Guitar Noise

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In This Issue

• News and Announcements

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to a “special edition” of Guitar Noise News!

And not to freak anyone out, this is a one time deal. All your favorite bits of the newsletter (and more) will return next week. But I want to kick off December with some news and announcements (I will one day look to see what differentiates the two) and thoughts to bring all of our subscribers up to speed on the latest goings on at Guitar Noise. This letter will be a bit more “behind the scenes” than normal.

First off, we’re still accepting submissions for “The Joy of Music (and Guitar)” pieces. Part two will be going up later this week with part three close behind it. I’d love to have enough material for parts four and five. I’d actually like to be able to post these stories on a monthly basis! Thank you to everyone who’s contributed so far and the rest of you please feel free to send in something to either Dan, Darrin or myself. You can find our emails here on the first article.

Speaking of the “joys of music,” one of the wonderful things to happen to me this year was to finally meet Paul, our webmaster, executive producer, guru, and all around terrific human being. He managed to travel from Canada (where he was visiting family) to New Jersey, where I was visiting with friends.

For those of you who don’t know, I “met” Paul a little over three years ago when I applied to be a columnist for this site. He warned me when I started that I might get “quite a bit” of email. Paul, like myself, tends to be prone to understatement.

I got this email today. In many ways, it’s a good example of at least a quarter of the emails I receive each week (and I get anywhere from ten to twenty-five a day!):

Hello there -

I am overwhelmed.

I just found your Guitar Noise website and can’t believe all that is here. I haven’t gone through all of it of course, just skimmed the surface. I don’ know that I’ll ever get through it all.

See, I was on the scrap heap for the last – what – 30 years or so. Fiddled with an old nameless classical guitar in High School. That guitar was destroyed in a hurricane and that was it. Sure, I got a “new” one back in 1984, but was (still am) married, then kids and careers….you know the drill. Never picked it up for years and years. Then got the bug back, or the bug woke up, in 2001; I suppose it never goes away. I dug the thing out of the closet and got some strings and began remembering what I forgot from the 1970’s. Then, because time and a bit of maturity had been added to the mix, I thought lessons might be a good thing. Not a chance; no room in the calendar, no room in the budget. I took my place on the “wannabe” scrap heap, tucked the old Yamaha G-255 SII back into mothballs and figured that was it.

Today I was doing a search for Temptation Rag as part of a Christmas gift. In the mix of hits was a pointer to Guitar Noise, so I stabbed it out of curiosity.

Wadda ya know.

Bits and pieces, lessons even for a clay-fingered idiot, theory and all in digestible portions.

I have dragged my fat butt off the scrap heap. I may be old and a little gray, but now I have a chance to learn all this and anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss my…….axe.

Thanks. Don’t know why you guys put this together, but I’m glad you did.

In a lot of ways, I feel both lucky and privileged. Lucky in that I, too, found this place and also found it at the time that Paul was looking for a writer. Also lucky in that the Guitar Noise readers are such a wonderful group of people to write for.

The privileged part comes from being aware of how much of Guitar Noise is symbiotic. Most of the changes and lessons and improvements that have occurred on this site are the result of the response from our readers. I think, and I think it’s an honest assessment, that most people first come to the site with a specific goal in mind – free lessons, a bit of TAB, advice on a new guitar. But when one gets into all the material that is here (and I don’t even know EVERYTHING that’s here!) on our pages, it’s hard to leave! I felt this way three years ago. I can only imagine what it must be like to find it now!

I’ve said before in many of my past newsletters that Guitar Noise is a partnership between you, the readers, and Paul and myself and all our other writers and contributors. We share the future of this site together.

Bearing this in mind, I’d like to introduce you to Paul and also to an idea we have for the month of December. You can find his message here.

I’d also like to fill you in on some of the new things and ideas-still-in-the-works that we’ll be launching soon. As Paul mentions, I’ve taken the plunge into digital recording. While the main reason for this had been to be able to produce our Guitar Noise tutorial CD ourselves (it will really cut down on the production (particularly studio) costs), my purchase has also cleared the way for us to finally come up with top-notch sound files for the lessons. I think that this will be incredibly helpful to most of you, especially when it comes to rhythm and strumming.

With increased server capacity, perhpas we can also make it so that our readers can post MP3s as well. Not only would this be great for the folks on the forum pages, but it might make an excellent page in and of itself. Definitely an idea worth considering.

But all this also poses some interesting questions and ideas. Not to beat a dead horse, but the issue of copyright is now going to become more and more important. I am currently looking into seeing whether or not we might be able to arrange some deals with the music publishing world in order to use their full songs. If we can swing this, then it will also be possible to make whole CDs of our song lessons. Imagine getting fifteen or so Beginner or Intermediate lessons on a disc! All broken down just like we do on the site. With some work, we could even arrange it so that you could pick and choose what songs you wanted from our catalogue of lessons.

Another thing I thought might be nice for the current online lessons might be to spend a month on a particular artist or band. Or beginners’ and an intermediates’ lesson on the same song – the beginners lesson being a simple version to just get you playing and the intermediate lesson concentrating on a different style of arrangement or even the lead parts.

And let’s not forget that all of you have great things to share and bring to the mix as well. We’ve got some great articles coming up from new writers – most of whom have been long time readers. I think you’ll be really amazed, intrigues and inspired by the things they have to tell.

In short, I think that we’re heading into a truly exciting time here at Guitar Noise. Exciting enough, in my opinion, to stop and catch our breath for a moment before we sail off again, together, into the wonderful world of music.

I hope that each of you had a great week and that this coming week is even greater. I look forward to hearing from you.

As always,

Peace

David