Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

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!

I hope that you’ve all had a good week and my best wishes for the one ahead.

I got this note from Peter Simms on Monday and thought I should pass it along:

Hello Guitar Warriors!

This week’s lesson is the funky/blues song Watermelon Man. Take a listen to the midi file. It is an exact playback of the notation. The mp3 is the “next step” after mastering the core of the song.

I will be offering myself as a private guitar trainer over the net! Within the week, I will have information of how to sign up. This will cost a few bucks, but will be “very” affordable. The free lessons will always be coming without obligation …. so don’t worry. The “private” lessons will be for those who want an actual learning program to work with. E-mail me if you’re interested, and I will send you a notice as soon as it is available (still no obligation).

You can find Peter’s website here.

Last week I tried something new – I added MP3s to a guitar column instead of a song lesson. Now, granted, the MP3s were of a brief “Easy Song For Beginners” styled version of the Allman Brothers’ Melissa. Still, I think it was a fun change. You can find that lesson here: Double Your Pleasure

And if that’s not enough, Alan Green made me a present of some MP3 files for another of the “Easy Song For Beginners” pieces. Kudos and much thanks to you, Mr. Green for your gift. Listen to Alan playing along with this lesson: Bookends

And be so kind as to thank him for his efforts as well.

New Lessons And Articles

Where else would you find article on two such totally different subjects as playing speed metal and CD sleeve art? Right here, of course! Here are the two newest articles at Guitar Noise:

Packaging
by A-J Charron

Once you’ve recorded your CD, you might find yourself wondering what to do with it. If you think of music as a gift, then it might make sense to give it a little gift wrapping. And how you wrap your gift might mean a lot more than you think! A-J explores the dos and don’ts of CD packaging.

Speed Metal
by Thomas Hood

Where do all these new young writers come from? Well, this one’s from Ireland. Thomas gives us a brief introduction to some of the techniques used by Speed Metal guitarists, complete with a number of examples and a couple of exercise thrown in for good measure.

Email Of The Week

We often tell people that having a metronome is a good thing. It also helps to understand its use and that’s what this week’s email is all about. I got a note from someone trying to play the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, which has a metronome setting of 60bpm and is in 6/8 time:

Well, I gave it my first shot. LOL – What a difference in tempo than what I thought it would be – it was MUCH faster. Darn that 6/8 time! I just need to work on strumming that fast and trying to keep up with the strumming pattern along with the chord changes. But I suppose that’s the challenge for many students

Now the sheet music says tempo of 60, yet when I set my metronome on 60 it seems about twice as slow as it should be. Is that because the song isn’t 4/4? It seemed to me that 120 was more the speed it should have been. Perhaps I’m missing a setting on my metronome? Any thoughts?

You’re actually 90% there in your logic; you just need to take one more step.

You said “the sheet music says tempo of 60, yet when I set my metronome on 60 it seems about twice as slow as it should be. Is that because the song isn’t 4/4? It seemed to me that 120 was more the speed it should have been. Perhaps I’m missing a setting on my metronome? Any thoughts?”

Well, remember that when you set the metronome, it usually says “60 bpm” or, more accurately, that a (symbol for QUARTER NOTE) = 60. But, as you note, we’re in 6/8 time which means that we’re counting every eighth note as one beat while your metronome is counting every quarter note as one beat. Do you see this? So you can do one of two things: keep the metronome at 60 and remember that every click is TWO beats (since you’re counting in eighth notes) or simply reset for 120 and play counting every click as one beat.

That was some catch, by the way. You’ve got good ears!

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…

Sunday Songwriter’s Group Week 35

Last week I asked for titles and boy did we get titles. The last time I checked we had about 50. Even if you didn’t participate last week, feel free to drop in and pick a title.

This week is a three part exercise.

Pick any two titles, preferably from two different title groups (one “Play on words” and one “Headline” or one “Headline” and a “One word” title, etc.).

1. Write a brief paragraph about the title. Introduce us to the main characters and tell us the conflict, situation or event about to unfold in the song.

