Newsletter Vol. 2 # 21 – January 26, 2003
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
- Sunday Songwriters Sessions
- Reviews
- Hot Forum Topic
- Thoughts and Feedback
News And Announcements
Greetings!
Welcome to Guitar Noise News!
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. ’tis a pleasure to be chatting with all of you all again.
Congratulations this week to latest “Guitar Deity” on the Guitar Noise forum pages! Alan Green, take a bow. Alan joins fellow “gods” Nick Torres and the inimitable Ryan Spencer (who’s so far beyond “godhood” I can’t even tell you!) and I think that this congratulatory note from one forum member summed things up very well:
From what I have seen, if anybody deserves it, it is you.
The time you spend with everybody, the patience with newbies (that would include me ), and the ability to craft your responses to the level of the questioner are fantastic. Nice job and well deserved!
To which I add a hearty, “here, here!!”
All right, let’s see what else is new, shall we?
New Lessons And Articles
A little slow this week. That’s what happens when I take a long weekend, I guess. Still, I hope you’ll find this week’s offering to your liking. Here’s what’s new since we last chatted:
Tangled Up In Blue
Easy Songs for Beginners #20
by David Hodge
Let’s take advantage of the MP3 files and do a lesson focusing on strumming. Here’s the opening song from Dylan’s classic album, Blood on the Tracks. Have fun!
Email Of The Week
Sometimes I really screw up! This week’s email deals with an “Ask The Expert” question that you can read here: What is C sharp Tuning?
As you can see, I said one thing and then explained another! It’s no wonder I don’t get emails like this more often! But fortunately, it doesn’t take much to straighten things out:
Hi David,
I have a question about the article you wrote on open tuning. You said “C# tuning (so that when you strum the strings without fretting anything you get a C# major chord) and yes, there is such a thing.” I am trying to figure out some open tunings right now and I am confused. The notes, when you tune down all the strings like you said, are C#, F#, B, E, G#, C#, from 6 to 1. Unless I am way off, the F#, B and E notes are not in a C# Major chord (although the E is in C#m). Strumming all those strings open is highly dissonant. Can you help clear things up for me? Thanks.
Thanks for writing. There is often confusion in the naming of alternate tunings. You have to understand that any “open” tuning is going to have different intervals than standard tuning, since when you are in standard tuning, you do not have a major or minor chord. The tuning you mention:
C#, F#, B, E, G#, C#
is NOT “open C#” tuning. The intervals between the strings are the same as standard tuning, which makes this simply a “lowered” tuning. In other words, if you started with C# on your sixth string and then manually tuned your guitar as you normally would, this is what you’d get.
The confusion comes from the fact that some people call this “open C#” or even “drop C#,” or, even worse, simply “C# tuning.” It would be best be called “C# standard” in order to clear the confusion.
Open C# tuning would consist ONLY of notes in a C#major chord. You would have many ways of doing it. Here, low to high, are some ways:
E#, G#, C#, G#, C#, E#
C#, G#, C#, E#, G#, C#
C#, G#, E#, G#, C#, E#
I hope this helps and, once again, my apologies for creating the confusion in the first place!
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
SSG – Week 15
This week you can write about anything you want. Any topic, any style, any form. There is, of course, one stipulation – we’d like you to use a number in the title. It can be the whole title (as in “One” or “409″) or be part of the title (“96 Tears,” “A Murder of One”). Fractions will count, no pun intended.
Good luck and, as Nick says, write well.
Reviews
Guitar Noise reader Steve Anderson has found a great book, written by Russell Fragar, that explains writing charts in a simple, easy to understand manner. Here is his review.
Susan S. Davis, another Guitar Noise reader, went to what sounds like an incredible concert. These are definitely people I hope will be passing through Chicago soon!
Hot Forum Topic
Beginners’ Q&A Forum
If you’ve never visited the forum pages here at Guitar Noise, you are truly missing out on a fantastic opportunity to both learn and share. You’ve heard me say this before and, as you all know, I don’t mind repeating myself: our forum pages are some of the friendliest you’ll find on the ‘net.
This week I’d like to highlight a question that caught my eye: if you could only give one tip to a newbie, what would it be? Come out to this thread find some interesting (and entertaining) answers. More importantly, come be a part of the community!
Thoughts and Feedback
I brought up the forum pages earlier because, believe it or not, I do try to visit it a few times a day. We are fortunate in having the sense of camaraderie that exists there. I can’t tell you how many times reading a post has made me smile and even laugh out loud (LOL, right?). And, I can’t tell you how often I’ve learned something!
One thing that I try to stress to my students and to musicians in general, is that there are so many ways to learn. Certainly, to me anyway, the most enjoyable one is to play with others. If I think back over the (way too many) years I’ve played, I can point out so many things that I picked up simple by playing with and observing other guitarists. I don’t even have to point them out, if you could magically listen to me play at various points in my musical life, you’d be able to hear them for yourself.
You may not know it, but even if you have just started playing the guitar this very week, you are capable of teaching, of sharing ideas and techniques. There is something about learning together that really sticks. It’s like the difference between visiting a hauntingly beautiful place and visiting the same place with a good friend.
Case in point: the reviews. Reading a review from one of our readers means a lot more to me than reading one from a “professional” reviewer. Why? Well, the obvious reason is that I know I’m going to have much more in common with the Guitar Noise reader. The chances are that he or she has (or had), at some point, the same sort of ideas about playing as I have.
This is why I want to encourage all of you to share what you can. If you don’t think you’re up to doing it here on the site (either through an article, review or even just by giving advice on the forum pages), at least do so with your circle of friends.
Next week we’ll have a new Intermediate’s lesson and (with a little luck) the first piece on arranging. I hope that each of you has a great week. I look forward to hearing from you.
As always,
Peace
David
