things. Especially when it comes to learning and/or playing. Since we’re heading into that time of year when we traditionally think about this sort of thing, I urge each of you to start thinking about this. Pretty soon, you’ll be all caught up in the craziness of life and all and you might not even give this a second thought, but ask yourself, “What would I like to learn next year? Where should I concentrate on improving? What goals should I set for myself?”

Perhaps you’d like to take the plunge and play in front of an audience. Maybe even play one of your own songs. How about learning a note-perfect solo? Personally, I’d settle for being able to finger a few more jazz chords without first thinking about what I was doing!

But this is when you can start to bring all this about. It’s not about the time of year – it’s about you getting all the pieces into place so that you can work efficiently on your goals. When I’m doing a lot of cooking, like for a special dinner or a large group of friends, you’ll find food piled all over my kitchen. It may look like a mess (okay, a bigger mess), but everything is usually sorted into groups according to what is being made. All the ingredients for my mango salsa are in one place and the extra cilantro and limes that I don’t need will go right into the next pile which contains the necessary items for the pad thai and peanut sauce and on down the line.

Take a few moments in your spare time, whenever and wherever you may find that precious commodity, and think about where you and your guitar want to travel next year. Let me know what we can do to help you get where you want to go. And in a total change of subject, who lives in western Massachusetts/northwest Connecticut/east New York and might be interested in lessons starting sometime in the late spring?

And if that’s not a vague enough thought, let me say that, starting next week, you’re going to encounter some truly interesting new ideas and programs here at Guitar Noise. Also, I’m going to start introducing the family!

I hope that each of you has a great week. I look forward to hearing from you.

As always,

Peace

David