Newsletter Vol. 2 # 33 – April 20, 2003
Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.
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!
Sometimes things truly don’t go according to plan! Between taking a long weekend and the ensuing (but not totally unanticipated) disasters that followed in choosing to take that long weekend, well, you know how it goes…
Don’t forget that our own A-J Charron is now offering to provide in-depth reviews of your songs. Get a detailed personal critique of your material from our Songwriting Columnist. Feel free to write A-J directly if you have questions about this. I’m certain he’ll be more than happy to answer any that you might have.
In the next few week’s you’ll be seeing both old friends and new. Look for articles from Hans Fahling, Darrin Koltow, and the rest of the staff, plus a great new series from guitarist/teacher Peter Simms. And even some Guitar Columns from your harried newsletter writer. Might as well throw in a few song lessons, too, while we’re at it. The next “Easy Songs For Beginners” piece, Neil Young’s Heart of Gold will be up online sometime in the next two weeks.
For now, though, let’s move on to the rest of this week’s newsletter.
New Lessons And Articles
Here are the new articles that have gone online at Guitar Noise this past week:
DOUBLE TROUBLE
by Jamie Andreas
I have no better way to introduce this than with Jamie’s own words: “There are times when the best way to solve a difficult problem on the guitar is to begin to work on a problem that is twice as difficult. By making the difficulty even more difficult, by “doubling the trouble” I found the original difficulty much easier!”
ABSOLUTE PITCH POWER 2
by Graham English
Graham combines the visualization exercises from part one with a lesson on “Preparing Your Mind” in the final installment on this series.
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…
Sunday Songwriter’s Group Week 27
I get to fill in for Nick this weekend, so my apologies in advance if this is not as flamboyant and you’ve come to expect (although I did try to prepare myself by watching some old tapes of Robert Llewellyn ).
Anyway, after borrowing from history last week with the old twelve bar blues style, this week we’re going to recreate history with a little “You Are There” theme.
In a nutshell:
1) You are to write a song lyric of any style/genre about an actual historical event. It can be a huge event (the Hundred Years’ War) or a little event (the invention of marshmallow), that’s up to you. But it had to have actually happened. If you’re opting for the “Big event,” better to focus on a singular aspect of it.
2) Write from the perspective of a participant in the event. Again, you make the call as to whether your narrator is a major or minor character. Both provide interesting insights. Multiple narrations will certainly be allowed but no omniscient third persons, please.
3) If at all possible, try not to write about something you witnessed personally. Sadly this does leave some of us scrambling for topics. I, for example, won’t be able to write about the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, the invention of the wheel, and a host of other topics. But I’m sure I’ll find something…
As Nick would say, “Good luck and good writing.”
Thoughts and Feedback
10 Questions with Laura and Dan Lasley (part 1)
Both Dan and Laura Lasley brought in new perspectives when they started writing for Guitar Noise. Dan started both the “Bass for Beginners” and the “Sound Engineering” departments while Laura launched Guitar Noise’s “The Other Side.”
While neither of them write as often as we’d wish they would, they did manage to answer some questions for us. We’ll look at five this week and then five next.
1) So what’s up with you two these days?
Dan: I’m still way too busy with many different things, mostly involved with the kids. I’m in charge of the referees for our soccer program, I teach students how to run sound for the school plays, and Laura and I run the school talent show. The reason I am able to do all this is because Laura is the bread-winner, and she supports my involvement. Occasionally, I go to work too. I must admit that I get in over my head too often, but when the kids are grown and gone, so will the opportunity to be involved with them. No one should underestimate the potential of our children – they are amazing. Not just mine, but the hundreds I work with each year.
Laura: I am trying to remain sane in the face of an unusually high census (= workload) at work, challenging personnel issues, being sicker than you want to know, and juggling work and health with home and family. This has been a long winter. The fatigue from all of the above have not allowed for much “extra”. The children remain ever fascinating as they thread their way through growing up and figure out relationships with their friends and crushes. It makes for a lot of interesting discussions, often at times when you least expect it. 24/7 on-call for that sort of thing is much more joyous than for work.
2) Do you have any new articles/interviews in the works?
Dan: I just got a multi-FX pedal for my bass, and I want to write up how I chose it, and what I like and dislike about it. I’m trying to find the right material for a “next level” bass lesson, sort of a transition to the intermediate stuff I’m trying to get StrungLikeaHorse to write soon.
Laura: Well, I would love to have the time/energy to write again. Or to dance, or to play music. But seriously, I have some ideas to follow up on; an article inspired by a reader’s email about How Young is Too Young to Play. I’m working on figuring out the Kelly Ritchie song I wanted to post. I was also thinking about posting a lesson on Sheryl Crow’s Soak up the Sun, if I get a few minutes to pester Dan on how to play the riff. It’s a very easy song and fun song to perform.
3) Laura – Being a doctor, especially in your field, it’s got to be incredibly hard sometimes just to find the time to sit with your guitar. How do you deal with not having the time?
Ha! No time to deal with no time! Actually, stealing moments and realizing that the guitar brings joy into my life, even if I don’t play at the level I aspire to. As someone recently said (a fellow parent of a middle-schooler involved in the school play last weekend) “you don’t have to be good on guitar if you can sing, you only need to be able to strum a few chords”. It’s very Zen; live in the moment and go where the moment takes you. My daughter was enamored of “Big Yellow Taxi” recently, having heard it in the movie “Two Weeks Notice”, and it was fun to download the chords and have at it with her singing too.
4) Dan – most people aren’t aware that you’ve actually done a lot of work behind the scenes, recruiting writers for various Guitar Noise articles. Is there something specific that makes that happen? Do you just think, “Hey! This person could write for us!”
Dan: I usually find new authors from posts in various forums both here and at ActiveBass. Paul Ortiz (“StrungLikeaHorse”) was having trouble with his tone when recording his bass on his PC. I gave him a suggestion, which worked. After that, I asked him to write about the entire process, and include a snippet from each step, and ta-daa! A most excellent lesson with MP3s. Over at ActiveBass, the forum is much busier, but they don’t write lessons the way we do, they are much more TAB-centric. So Lesa, Mab, Tracy, Steve, Kelly, etc all enjoy getting to use the written word here at GN. Occasionally, I will be searching the web to help one of my own lessons, and stumble on another site with a great author, like Scott Hysell. Most people are flattered, and we try hard to make it easy to write for us.
Laura: Dan is the MASTER at getting someone else to do the job. I mean that in a very loving, supportive way. Really. (And our son runs a close second in the delegation department.)
5) Do you have a favorite “Guitar Noise moment?”
Dan: Well the April Fools 2001 was pretty good. I really enjoy the collaborations – even when they are accidental! Editing the two Home Recording articles (by Scott Hysell and Stephen Sherrard ) at the same time was very interesting, as it seemed that they were talking in different languages. Helping Laura figure out her finger-picking pattern for Landslide was fun too. Last, I take some pride whenever an author I’ve discovered gets published.
Laura: My number one favorite moment was actually having a vast majority of our writing staff jam together. We come from all over the world, so the FTF (face to face) was fun, inspiring and invigorating. Then again, writing my first article and having it not only accepted and published, but read! Interviewing Dar and Kelly was pretty special. And I’m still startled by the odd email that I get, and that I’ve inspired someone to something better. Our readers really are the best.
Next week Laura and Dan will chat about music and families, a fun combination!
I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe.
And, as always,
Peace
David
