Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Articles and Lessons
• Hot off the Press (Releases)
• Forum News
• Sunday Songwriter’s Group
• Reviews
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Spaces are filling up at our first Guitar Noise Mini-Camp, being held at my home in South Egremont, Massachusetts, the weekend after the Fourth of July (that’s Thursday July 7 through Sunday July 10). So if you’re thinking about attending, write to me about reserving a place.

In case you missed all the announcements about this, we’re essentially having two-and-a- half-day marathon seminar focusing on playing in a group setting. To get more details, visit my home page (www.davidhodge.com). Feel free to write me with any questions you may have.

Likewise, spaces are limited for two of our upcoming one-day seminars: the Guitar Noise Easy Songs For Beginners Seminar, which will be on Saturday May 14 and the Guitar Noise Neil Young Song Seminar on Saturday June 4.

The Guitar Noise Easy Songs For Beginners Seminar is a day of lessons much like (surprise!) those on our Easy Songs For Beginners page. We will probably use a few of those to get us started but there will be quite a few song lessons that aren’t on the website, including Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles, Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage (and possibly Comfortably Numb) and Brown Eyed Girl and Wild Night from Van Morrison.

The ever-popular Guitar Noise Neil Young Song Seminar is taught in the same fashion and will have some songs from the website and previous seminars (such as Harvest Moon, Old Man, Ohio and Cinnamon Girl) as well as new material, notably from Neil’s Silver and Gold album.

Again, to reserve a place or to ask any questions (or to make a request for a song!), just drop me a line at my email box, dhodgeguitar@aol.com, and I’ll be happy to answer as best I can.

You may have notice quite a number of new writers popping up at Guitar Noise over the past few months. We’ve been getting article proposals from musicians and teachers all over the globe and I’m very pleased to be able to bring these distinguished writers to your attention. In the near future I’ll try to introduce them individually so that you can know more about them.

We’re also still taking your suggestions on how to come up with a “system” of finding or making time to practice or play on a regular basis. The idea is that we’d like to share these ideas in the form of an article in order to help others who truly seem to find it difficult to find or make time to play. If you can, make a little extra time this week and drop me a line at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and let’s help some folks find the time in their lives that could be spent playing!

And remember that 2005 is all about “Playing With Others.” If you’d like to share your thoughts and experiences on this subject, please send those to me as well. Same address: dhodgeguitar@aol.com, and try to include “Playing With Others” in the subject line. I’d like to thank the many, many people who have contributed of their time to writing on this particular topic.

So with all that still running around in our head, let’s see what’s new here at Guitar Noise since I last wrote you:

New Articles And Lessons

Tremelo Tapping
by Rob Gravelle

Guitar Noise is pleased to introduce you to Robert Gravelle, guitarist of Canadian Classic Metal Band, Ivory Knight. Rob is going to spend some time teaching us about some of the more advanced and specialized musical concepts that he really enjoys. First up – tremolo tapping, complete with examples from Randy Rhoads, Joe Satriani and Rob himself!

Internet Jams – How To
by Scott Thomas

Internet Jams and Online Collaborations are becoming quite popular as a way for guitarists (and musicians in general) to meet and play together, to work on songwriting or to enjoy jamming and creating music. Scott tells us about how to get started in all the fun.

Hot Off The Press (Release)

Last week I posted some great news this week from Tom Hess, who’s contributed many articles to us over the past few years and I’d like to mention it again this week:

Tom Hess will be on tour this summer with legendary guitarist Joe Stump playing together in a brand new band called, “HOLYHELL”. The band sounds nothing like HESS, it is more in the style of Nightwish (European metal with a female singer). The band is signed with Magic Circle Music / SPV.

Holyhell will be the opening band on the Manowar / Rhapsody 2005/2006 tour. The following are the confirmed tour dates for the Manowar, Rhapsody & Holyhell 2005 tour:

Thursday, June 2nd 2005
Cleveland, OH, USA – House Of Blues

Friday, June 3rd 2005
Winston Salem, NC, USA – Ziggy’s

Saturday, June 4th 2005
Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA – The Culture Room

Sunday, June 5th 2005
Orlando, FL, USA – House of Blues

Tuesday, June 7th 2005
Atlanta, GA, USA – The Masquerade

Wednesday, June 8th 2005
Charleston, SC, USA – The Music Farm

Thursday, June 9th 2005
Baltimore, MD, USA – Sonar

Saturday, June 11th 2005
Buffalo, NY, USA – The Icon

Sunday, June 12th 2005
Toronto, ON, Canada – Opera House

Monday, June 13th 2005
Quebec City, QU, Canada – Albert-Rousseau

Tuesday, June 14th 2005
Montreal, QU, Canada – Metropolis

Thursday, June 16th 2005
Philadelphia, PA, USA – Theatre Of Living Arts

Saturday, June 18th 2005
Worcester, MA, USA – The Palladium

Sunday, June 19th 2005
New York, NY, USA – B.B. King’s

Friday, July 15 2005
Zlin, Czech Republic – Masters Of Rock Festival.

Saturday, July 16 2005
Zlin, Czech Republic – Masters Of Rock Festival.

Sunday, July 17 2005
Zlin, Czech Republic – Masters Of Rock Festival.

