Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

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In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Lessons and Articles
• Email of the Week/Guitar Tip
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Reviews
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to the first Guitar Noise News of 2003!

I’m afraid that way too many of you had too much free time on your hands over the holidays. I think I got close to 250 emails between the 20th and New Year’s Eve! Needless to say, I’m going to have to send out the “don’t panic, I WILL write back” alert.

Many thanks to all who shared in the “The Joy of Music” series. We’re still getting a few stories and, if you’d like, I’d be more than happy to share these with you in the future. Let me know.

Speaking of sharing, I’d like you all to know that the folks at Chick Corea’s website were so impressed with Bill Cozzo’s review of the show in Washington that they linked us on the front page! No lie! Look:

http://www.chickcorea.com

Bill will be back onsite next week with the long awaited second part to his lesson on quartal harmony.

But that’s next week. Let’s deal with now, shall we?

New Lessons And Articles

We’ve a lot to get through: Some playing advice, a little theory with a lot of laughs, something for the ears and even something on recording. Two new writers make their debut and I think you’re going to want more from them. I may have to spend more time editing than writing!

Here’s what’s gone online since our last newsletter:

Dressing Up The Garden Variety G Chord
by Mark Yodice

Guitar Noise readers, allow me to introduce you to Mark. Mark, Guitar Noise readers. Okay, my job here is finished! Seriously, we at Guitar Noise are thrilled that Mark has joined our other stellar “player/writers.” His first piece, a bit of practical theory application, demonstrates that even beginners should have no trouble grasping the art of chord voicing. I hope that you will enjoy his writings as much as I do. And be sure to check out his music as well.

Gin And Diatonic
by Nick Torres

When Nick sent me this, I was in the middle of rereading “Temperament” (see the review section) and I just couldn’t stop laughing. Believe it or not, there’s some very valuable information on music in here, generously mixed in dinosaurs, math, Pythagoras and the definition of “octave.” Just don’t believe a word about Bach – I mean, how could he afford to drink so much if he was always Baroque?

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?
The Most Important Skill Most Players Don’t Have
by Tom Hess

Following up on his popular article on choosing a teacher, Tom gives us some great tips on ear training. It is truly amazing how learning to listen can improve your playing and Tom walks us through a number of ideas to help us work on this.

More Reading On This Subject:

Ear training is, as Tom says, the most important skill most players don’t have. Most people aren’t even aware of it being a skill! If you’re new to Guitar Noise, you may not know that we have a few articles on this subject:

Grow Your Ears With The Net
Darrin Koltow introduces us to free software designed to help you develop your listening skills. I want to add that if you don’t get his newsletter (see “MaximumMusician.com” in the “Affiliated Links” section) you’re missing even more tips. He devoted this past week’s entire issue to it!

Happy New Ear
I still get emails about this trilogy on how to figure out songs without relying on TAB. Once you start to figure songs and riffs out yourself, there’s little that you can’t learn.

Cheap Recording Studios – Worth Every Penny
by Kelly Marsh

So, you’re ready to take the plunge and professionally record your CD. Where do you go? Kelly Marsh points out that shopping for the cheapest studio may not give you the greatest results and may in fact end up costing you more money than you’d planned!

Email Of The Week / Guitar Tip

This week I want to highlight a brief essay that Dan Lasley was kind enough to write up for me on (very) short notice. We’ll be posting this online early next week, but I though that I’d like to give our newsletter subscribers a first peek:

This is the time of year when many of us think about what to do with our careers. Students are planning for college (or are nearly done – we’re a bit late!), and those of us in the real world know that Spring is the time to think about career changes. Thankfully, Mix Magazine has updated their master list of schools that offer college degrees in Recording, Production, Orchestration, or other music and audio engineering fields.

Note: Mix Magazine is the reference magazine for the Recording Industry, comparable to Guitar Player for guitarists. There are others which have different specific specialties, but the first one to get is Mix. I also like OnStage magazine for their coverage of real-world live-on-stage sound engineering.

