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
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

I’d like to thank all of you who’ve responded so far about the first Guitar Noise tutorial CD, which is currently in production. Your thoughts and ideas are definitely helping.

I’m not the only one busy doing things here at Guitar Noise. Here’s a note from Paul:

I had a scary thought this week. If the Internet got wiped out it would be like Guitar Noise had never existed. Think about that!

I hate to start things on such a low note and I will make up for it by ending this with something more positive.

But first consider the lifespan of a book and compare it to the Internet. We have books dating back centuries. Even the greatest websites have only been around for a few years and could vanish almost instantly. In the short life of Guitar Noise so few magazines and other print sources have ever mentioned us that it would be simple for us to disappear forever. I think the majority of subscribers to this newsletter would find that a great loss. While this is not the main point of my writing today I do want to let you know that you should never take this website for granted. A lot of good people have put in countless hours of work to create a bit of joy for so many people. Speaking for myself, I have passed up many real jobs and other opportunities in the past so I could devote most of my time to doing this.

Recently David and I took some time off to try some other things we really enjoy doing. Now that we are back in full swing at Guitar Noise we are splashing a new coat of paint on the walls. By now you may have seen some changes and previewed our new design. Over the next week you will see even more.

Like every website ever made this one is still “under construction”. We want to make Guitar Noise even more helpful and even more useful for you. The purpose of the new design is to get you away from only reading the new articles and browsing the surface layers of of the site. We want to get you deep into the content and explore some of the things that have been filed away. There are many wonderful lessons on the site that should not be missed. It’s also nice for us to introduce some new features such as the most popular articles and find a way to distinguish the work of the staff writers from reader submitted articles.

We love reading and publishing your articles and we have always set high standards for your work. We don’t want Guitar Noise to be a free for all site where anyone can publish their work or add a link to their site. We encourage different opinions and often publish articles that espouse different points of view. Maybe the only thing greater than our writers on this site is our editors.

Some good news is that hopefully before this year is out our lead editor David Hodge will get his work and his foot in the real world. I am more excited about David’s upcoming Strumming CD than any of you can know. Mostly because I know how hard he has been working on it and how much love and understanding he is putting into it.

Also, there is a part of me that wants to see Guitar Noise move beyond the Internet. I want to have something tangible that I can hold in my hands bearing the name Guitar Noise. Then if the Intenet is ever wiped out there may be some artifacts left for future anthropologists to find bearing our work.

Like the many people who wrote in last week, I am looking forward to this new project of David’s. It’s a step in the right direction for us.

- Paul

I’d just like to say that one thing I like about the new format is how the articles have a little synopsis. I know that, especially with my columns, you can’t always tell what something will be about by reading its title!

In the meantime, I’m still clawing my way through my emails. If you’ve recently sent me a question and you didn’t get a reply, please write me again. I hate to say it but you may have gotten lost in the multiple viruses that were running around. Worse, I could have accidentally hit the “delete” button while going through all the various spam from mortgage brokers, travel agents and all the other things that turn up in my mailbox.

This is why Paul has been kind enough to create a new email for me, linked directly to the Guitar Noise site. You can now reach me at dhodge@guitarnoise.com – this will hopefully make things easier on all of us!

Lots of things to go through this week:

New Lessons And Articles

DO IT RIGHT
by Len Collins

Len has a way of explaining things that always makes me smile. His latest lesson, for lack of a better way to describe it, is an “interactive parable.” Come along and help Al and Stew in their musical journey through life.

The Mystery Of Modal Scales
by Peter Simms

Did you know that every major scale is actually seven separate modal scales? Peter Simms helps you to learn these scales easily with his latest lesson. And, by the way, if you haven’t checked out Peter’s site (http://www.petersimms.com), you’re missing out on some great lessons. Last week’s free lesson was a chord arrangement of that great 50’s instrumental Sleepwalking. Be sure to make it a point to drop in on him once a week!

Songwriting For Intermediates
by Nick Torres

The long-awaited sequel of Nick’s “Songwriting for Beginners” has finally made it online. Here you’ll find more tips to help develop your songwriting skills even further, including a neat little step-by-step guide that we’ve used this past summer on the Sunday Songwriters’ Group forum.

Email Of The Week

A quick Q & A on scales this week. I bring it up, I’m sure, because of Peter’s article. It also, to totally bring up another topic, addresses addressing me.

Hello Mr. Hodge,

I’ve read most of your articles in this site and learned a lot; this is also the reason why I’m sending you this message with my question.