2. Pick the kind of imagery you want to use. Do you want to describe the everyday surroundings? Do you want to compare the situation to zoo animals?

3. Write just the first verse. Set the stage and the tone. Concentrate on that first line and give it some impact. Your first line, in its own way, is as important as the title. Remember that the first verse, much like the first act of a play, is where you want to make ?ntroductions of your song players (characters and/or narrator) as well as set up what drama will be coming (usually conflict of some sort). Make sure you include at least 2-3 references to your imagery (from #2) and try, try, try to give yourself a limit of eight lines. Just for me. Please?

Of course, you all know that you may not use your own title, right?

Make sure you do this in order, and then post it all.

Good luck and good writing.

Reviews

The Garrison Project

Terrific mainstream rock from Garrison, Tara Engler and Peter Catucci. Superb songwriting and guitar work along with excellent production and engineering.

After Hours – A Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed

At long last a tribute album to one of rock’s stellar songwriters and performers. And, fittingly, all performed by Indie artists and bands.

Thoughts and Feedback

There was discussion in the forums this week about the upcoming lessons as well as whether or not I’d ever do “complete” MP3s. Entire songs, that is.

My initial response to that is no, and I will usually use copyright violation as a primary concern. But I’d like to share something else with you all about this, and my apologies to those of you who’ve heard me go down this road before.

You may find this strange, but it’s not all a matter of litigation. It’s also a matter of fairness. This is how songwriters make their living, from their songs.

I would much rather find a way to pay the fees on a year basis and put up everything. I’ve made this point before but the internet seems to enforce a belief that is not true, that all this stuff is free. It’s not.

Take network television. You get it for free, right? No, not really. In addition to having to own a TV and pay for electricity, you get to see advertising. These ads cost (no lie because I work in the accounting department for a big ad agency), on an average, two to three times what the average family makes in a year. How does the advertising pay for that? You guessed it, by jacking up the costs of their products to you. Every time you buy something at the store, you are paying for “free” television.

The internet is the same in this way, but it also has something that television doesn’t – the ability to have people build their own material. If you were to start a TV station or a radio and wanted to run a video of your favorite band or play their music, you’d have to pay to do that. But people will put up tons of stuff on the internet that isn’t technically theirs.

At Guitar Noise, we try very hard to use our own arrangements of songs. The things you learn here you would normally be paying a guitar teacher anywhere from $15 to $50 dollars (or more depending on the teacher and where you live) an hour for. That’s not a bad deal for you.

But think about this: we get 15 million hits a month, which represents about a half a million individual computer users. If it took a couple of thousand dollars (and I have to say I don’t know what it would take, but I’d be more than willing to look into it), let’s say $3,000 just to have a number each year to procure printing rights for songs, then we’re talking about each person pitching in 1 cent a year to make this happen. Child’s play, right?

But you would be surprised. Maybe you wouldn’t. An amazing thing happens when you ask people for money. The fifteen million hits turns into two. And the thirteen who would have hit simply try to find either another free place or get their friends to email them copies of whatever they missed.

Please understand that I do not want to turn Guitar Noise into a pay site. That’s not what this is about. And while I think it would be great to be able to do nothing but write lessons and columns all day to put online, I’m not sure that this is something that can be worked out.

But I’m not worried about that. This is what we’ve got to work with and I’m more than happy to be doing so. I think that, the way it is, Guitar Noise is a great place and I am proud of what we are able to do.

As a musician, a songwriter and a teacher, I am trying very hard to make Guitar Noise fair and open to all. Whether you have just picked up a guitar or whether you are Kirk Hammett paying a visit to see what people are saying about St. Anger…

I know that people may have different ideas about this and I respect them. I also know that this is how I try to live my life. I hope that we can make it all work out somehow and I will keep doing whatever I can to make Guitar Noise better and better while keeping my own code of conduct.

I hope this explains things better and I truly apologize if this has come across as a rant.

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

And, as always,

Peace

David