Some things to consider:

Size and Facilities: Some schools have very small Production departments, attached to their Theater or Music schools. Some schools have limited equipment. However, look closely, as small can be good. For example, the Hartt School at University of Hartford (CT), only has 30 students in their Production program, but they have 6 state-of-the-art studios, and they interact with the Yale theater department. These students spend a lot of time doing live and studio recordings.

Solo vs. University: Some schools are dedicated to Music and Video Production (ex FullSail), while others are part of a bigger campus. If you are positive that Production Engineering is your only option in life, then the dedicated schools may be best for you. However, if you are a musician first, looking to augment your career with Production skills, then going to a respected Music school that also has a good Production department may be better. Alternately, you might want to get a degree in Economics or Marketing, just in case you ever need a “real” job. In this case, look for a Production school that is part of a bigger university.

Location: It used to be that you had to be in New York or Los Angeles to get anywhere in the Music, TV, or Movie business. This is no longer strictly true, as Chicago and Memphis and other cities have built strong reputations for the work they do, and many people don’t like being a small fish in a big pond. So long as the school offers many chances for real world experience and has a good job-placement program, the specific location shouldn’t matter.

Reputation: When all else is equal, a degree from a better school is worth more. However, rarely are things equal, and this “tie-breaker” is used less and less. So long as the school you attend has excellent equipment and staff, lots of hands-on class work, and good opportunities for summer jobs and internships, you should be fine. Your resume and personal demo disks will determine how employable you are. And of course, who you know (or who knows about the school) will weigh heavily. Check the alumni lists for those who have “made it.”

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 out the help pages .

Sunday Songwriters Group

Happy New Year

For SSG – week 12, we’re asking you to celebrate the start of the New Year by thinking young. Really young. Your assignment is to write a children’s song. That’s right, something for the kids. You want to think between the ages of 4 and 8. Now, you can go highbrow and try to write something that will appeal to all ages (like “Puff, The Magic Dragon” or even “Iko Iko”) or something more “sing around the campfire”-ish. The idea is to make it fun!! Bonus points for being educational at the same time.

As Nick says, write well.

Reviews

June Again - Mark Yodice

Who says solo acoustic guitar instrumental music is a lost art? Mark Yodice’s album is sure do two things – make you sit up and listen in wonder and then make you grab your guitar!

Temperament – The Idea That Solved Music’s Greatest Riddle – Stuart Isacoff

Did you know that they once made keyboards with nineteen keys to the octave? Would you believe twenty-seven? How about thirty-two? The search for “harmony” has had some decidedly dissonant moments. Stuart Isacoff leads us on the truly “long, strange trip” that resulted in the musical intervals we enjoy today.

Thoughts and Feedback

So, how many people got a guitar for Christmas? Or a “toy” of some sort, hmmm? If you’d like to share your opinions on something you got, why not write up a review? One of the great things about Guitar Noise is the way that everyone freely shares his or her opinions in order to help the “newbies,” as they seem to call themselves. If you’re up for it, just send it to me via email and use the word “review” in the subject header. Write about anything that you think might help make someone a better player or that has made you a better player. That obviously includes guitars and amps, but I’d really like to also look at books, CDs, any tutorial material. I think that everyone can benefit from this.

Totally changing subjects, I want to give everyone a little advance warning that I am going to be moving about a bit this year. While I think that we have gotten things to the point where we are running fairly smoothly, there may be the occasional glitch, especially as the middle and end of January approaches and Paul gets caught up in all the wonder of Chinese New Year while I am in the middle of preparing client budgets!

As the year progresses, I am going to be taking a more active role in physically running the website (and yes, that is cause for (slight) alarm!). Paul says I’m learning pretty well, but the truth is that he has gone way out of his way to make it easy for me.

Next week, we’ll have Jazz articles from Bill Cozzo and Hans Fahling, as well as Jamie Andreas’ first piece of the year. Plus, Dan Lasley has managed to find a new writer who does a wonderful job explaining all the intimate details of bass guitar amps. Plus a few surprises…

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

As always,

Peace

David