I’ve unfortunately for some personal reasons stopped playing the Guitar some 20 years ago. Now when I’m over 40 years old I’ve decided to do a ‘comeback’ and start playing the guitar again this time focusing more on the music theory but not neglecting speed and accuracy which are hard after so many years of not practicing (If you have some tips on how to increase speed I’ll be more than happy to get them).

OK now for my question: I’ve read a lot of stuff regarding the theory behind playing the Guitar on this site and elsewhere. One thing that I couldn’t understand quite well is the need for scales (I’m sure they are useful but I can’t understand why). For example if we take the C major scale do I need to use only the notes that make up this scale? And what about if I’m playing using the C major and then use one note that is not on that scale but sounds good what happens then?

I’ll appreciate if you have some time to clarify the above mentioned question.

Thanks for writing and by the way, call me “David,” too. I still don’t know how to deal with the whole “Mr. Hodge” thing!

Regarding your question, it is usually the style of the song and the chord pattern which will dictate what does and doesn’t sound good. Let’s stick with using the C major scale for examples, shall we? Supposing your song is composed strictly of diatonic chords (chords with notes found only in the key of C), in all likelihood you’ll be fine sticking with the C major scale.

If you’re playing a typical blues or rock song, then the Bb and Eb notes (not part of the C major but part of the C minor pentatonic) will sound good because those are what are referred to as the “blue” notes of that scale. Ab will also work on occasion, especially if there’s an F in the song’s chord progression.

For jazzier sounding songs, people often will use notes outside of the scale as “leading” tones or “passing” tones. This means that the note in question is either leading a lead line to a particular note or simply using that note “in passing” while going from one chord progression to another. This is especially true if the chord progress involves chords from outside the key. If you look at my lesson on (Sitting On) The Dock Of The Bay, you’ll find numerous examples of this.

Leading tones can help to make solos more interesting than they might be using only the major scale. Say that the chord progression is going from C to Dm. Using a C# note immediately before playing a D (when the chord changes) or a quick G# to A can sound very good in this case.

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…

SSG Week 46

Let’s close out the summer with one of our patented three-part series.

This week we’re going to take your recently developed skills of observation and note taking (not to mention random musings) and put them to a practical purpose.

Come up with ten new items and jot them down. They can be single words, phrases, complete lines, a couplet, or even an idea or outline for a song.

And then sit back and guess what we’ll do with these next week…

Good luck and good writing.

Reviews

It’s “The Revenge of the Guitar Noise Forum Page Moderators!” After hearing from Jazzarati last week, we’ve got two more reviews (a software and a concert) from two more of the staff.

eMedia Guitar Lessons

Greybeard has written a truly in-depth examination of the eMedia lessons that some folks have asked about on the Forum pages. By the bye, if you’ve not visited Greybeard’s site, you’re missing out on a lot of very educational material. He’s got some terrific charts on intervals, chord construction and scales.

Peter Gabriel At The Germain Amphitheater

Tim Bennett gives us a rundown on Peter Gabriel’s July 1st concert in Columbus, Ohio. It sounds like it was an incredible show!

Thoughts and Feedback

My dad played saxophone. And guitar and a little banjo. He played in small combos for weddings and sometimes some of his friends and he would perform in community performances. I learned a lot of the music that he played in order to be a part of things. My personal repertoire includes songs like Hold That Tiger or Hi Lili Hi Lo as well as Hurt by Nine Inch Nails (and yes, I’m very partial to the Johnny Cash version) or the Smashing Pumpkin’s 1979. I’ve found that you never know what song an occasion might call for.

Take Make The World Go Away, an old Eddie Arnold song. I learned this (on the piano) in the early seventies (when it was already an old song) because it was a favorite of my mom’s. Two weeks ago I was playing for a small group of people from a wide range of ages and someone asked if I knew any Eddie Arnold. I think I surprised us both by pulling this one out of my head. Considering I’d never played it on guitar before, I know I was pretty happy. But nowhere near as happy as I made this person by playing this song for her. Which, in turn, made me even happier.

I make a big deal about learning as much as you can because you will enjoy yourself so much more when you feel you can play anything, anywhere, anytime. Don’t get me wrong; I have my favorite styles and I certainly can’t play all types of music equally well. But even after close to thirty years of playing, I have yet to run out of things to learn.

And I hope that Guitar Noise reflects this. Not every lesson may interest you. Some may (currently anyway) be beyond you and some may be so far in your past that you’ve forgotten there was a time when you didn’t know how to feel comfortable playing with a pick or making a G chord. But there should be something here for you nonetheless.

And if there isn’t, write me. As you can see by looking through our archives, we’re a fairly eclectic community. And we only get better as more and more of the community actively contributes.

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

And, as always,

Peace

David