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 / Guitar Tip
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Or, as I’ve taken to calling it, “Best Laid Plans, Inc.!”

How about “Our Story So Far…?”

If you’re new to Guitar Noise, then perhaps I should give you a little background. Every year, and usually around this time, Paul goes on a “sabbatical” and the site pretty much shuts down. That’s not quite right. The forum pages still run, it’s just that while Paul was away, we didn’t put up any new material as far as lessons, articles, columns, reviews, etc.

So this year Paul is shooting a movie. As you might imagine, this will make things fairly busy with him. But since I’ve taken on more of the duties, we were thinking that we could still keep adding new material to the site even while Paul was involved with his shooting schedule.

Ah! But life, as we all know, usually is simply waiting for us to fall headfirst into the “what could be simpler?” trap! Just yesterday (Tuesday), my boss tells me two wonderful bits of news: first, one of the clients I work on is holding an audit. This means a lot of busy work. Nothing hard, but a hundred million minor details to deal with. And the second bit of news is even better – we’re also having a big inter-office move. It’s one of those things where everyone is involved. And the date of this move conveniently takes place on the same days that I am co-hosting this year’s Riverside Jam.

So what does all this mean to you? Probably nothing. I bring it all up in order to explain why it may not seem that there are a lot of new things going on here at Guitar Noise. But Paul and I will continue to try to put up something new each week.

And, as always, we encourage you to avail yourself of the incredible inventory of material already here. Paul once wrote me saying that one could spend months reading through the various lessons and articles stored on our website and I think he’s right. Take some time this summer to reacquaint yourself with the treasures here, most of which aren’t buried at all.

One last quick note: I had to smile when I got my weekly email from Peter Simms’ website announcing his “lesson of the week,” which is the theme from “The Flintstones.” No lie.

If you haven’t subscribed to Peter’s free weekly lesson, you’re missing out on all sorts of fun things, as you can see! It’s easy to do. Just follow the directions on his home page.

And speaking of things you can find on the home page:

New Lessons And Articles

Acoustic Versus Electric
by Laura Lasley

At some point this question always comes up, whether you already own a guitar and are looking for a second or whether you are trying to decide how best to start off your own guitar playing adventure. Laura examines the finer details of this debate through her own experience with these two guitar types and shows how they are indeed two totally different takes on the same idea.

Email Of The Week / Guitar Tip

I know that Nick is going to be spending a bit of time sprucing up the FAQ pages, so maybe it’s appropriate that I’m getting a lot of basic questions these past weeks. Like this one:

This may be a stupid question, but I’ll give it a shot anyway. Is there a way that can help me keep my fingers from hitting other strings, because I tend to touch them when I’m trying to hit chords, or single notes.

Thanks for writing. This isn’t a stupid question – a lot of beginners have trouble with it and it’s not the easiest thing to explain simply by writing (one more reason why learning with a person can be a lot better than learning by computer!)

You want to arch your fingers over the neck when you can. This involves NOT grabbing the neck of the guitar with your thumb, which is something that takes a little practice. Here is a link to a good set of photos on how to hold your fretting hand.

And, not to leave it out, here are some photos for your strumming hand (using a pick).

I hope this helps.

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 39

All righty then (or should that be all “writey” then), let’s put some of this practice into practice.

We are going back to the beginning of the SSG and just giving an imagery topic.

…and the imagery is….

The Circus

You don’t have to write anything at all about the circus, just use the imagery.

For instance, you could compare your significant other to the ringmaster, and you are there on the high wire, and he or she keeps cracking the whip. I don’t know. There must be a thousand different images you can use.

Let’s keep in mind what we have worked on in the past several weeks.

1. Think up a working title
2. Identify your internal “hidden meaning”
3. Write yourself a brief plot/timeline
4. Write your chorus, short, stripped down. An internal thought. Use the title line if you can.
5. Write those verses and keep it down to about 4 or 5 max. Make sure these verses are based on personal experience. Even if you haven’t experienced what you are writing about, approach it from some common angle.

So any topic you like. Imagery must be circus oriented. Don’t lose what we worked on in recent weeks.

Anyone can just jump right in here, even if you have never written a single line of a lyric. All we ask is you read the Sunday Songwriter’s FAQ, conveniently located in the forum, and “Songwriting for Beginners” to give you a head start.

Good luck and good writing.

Thoughts and Feedback

Aside from all the craziness of work that I mentioned, there’s something else I’d like to bring up. Please make a point to take some time for reflection for those who were victims of the bombing at the Krylya festival last weekend in Moscow. Music does so much to bring people together and now would be a good time to confirm its incredible healing powers. I know it sounds silly, but I hope that each of you uses music to make the world a better place for everyone.

I hope you all have a grand week. Please stay as safe as you can.

And, as always,

Peace

David