Newsletter Vol. 2 # 40 – June 08, 2003
Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.
In This Issue
- News and Announcements
- New Lessons and Articles
- Email of the Week
- Guitar Tip
- Sunday Songwriters Sessions
- Thoughts and Feedback
News And Announcements
Greetings!
Welcome to Guitar Noise News!
Most of you know I live in Chicago. And if you didn’t, now you do. There’s a lot of town to explore and I do enjoy that. It’s amazing to constantly be discovering new things all around you.
Guitar Noise, to me, is the same kind of place. I know I’ve said it before, but I do not know every nook and cranny of this website. And as much as I’ve said I would gladly spend almost all of my time writing for this site, I think I could just as easily spend it reading and exploring – and now listening, too.
Speaking of listening, and speaking of some of Guitar Noise’s “hidden treasures,” one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had of late was in catching up with all the MP3s various Guitar Noise readers have made of their own original material.
In case you’re not aware, Adam McMaster has graciously built a site solely for the purpose of posting and sharing this material. There’s a wide range of styles and abilities and I think it’s great to be able to get good, constructive feedback from some of the friendliest people on the internet.
And Adam, once yet again, my thanks for taking the time to do this.
New Lessons And Articles
Another week, another new writer. Plus we get a new lesson from Peter as well as some great sound advice (pun intended) from Kelly Marsh. Let’s see what’s new at Guitar Noise since last week:
Lefties Anonymous
by John Tucker
New guy John Tucker gives us his thoughts on a subject that comes up time and time again. Makes one wonder what it is about being left handed that draws people to the guitar in the first place…
Further Reading On This Subject:
No jokes about the “leftist press” please… Besides myself and Mr. Tucker, Guitar Noise has also featured writings by noted lefty guitarist (and creator of http://www.leftyGuitar.com, Tony Nuccio. You can check out Tony’s debut When You Are Left Handed, Right Just Feels Wrong.
How To EQ Your PA
by Kelly Marsh
As the song goes… “smiling faces sometimes…” Kelly explains why a smiley face may be the last thing you want to see on your EQ. Learn how your EQ really works and what you can do to make it work even better.
Chord Construction 101
by Peter Simms
To paraphrase Shakespeare, “What’s in a chord?” Peter walks us through the basic steps of chord construction, which is a truly helpful thing to know when playing chord melodies, no? Learn all about major, minor and dominant chords in one easy lesson.
Further Reading On This Subject:
If you can’t get enough of chord construction, check out a couple of these long-time Guitar Noise favorites:
Email Of The Week
Guess what’s back? Call it a whim on my part, but now that I’m writing it, I realize that I’ve missed this segment of the newsletter. Now, granted we do have a hard time chosing from the many emails we get on a daily basis, but I think that it’s worth a semi-regular appearance, don’t you?
Anyway, on to this week’s missive:
Our band’s lead guitar player lives too far away to be at practice. The lead guitar player knows all the songs, but it seems uncomfortable for us (drummer, bass and keyboard) to practice with no guitar player present. Is there someway we can record his solos and play them at our practice? What about timing or getting the solo to play exactly when and where we need it? Any idea’s are appreciated.
And here is an answer from Guitar Noise staffer Dan Lasley:
Hi
I’m assuming that one of you three is the lead vocalist. I would say that you should arrange to have the lead guitarist join you every third or fourth rehearsal. In the mean time, the 3 of you can work out the structure of the song, and just “leave space” for the leads. If you have a tape or CD of the songs you are playing, along with some notes on how you are playing them differently, you should be fine. But don’t try to play along with the tape.
I don’t think it will work to expect the lead guitarist to play the same way every time, and using a tape will lock you in too much (tempo, dynamics, etc).
Here is an interesting story. For my recent high-school reunion, I found enough musicians to form a band. We came up with a song list, changed the keys around, decided who would sing what, where the solos would go, whether they were of fixed or variable length – all via email!
One guy burned CDs with all of the original songs, but we changed the key on a couple, and the tempo on some others. We never rehearsed together in person. We live in Chicago, Canada, and the East Coast. The two singers did work on harmonies once – over the telephone! And at the gig, we sounded OK – not perfect, but our classmates love us!
So you see, you just adapt to make your situation works as well as you can.
Guitar Tip
In keeping with the theme in our “News and Announcements” pager, I’d like to remind you all of a couple of great resources that are just a click away.
If you’d like to see an extensive collection of charts on scales, chord construction, modes and the circle of fifths, our very own Greybeard has them all laid out nice and neat on his site.
And on Peter Simms’ webpage you can find all sorts of free lessons and instructional material, including lessons for finger speed and agility.
Amazing what one can find, isn’t it?
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 whatever it is
I think it’s week…
It must be somewhere in the thirties.
Let me check, what was last week?
Have I lost your interest yet? How about if we change it to:
Sunday Songwriter’s Group, Week 34
Any questions about that title? You know where we are and what we are doing. A good title is so important to a song.
Well, I think it’s about time for another 3 part song construction, starting with that all important song title.
This week write three song titles. The Title is the first thing the listener sees, it is how your song will be known forever, and it sets the tone for the rest of the lyrics. Think carefully about these.
Wait, there’s more.
Post one of each of the following:
- A play on words title
- A title based loosely on a recent newspaper headline
- A one word title
No more than one of each. If you have several, pick one.
I have a strange condition for this week. Don’t post them until Wednesday at the earliest. I want you to be able to mull them over well. If you’re keen on posting between now and then, why not do a few critiques of last week’s (or any week’s) postings or even catch up on a topic you might have missed out on the first time.
Good luck and good writing. Looking forward to seeing your titles on Wednesday (and after).
Thoughts and Feedback
At some point in the last two weeks, I got an email concerning just how one goes about measure one’s progress as a guitar player. This is something that, as you might imagine, I hear on a fairly regular basis. Tom Hess’ article, Musical Frustration, was a timely bit of writing.
I wrote back, and part of the response involved telling the reader to honestly look at what he wanted to get out of the guitar and to make sure that being happy was a big part of it. He wrote back, thanking me and when I read this line he wrote:
“I do get very frustrated at times, but can’t imagine not playing now.”
I realized that he was indeed in a good place.
And all of this sent me scurrying back to a piece I’d written almost three years ago now, called Recharging Your Batteries. Without trying to sound silly or pretentious, I cannot tell you how sometimes I read what I wrote and wish I knew that person better, especially when it comes to something like this:
I tell you this for one specific reason: God knows why any of you took up the guitar, but there are only two reasons for you to keep playing. The first is because it is how you make your living (or how you hope to one day). Now, as much as this might be a goal for many of you, most of us are stuck with reason number two: we have found ourselves in this wonderful relationship and we every intention of finding out where it is going to take us next.
No one wants to admit it, but all relationships (again whether they be friends, family, etc.) involve work and commitment. But in return for that effort we derive an incredible, almost obscene, amount of enjoyment. Even on my worst days when I can’t make a simple run on the C major scale without sounding like I’ve lost what little talent I might have ever had, I know how much more pleasure I have in my life with my guitar than without it. Music allows me to share my life with the rest of the world on a level that I hadn’t the slightest suspicion of when I picked up a guitar for the first time. I shudder to think of how empty my life would be without it.
I think that all of us have vast, untapped, unexplored talents. I don’t mean this so much as musically as much as I mean it in terms of inspiration and comfort. Just as I love to go exploring around my home, my city, this wonderful website, and find all sorts of things that truly brighten my day, I also need to make it a point to look around inside people, myself included. And I want to encourage you to do the same. I think you’ll be just as filled with awe as I get sometimes.
I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe.
And, as always,
Peace
David