Thursday, July 21 2005
Nuremburg, Germany- EARTHSHAKER FEST 2005.

Friday, July 22 2005
Nuremburg, Germany – EARTHSHAKER FEST 2005.

Saturday, July 23 2005
Nuremburg, Germany – EARTHSHAKER FEST 2005.

The Concerts in Europe are huge heavy metal outdoor festivals (huge like OZ-fest). Some of the other bands we’ll be playing with in Europe include: Manowar, Rhapsody, Nightwish, Hammerfall, Children of Bodem, Testament, J.B,O, Overkill, Master Plan, Grave Digger, After Forever and many more.

In other news: Mike Walsh and Tom Hess are featured in the new 2005 Randall Amplifiers product catalog as endorsees. Mike and Tom may do clinics for Randall/Washburn later this year. The Randall promo photos can be seen in the new Randal catalog and on the Hess web site’s photo gallery page.

New instructional DVD series: Tom and Mike are scheduled (next month) to begin filming a new series of guitar instructional DVDs due out later this year.

HESS ~ Opus 3 CD writing progress: Because of the upcoming Holyhell tour, and writing for that band’s debut CD, work on HESS Opus 3 has (unfortunately) been delayed, at least until after the summer Holyhell tour. The HESS band is still together and will continue to move forward. Some speculation has occurred in the music press that the HESS band would break up now that Tom is playing with Joe Stump in Holyhell. This is not true, Tom will remain in both bands.

New interviews and reviews: There are some new interviews and CD reviews for Opus 2 on the HESS web site http://hess.4t.com

Mike Walsh to teach NGW (National Guitar Workshop): Tom Hess was scheduled to teach at NGW in Nashville and Chicago, including a brand new week long seminar that Tom designed himself for NGW in Chicago called, “Can You Hear Me Now?” Unfortunately the NGW seminars are at the same time as the European part of the Holyhell tour, so Tom couldn’t teach for NGW this year. HOWEVER, NGW has since asked Mike Walsh to teach the seminar in Chicago, it will be a great experience for all students who attend this seminar!!

Forum News

Scott’s article this week presents me with the chance to point out that we’ve now got a new page on the Forums, dedicated to Online Jams and Collaborations. If this way of jamming is something you’d like to try, you can find like-minded individuals (not to mention a lot of help!) here.

We all look forward to hearing what comes out of all this!

Sunday Songwriters Group

The Sunday Songwriters Group is a Guitar Noise exclusive. Conceived by Ryan Spencer and Nick Torres, the idea is to give songwriters a weekly exercise in order to help develop their lyric-writing skills.

Now in our third year (!), Bob continues to put us all through our paces, giving us weekly assignments to help everyone sharpen their abilities.

It’s open to everyone. Got an itch to write? Jump on in! Even if you don’t write, you should feel free to critique. After all, you probably have experience listening to songs, no?

For more info, visit the SSG FAQ.

Year Three, Week 23

It’s All Elemental (part 3)

It’s still all in the imagery, but now we’ve got a little twist. In the first year of the SSG, we had a week where we used the four “basic elements,” as they were called – Earth, Air, Fire and Water. In SSG Year 3, we’re going to give each element its own week!

So, following on from last week the imagery theme our song should contain for this week is that of wind or air – You are like a hurricane, etc.

Good writing

Bob

Reviews

Autumn Acoustics
CD Review by A-J Charron

Autumn Acoustics is a compilation album from various artists on Solarise Records in the UK. This album is a very nice collection of beautiful music and definitely one you want in your library!

Reeves Gabrel – Rockonica
CD Review by A-J Charron

Something quite different and non-mainstream from Reeves Gabrel, the guitarist of Tin Machine. Strange in a totally out to lunch way, yet extremely brilliant with its incredibly well-written and well-built songs.

The Jet Slide
Product Review by A-J Charron

A fabulous innovation that will completely change the way you look at the guitar. The Jet Slide is a thin slide that you put on your ring finger with a ring. It stays behind your ring finger and pinky completely out of the way so that you can play your guitar normally without worrying about it. No more hassle putting on and taking off a slide!

Thoughts & Feedback

When I was graduated from eighth grade, I got a radio as a present. And no, this isn’t meant to be one of those “look at how much the world has changed since I was young” sort of things…

But having a radio meant being able to listen to music any time I wanted to. Within reason, of course…And one thing I found myself listening to fairly regularly was the “American Top Forty” weekly countdown.

I bring this up because, quite inadvertently, I’ve become a bit of a chart watcher again. When I mentioned last week that I was posting up some of my original music at www.soundclick.com/davidhodge, Paul thought it would be a good idea to also include this link in the bios that appear with my articles. Little did I realize how many people would be curious enough to listen to my music! As of the time I write this, One By One, a song I wrote with our own Nick Torres, is sitting at number sixteen of Soundclick’s “Acoustic General” charts!

And I’ve got to admit that I find myself thrilled about this! Part of me, thankfully, is simply glad that so many people like this song, that it touches them somehow. That, after all, is the whole reason I write music.

But part of me is keeping an eye out on the charts! Just what I need, another hobby!

Seriously, thanks for listening to my music. That you do means a lot to me.

I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace

David