Newsletter Vol. 2 # 27 – March 09, 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
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

First, Allow me extend my thanks to everyone who’s written in about the new (and still “in progress”) Guitar Noise FAQ. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, feel free to do so.

I truly cannot stress enough that this page is still in the works and possible will be so forever. We get literally hundreds of questions a week here at Guitar Noise. This page will (hopefully) cut down on some of those. Or, at the very least, give the staff a place where they may refer a reader to instead writing out the answer to the same question over and over.

And this is where a lot of you can help! If you feel that there’s an essential question (or a bunch of them) that we’re missing, drop Ryan a line and we’ll try to get it up there as soon as we can.

My thanks also to those of you who took the time to respond to our new Song Crafting series, launched just last week. Remember, if you’d like to share your experiences in writing a song, even if it was your first one, with other songwriters, please write me and let me know. I think you’re going to find the upcoming articles both entertaining and educational. And, speaking of things entertaining and educational:

New Lessons And Articles

New guy! We’ve got two great new articles this week. Here’s what’s been put online at Guitar Noise since we last chatted:

Home Recording On A PC
by Paul Ortiz

Forum member Paul (“strunglikeahorse”) Ortiz gives us a wonderfully concise walk through on how to go about recording music on your computer. Even I understood this! From knowing the computer itself to shaping your sound, Paul provides you with the information you need to get your music from your instrument into your computer.

Fretboard 101 (Part 2)
by Nick Torres

Knowing where the notes are on your fretboard is nowhere near as hard as you might think. Nick continues his series designed to help you painlessly learn the essentials of your guitar. And it’s dinosaur-free!

Email Of The Week

I can’t use all of this week’s featured email because, well, it’s looooong! Even longer than anything I could write!

Technically, this week’s email is a newsletter. Every Wednesday, Darrin Koltow (our copy editor) puts out his “Guitar Study Newsletter,” which tells you the latest goings on at his site, Maximum Musician. In this week’s issue, he answered a question that we get a lot and I think he did a great job of it:

Darrin,

Did you ever have the dream of being a famous guitarist? I have this dream, and I’m committed to it. I’m in the ninth grade now. I think I worry too much about the other people in the world at my age who are better than me, and why I can’t be like them. I practice religiously and am devoted 100% to this dream. Do you think you could give me some advice to ease these worries? Thanks.

The complete response is here.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’ve never been to Darrin’s site, you’re missing out on an incredible resource. Simply getting the newsletter will provide you with a wealth of information! Check it out yourself if you don’t believe me.

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

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 21

I’m Thunderstruck. SSG turns 21. Yes, we’re legal now! But just to make sure we don’t turn down the Highway to Hell, this week we are going to turn introspective. Go to the SSG forum and post your thoughts, suggestions, wishes, corrections. It’s important to tailor the SSG to the needs of the participants, otherwise we might see a Jailbreak. So go and tell us what you want more of and less of.

Ahhh, and just in case you thought you were getting off easy, why don’t you compose a High Voltage rock anthem in the style of hmmm? I don’t know. AC/DC?

T(il) N(ext) T(ime), We salute you. As Nick says, write well. And, as Ryan says, Rock On!

Reviews

Two new CD reviews from A-J this week!

Nine Short Films
An intense collaboration of two veteran musicians, Terry Bozzio and Billy Sheehan

Not Of This World
Pendragon’s follow up to The Masquerade Overture creates a new level of beautiful and complex music. They really do just keep getting better.

Thoughts and Feedback

Someone wrote me and asked if we were going to do another “April Fool’s Day” issue. If you missed it two years ago, I’m afraid I can’t begin to describe how silly it was. Worse, I’ll have to admit that it was my idea.

Anyway, I’m thinking we might skip it this year. The first falls on a Tuesday, I don’t know if Dan could top his “bass fishing” photo (although I could assign, er, suggest, an article on singing that he might write…) and I certainly can’t grow my hair back in that short a time frame. Ah well.

But after all the seriousness that seems to have set in lately, I do believe that having a good laugh is becoming more and more important. It doesn’t even have to be a laugh. A smile will work wonders, too.

And I have to thank a lot of you for the smiles I’ve been having lately. Whether it’s a dreadful pun (are there any other kind?) on the Forum pages (over a thousand members now, by the way!), or simply sharing a story with me through the email, I find myself with all sorts of reasons to smile.

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

Stay safe.

As always,

Peace

David