Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Lessons and Articles
• Guitar Tip
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Reviews
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Let’s start with an old announcement that may have slipped by…

In an effort to do some much-needed housekeeping, Paul decided to rework all our links. What some people did not realize was that the page this affected most was not the links page, but rather the TAB page! Seriously.

So, needless to say, we’ve been getting numerous mails wondering why the Guitar Tab page seems a tad depleted. Here is a response that Paul posted on the Forum page:

We have decided to make some major changes to the way we link to other sites. There are lots of reasons for this.

Firstly, just managing and checking the 800 or so links we had before was becoming like a full time job. If anyone has time to work on this site fulltime it should be doing things to keep visitors here – not refer them to other sites.

Also, out of those 800 or so links so many of them were broken links or led to the wrong page or assaulted the visitor with pop ups and forced downloads. And very few of the good sites linked back to us, which is very important for us to get new visitors.

So the staff of Guitar Noise decided to revamp the links pages. From now on we’ll only link to quality sites that we have personally checked. And sites that will offer a link to Guitar Noise in return. This means purging almost all the links we have so far.

Originally, the links pages were very important to Guitar Noise. But now we have so much material of our own that we don’t see them as being so valuable anymore.

We will continue to link to the best guitar tab sites, but are not going to continue linking to every tab site on the planet. You can help us out by encouraging other websites to link to us.

So, if you have a site, write to Paul or myself with your info. If you know of a site, contact that site’s webmaster and have him or her do the same.

But I’d like to iterate something that Paul mentioned. Guitar Noise has become much, much more than a “find some TAB” page. I think that the growth we’ve experienced is a direct result of our original material. Personally, I have to say that I don’t get the chance to visit a lot of other sites (that pesky spare time thing I’ve mentioned on occasion) but, judging from the emails I get, I don’t think there are many sites out there that offer what we do. And, also judging by the emails, I think that’s the way you want it. I’m relying on you to tell me if this is not the case!

And speaking of things you have told us you wanted, don’t forget that we appreciate all the input you’re giving us on the new Guitar Noise FAQ page. If you haven’t visited it yet, give it a little looksee and tell us what you think.

New Lessons And Articles

Inspiration seems to be this week’s theme. Here are two great articles that will help with both playing and songwriting. Let’s see what’s gone up at Guitar Noise since we last chatted:

Climb Every Mountain
by Jamey Andreas

The higher up you go, the easier it becomes to sit back and look at the view. But then we’ll sit and complain that we’re not getting anywhere! Jamey has some wonderful advice designed to help you develop the right frame of mind towards practicing.

Songwriting For Beginners
by Nick Torres

By popular demand, Nick has taken what was an off-the-cuff forum response and turned it into a very good, concise and handy reference for all the lyricists out there. Not only does it cover writing lyrics but also the difficult topics of giving and receiving criticism.

Guitar Tip

This week I’d like to share with you a tip that one of our Forum page’s “Senior Members” (Hey! I’m not even a “senior member yet!), who goes by the name of Jazzarati was kind enough to post. I think it’s a great idea, especially for those of you who worry about making progress.

I was just running my daily chromatic exercise with my metronome and my mind thought, “Gee this feels easy”.

First I took over and told myself to concentrate, secondly being the thinking person I am. I looked at the metronome; I was playing semi-quavers at 150 bpm. If playing something correct and that speed felt easy and not too spectacular, how the hell was I going to impress myself!!! Luckily I though back a few months when I was dreaming that I could play semi-quavers at 120 bpm and realized that, “Whoa, I’ve come a long way and I hadn’t really noticed or played any attention to the fact”.

See now if I had a journal with all practice sessions down with top speeds and all. I could look back a couple of pages and compare my top speeds with today’s top speeds and I would be amazed, I would discover amazing feats of willpower, “I’ve increased my picking speed by double in the last 6 months!!!” That’s the sort of realizations that you give yourself a pat on the back for.

Without this sort of tool to look back in time, more often then not you just shrug your shoulders and get pissed off thinking you’re not improving. ‘I’m still playing at the same speed as I was yesterday’ followed quickly by ‘Screw this’ and then a lifetime of regret.

So do yourself a favour and go grab a 50 cent book from the newsagency and just write what you practice in each practice session and what speeds you get up to (Or how much of a song you can play, anything that can be used as a measure of progress).

This is an invaluable tool when it comes to keeping the motivation up.

Get organized and get rocking!

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 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 23

So you thought you knew what was coming, huh?

Pick two lines from last week, any lines, but of course they can’t be your own.

Now write three or four sentences, (more if you need), and tell us the brief story that belongs to each of your chosen lines. Include any character information you like at the end.

No rhyme or meter please, but include enough information for whoever gets it next to develop a verse or chorus.

For instance, David’s entry:

“I thought the ocelot was just a bit too much…”

I might write a story line like this:

The song is about a guy whose high maintenance girlfriend can’t stop spending his money. He doesn’t mind the clothes, the jewelry or even the car, but the ocelot was a just a bit much.

So he decides to take a vow of poverty and join the priesthood. Then he changes his mind and runs off with the ocelot to join the circus.

The wealthy boyfriend is telling the story
The girlfriend in the story is just the most recent in a string of women more interested in his money than love
The boyfriend inherited the money
The girlfriend likes Acapulco

That’s it. Good luck and good writing.

Reviews

Watching The Rain
This exciting CD by the duo Molly Pitcher is filled with intelligent and heart-felt songwriting. Melodies are back!

Possessed – The Rise and Fall of Prince
Alex Hahn’s new book is an in-depth look at the musical career of arguably the one of the most influential artists of our times.

Thoughts and Feedback

As I was reading the biography on Prince, I couldn’t help but think that today’s professional musician (meaning someone who makes a living solely from playing music) truly needs to have his or her feet firmly rooted in business sense. In all likelihood, it’s always been that way.

But part of me still has that “art is exempt from the trappings of society” mentality. Chalk it up to romanticism, I guess. I am, as my friends will tell you, a romantic at heart. I am lucky in that a have found a balance in my life where art and business can peacefully exist together.

And I think it’s this striving to find a balance that is bringing more and more people to the guitar later in life. By “later” I am not referring to one’s twilight years. I mean that people of all ages are realizing that they want more in their lives. It’s not so much about being a guitar god (or goddess) as much as it is getting to share in the same feelings our gods have.

My wish for you all this week is that you get to experience that feeling as often as possible and that you are able to share it with those around you.

Stay safe.

As always,

Peace

David