Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Lessons and Articles
• Guitar Tip – BONUS LESSON!!!
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

First off, I want to thank everyone for the great feedback on last week’s article, Introduction to the 5-String Banjo, by Russ Sprouse. Where do we find people such as Russ, you might ask?

More often than not, they find us. Not all that long ago, I received an email from Russ on another matter. We corresponded for a bit and I learned that he was a pretty good bluegrass banjo player.

Now, as the owner of a lefty Gold Tone MC-150, I was happy to suggest to Russ that he might try his hand at writing an article (or two or three) and he was more than happy to try his hand at it. The cool thing about an article like this is that anyone can benefit from it, whether you have a banjo or not. Whether you like the banjo or not! The lessons he has coming on picking styles can be applied to the guitar just as easily.

I’d also like to point out the reviews we’ve gotten the past two weeks from Bill Cozzo and Peter Allen. I think it’s great that our readers can be an active part of this site. If you read any of our recent “staff interviews” you know that all of us, except Paul, of course, started as readers here.

You’ll be seeing more new writers, this week and throughout June, and we’ll be getting into a lot of interesting topics. This is only appropriate since Guitar Noise is truly a community. If you ever find yourself wanting to contribute, please feel free to do so. You can find our submission guidelines here.

Also, don’t forget to check out Paul’s latest tinkering! Check it out here on the Your Suggestions for Guitar Noise Forum page.

And be sure to drop him a line with your ideas and comments.

Finally, and getting us back on the subject of new writers, be sure to check the Guitar Tip section of today’s newsletter. Peter Simms has been kind enough to create a new lesson for Guitar Noise. This may puzzle you in that I haven’t had a chance to get online yet. So he’s gone and put it on his own site just for you!

New Lessons And Articles

Some words of inspiration from Tom and Len and the debut of perhaps one of our youngest writers ever! Let’s see what’s new on Guitar Noise since our last newsletter:

How To Practice
by Len Collins

Between teaching and working on his Guitar Breakthrough software, Len manages to write some wonderful pieces. This is no exception. Here he tells you the important things about practicing in his inimitable style.

Musical Frustration
by Tom Hess

Tom returns with some very vital thoughts on how to cope with musical frustration. This is something that everyone experiences from time to time and Tom’s advice on how to turn your frustration into a positive force is something we all can benefit from.

Drop C Tuning
by Evan Duffey

I find it fascinating that so many different people come to Guitar Noise and that so many of you are happy to share your thoughts and ideas. Evan may be young but he does get his point across. Here’s a lesson that introduces Drop C tuning and even includes a riff from Toxicity by System of a Down.

Guitar Tip – Peter Simms Bonus Lesson!!!

Can you believe how cool this guy is?

Pete’s gone and put up a new chord melody lesson on the jazz standard Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.

Be sure to visit and also watch for Pete’s next lesson (Chord Construction) here at Guitar Noise next week.

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 33

It’s week 33 and here is number 3 of our member topic suggestions.

This week’s topic comes from Jamir in Abu Dhabi:

(When I was) “In Ireland, I would open a book, (usually a novel), to any page and the song had to be woven around the first line, phrase or sentence on the top left hand corner.

And you are not allowed to cheat and turn to a better line on another page.”

She hasn’t been at Guitar Noise very long, but that last line shows you she knows us all too well.

Let me suggest you pick your book carefully.

And if you’d like to suggest a topic, feel free to post it in the Sunday Songwriter’s Forum.

Good luck and good writing.

Thoughts and Feedback

This will be an interesting summer. Traditionally, Paul takes a sabbatical and Guitar Noise, in essence, shuts down for four to eight weeks. But this year we’ve made plans to continue to upload new material throughout his leave of absence and, fingers crossed, I won’t botch things up too badly.

Coming up in June we’ll see the return of A-J, Dan Lasley and Nick to their respective pages. Plus more lessons and articles from our newer folks like Chris, Pete and Russ. If we’re really lucky, Alan Green might even grace us with his latest fingerstyle lesson.

Speaking of Alan, he’s very kindly offered to help with some recording of MP3s for old lessons. Look for us to add sound files to Bookends very soon.

New writers will also be making the scene. I’m very excited about an introduction to Indian Music by reader, Imam Alam, which should go online in the next few weeks, as will a great piece for lefties by John Tucker.

And, of course, there’ll also be our song lessons. Next up (hopefully within two weeks) will be an Intermediate lesson, Like A Hurricane, which continues our journey through the Neil Young songbook. Following that will be a beginners’ lesson, Cat Stevens’ Wild World, which will combine the Neil Young-style strumming with a couple of easy riffs. Then we’ll work on combining riffs and chords, courtesy of REM’s Driver Eight on the Intermediate’s page and wrap up the summer with Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here done as both a beginners’ lesson (strumming and “simple” fills) and an intermediates’ piece (complete explanation on playing the intro as well as putting more fills into the rhythm).

So you can see that we’ve got quite a bit in the works. As I’ve mentioned many times, if it were possible, I (and many others) could write for this site all day. But I’m more than happy to spend what time I can with you. Do the same and share with those you can.

I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace

David