Guitar Noise

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News And Announcements

Greetings and Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Happy New Year! Okay, it’s a little early (or a LOT early if you live in Paul’s part of the world), but hey, I know that some people have already started celebrating!

This is going to be a quickie. I was thinking about writing one of those “year end” things – you know, the ones you get from your old classmates or friends you don’t get to see very often:

“2002 was truly a year of excitement and change. Grandma finally fulfilled her lifelong ambition when she got asked by NASA to tag along on the March 2003 space shuttle flight (they’ll be baking toll house cookies in zero gravity!) and little Johnny took home the State Championship for the spelling bee (3rd grade) as well as a Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a hall monitor…”

But I guess I thought better of the whole thing! We did put a new article up, so I guess I should mention it!

New Lessons And Articles

The Joy Of Music (part 5)

I received these two submissions over the weekend and I definitely think that they deserved to be up onsite. Paul was even kind enough to work on his holiday to get them online!

Thoughts and Feedback

I spent part of my holiday (so far) going through the old newsletters. 2002 was truly a year of excitement and change (yeah, I AM sorry about that!). March saw the launch of Guitar Noise China and Guitar Noise Canada, and as if Paul didn’t have enough to do, he went and started MusicCareers.net on May first.

Our “regular” staff – Paul, A-J Charron, Dan and Laura Lasley – all managed to came through with great work in spite of all sorts of personal side “projects” (are medical operations “side projects?”). And a lot of that work, while not in the form of articles or reviews, turned out to be vital in producing both Guitar Noise and MusicCareers.net.

We had quite a number of people write us about writing for the site. From Scott Hysel’s popular “recording on a budget” pieces to the latest advice from studio musician Chris Juergensen, we’ve been fortunate to have so many wonderful and talented people giving of their time and energy to the site. And the truly great thing is that our writers come from all over the place – not only geographically. Guitar Noise’s writers include new guitarists as well as seasoned pros, buskers and open mike players as well as people playing bar bands. For every Share Ross, Tom Hess, Hans Fahling and LT, we also have a John Carrahar, Lesa McCabe, Blue, Mab O’Connor or Joe Benedetto.

I’d like to mention special thanks to both Kelly Richey and LT (Linda Taylor) for their participation over the past year. Their frankness and professionalism made for very interesting and educational reading. And speaking of interesting reading, who besides me wishes Bill Cozzo would go to more concerts?

We also found two stellar staff volunteers in Ryan Spencer and Darrin Koltow. Not only have both contributed with great articles, but both of these gentlemen put in a lot of “behind the scenes” work. Darrin helps out tremendously on copy editing while Ryan makes the Guitar Noise forum pages one of the friendliest places to visit on the internet. It is because of his and Paul’s efforts that we were able to go with our new forum set up this past summer. And this led to all sorts of wonderful things, including the exciting Sunday Songwriters’ Group, founded by Ryan and Nick Torres (another great addition to our writing team!).

You never know what the future is going to hold. Last February, for example, I got an email asking about the differences between Spanish and Hawaiian guitars. Little did I realize that researching the answer was going to get me totally immersed in playing slack key guitar!

I can tell you a little about the immediate future – in January, we will be graced with more new writers: Kelly Marsh has written a wonderful piece on the importance of not being too cheap when it comes to studios and studio time, while Steve Smith has graciously gone about explaining the differences between various British bass amps. And Long Island guitarist Mark Yodice shares his great lessons on becoming a better player. Add to this mix new lessons and articles from Tom Hess, Nick Torres and Jamey Andreas, as well as new pieces on quartal harmony by Hans Fahling and Bill Cozzo and I think we’re in for a great start to 2003. Oh yes, I guess I’ll be writing some lessons and columns as well.

If there’s one thing that sticks out about the past year, it was an August weekend in New Jersey when I got to meet Paul. I hope it was the first of many times of sharing his company. If any of you ever happen to be visiting Beijing, you should drop him a note.

I want to again take the time to wish all of you a wonderful and safe new year. I hope that each of you has a great week. I look forward to hearing from you.

As always,

Peace

David