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
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

We’ve got a couple of great ideas that are, after way too much tinkering time, finally hitting the site this week.

First off, in an effort to make all of our lives easier, Paul and Ryan have teamed up to revamp our “FAQ” page. Take a look.

Calling this a “Frequently Asked (or Answered) Questions” page is a bit of a misnomer. What Paul has come up with is an interactive and (constantly) updatable source where anyone can come and find an answer to almost anything, guitar related, of course, that you can think of! It’s incredibly easy to use; it even has its own search engine! If you’ve got an idea as to what we might call this, drop me a line, okay?

[Ed note: The FAQ is still a work in progress.If you find any bugs or errors please report them to Guitar Noise. - Paul]

Secondly, I’d like to salute reader (and Forum member) Adam McMaster. Adam has graciously provided a website where members of the Guitar Noise Songwriting Forums may post MP3s of their original songs in order to give other forum members a listen.

In addition to this, having Adam’s site to host full MP3s (as opposed to the “snippets” we use in our lessons), has allowed us to try out something I’ve been wanting to do for close to a year now! What is it? Just read on…

New Lessons And Articles

We have two returning writers and the first of a brand new series of articles for your reading and learning pleasure. Here are the new lessons and articles we’ve put online at Guitar Noise since we last chatted:

All About Chords (part 1)
by Darrin Koltow

It’s always a pleasure for me to put up a lesson from Darrin. If you’ve never visited his site, Maximum Musician or had the joy of reading his weekly newsletter, do yourself a favor and do it now! We’ll wait, promise! This week, Darrin explores the basics of chords and harmony right where you want to learn it – on the guitar. It’s a great way to learn with developing your listening skills as well.

Approaching Single Note Improvisation From A Different Perspective
by Mark Yodice

Mark’s second piece for Guitar Noise is a thoughtful, step-by-step guide to improvisation based upon chord shapes. It’s a terrific way for the fledgling soloist to learn to navigate around the fretboard.

Waiting For Nancy
Song Crafting Session #1
by David Hodge

Follow the evolution of an original song from start to finish! There’s no better way to learn to create something than to sit in on the process of creation. From silly idea to demo recording – you get to sit in on the whole thing and, thanks again to Adam, you can even hear the final results.

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.

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.

And now that you all know what’s going on…

SSG – week 20

We’re officially declaring this week a “free session” – you can write about ANYTHING. Any topic. Any genre. Any music (or not).

Okay, not totally “free” – there is one stipulation (you didn’t think it’d be that easy now, did you?)

Here’s your title – Billy and the Bright Lights

Now write the song.

Have fun and, as Nick says, write well.

Thoughts and Feedback

If you get a chance this week, let me know what your thoughts concerning our two new additions to Guitar Noise. Visit the FAQ page and let me know what questions we’re “missing” – we’ve got a lot more to go up there, so don’t think we’re being reticent. Our biggest challenge is going to be in finding ways to direct people to it. I’d appreciate your ideas on this matter as well as concerning any obvious (and not so obvious) things we can do to improve things.

Also let me know your feelings about our first foray into the new “Song Crafting Sessions” series. And if you are interested in taking a stab at it yourself, please, email me about doing so. I hope to be able to present one session each month (more often if enough of you desire it) (and enough people participate), so you’ll have plenty of time to work out a presentation. I truly believe that there are a number of people here who have it in them to contribute some fine pieces to Guitar Noise. By doing so, you not only get recognition for your own songwriting talents, but you’ll also find out that you’ve a teacher in you as well.

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

As always,

Peace

David