Newsletter Vol. 2 # 56 – October 26, 2003

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Lessons and Articles
• Email of the Week
• Forum news
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Got a note from Len Collins of Guitar Breakthrough and he’d like me to pass along the news that his terrific tutorial software is now available for the Mac OSX. Be sure to check out his site for more details: Guitar Breakthrough.

Since Halloween comes later this week, I figured it would be a great time to share this note I got from a member of the band, The La Dee Da’s:

Hey Mr. Hodge, got a “scary” story for October.

It was about three years ago, and the band I was in at the time was playing a battle of the bands at a venue in Burbank. The band on stage before us (and so as not to offend anyone, I’m not naming names) had a female lead singer who was the size of a linebacker with a wicked mullet. I’m six feet tall and in pretty good shape and she dwarfed me. She was huge. She was doing would-be sultry mic stand strokes and caresses, and stalking the audience with her eyes when she locked on our rhythm guitarist, who just happened to be the shortest guy in our band, probably the smallest guy in the entire venue.

When we took the stage her eyes stayed locked on him, her gaze not unlike that of a certain smarter-than-your-average-bear looked at picnic baskets. Our guitar player was visibly shaken, but he played on like a good musician should. After our set, he quickly helped load the gear into the van, i.e. he hid outside.

Meanwhile, inside, the scary Amazonian vocalist approached me and inquired about or missing guitarist whom she thought was, and I quote, “delicious”. Being a considerate fellow musician, I did the polite thing and gave her his phone number. Probably to this day, if the phone rings at the practice space, that guitarist still runs and hides.

T. “Barnei” Cisco III (The La Dee Da’s)

Back here where things are (hopefully) not so scary, we’ve got some new lessons. You’ll have to forgive me if I catch up with you later at the bottom as I’ve got to go answer the phone…

New Lessons And Articles

An Interview With Gilbert Isbin
by A-J Charron

Belgian guitar virtuoso Gilbert Isbin is no stranger to the readers of Guitar Noise. Not only do his CDs grace our reviews page, but he even wrote a fingerstyle lesson for us a while ago. Even though he’s incredibly busy of late between all his ongoing solo and group projects, Gilbert took the time to answer some questions from A-J Charron.

All Of Me
by Peter Simms

Peter’s latest lesson is this wonderful standard that really swings! While simple in melody, this song is a lot of fun to play and also to use to develop your own style.

Email Of The Week

I always enjoy hearing how people are not only playing the guitar (or other instrument) but are also involved in spreading the joy of music around. Since everyone who knows me seems to know this too, they tend to forward stories to me. This week’s email and response was originally sent to Laura Lasley, who was kind enough to pass it on to me. And, of course, that means I get to pass it along to you…

I just read the article Finding Your Rhythm and wanted to tell you what an inspiration it was. I am 50 years old, have played in many bands and am currently in the process of starting a new one to play some benefit gigs and have some fun. My best friend is on lead vocals and the rest of the band are some of my students. I teach high school history and literature in a small private Maryland school. We call ourselves TYMELESS FLYTE and are doing Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Fairport Convention and Beatles stuff. I am amazed at how hungry these kids are to play. I’m doing the lead stuff on my Rickenbacker 360 twelve string and some ethnic instruments like sitar, baglama saz, dulcimer and Anglo-Saxon lyre. It is hard to find a bassist though and right now I’m hoping a parent will perhaps fill that chair. Anyway, we are playing a benefit show on May 1 for the school and we just bought a PA so we can really put out the three part harmonies. The way I see it, if you could pull it off, so can I. Thanks for the inspiring story!

Thanks for writing (and reading) Guitar Noise! I really enjoyed reading your story and am glad you found inspiration in one of my articles. That’s what it’s all about! It is a lot of fun to mentor students at any level, but the high school kids are often quite talented and eager to share what they know. In the last town we lived in, my husband had been part of a program mentoring high school kids that wanted to create a band. He did this for a few years and the last year we held a Music Festival where the student band played in the middle of the line up of other local bands as well as the HS Jazz band. It was a blast, and both adults and kids loved it! It was a break even event (there were some costs involved…) and well worth it for all involved.

Here, we are involved with our own kids and their friends in performance settings and we have enjoyed every minute.

Best of luck pulling off your benefit show and finding a bass player. You never know, maybe one of the kids will pick it up. If your high school has a jazz band, see if that bass player is interested.

Let me know how it turns out.

Best regards,
Laura Lasley

Forum News

This week on the GUITAR NOISE LESSONS forum page, I started “Beginners Discussion #4,” which is a discussion on our Margaritaville lesson on the “Easy Songs for Beginners” page. Please feel free to drop by the Guitar Noise Forums and take part in the discussion.

Also, I’m pleased to report that we’ve apparently helped someone sell (and someone else buy) a piece of equipment on the SWAP MEET forum page. Very cool.

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…

What is going on?

Right now Nick and others are working on putting together a plan for “SSG Year Two.” Your input would certainly be helpful. You can do that on the Guitar Noise forums.

I think that the second year of the Sunday Songwriters Group will be even more fun than the first!

Thoughts and Feedback

Going back to that opening story, I hope no one minds if I tell them that the scariest part of the whole thing, for me obviously, was being called “Mr. Hodge.” I never know how to deal with this! I look around to see if maybe the email isn’t meant for my father!

I do understand, though, that this form of address is meant to be polite and respectful. So I smile and write back and say “please call me David” and hopefully that is that.

And thinking about it (after all, this sections is called “Thoughts & Feedback!”), I sometimes realize how scary this whole internet thing is. And how scarier it is to seriously contemplate what we do here at Guitar Noise. We are teaching guitar to people we haven’t met. I am trying to tell you, primarily with nothing more than a written text, about sound and tone and rhythm.

It’s a grand understatement to say that this isn’t the easiest thing to do!

And let’s not forget to add on that we’re also trying to understand each other. People from all over the world use these pages. English is not everyone’s first language (and let’s not even go into those of us who did learn it as a first language! Or into the newfangled “computer shorthand” where you can save what, a nanosecond perhaps? by typing “ne” instead of “any” or “gr8t” in lieu of “great.”) and when people only communicate by writing, a lot of the personal nuances are lost.

You may not have made this connection, but I think one of the reasons that our lessons here at Guitar Noise are so well received is because of the fact that we embrace writing and written communication. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but if someone puts up a picture (say a line of TAB) and says “play this,” then I personally feel you’re being shortchanged.

As I mentioned, you may not be conscious of this connection but we certainly are. How? Because we get tons of email every week telling us how “clear,” “well laid out” or “easy to understand” our lessons are. And the Guitar Noise staff writers are the sort of people who like looking into the whys and hows rather than just saying “here.”

Remarkably, this approach is also reflected in the vast majority of our readers. The willingness of people on our forum pages to patiently explain rather complex ideas using no more than words and experience is truly praiseworthy. Not only that, it build a sense of confidence as well as community.

And, believe it or not, this all ties back into fear (albeit in a rather circuitous route!) Think about all the fears you’ve overcome each time you pick up the guitar – fear of sounding bad, fear of not being able to do it, fear of making a less than favorable impression.

I think that all of you not only overcame and overcome a lot of fears when you play, but you also enable many, many, many others to do the same. You may not know it, but you are helping to make the world a better place for people you don’t even know. Now that’s very cool!

I’ve often talked about how learning the guitar, and playing music in general, is a life-long endeavor. At one point in my life, the prospect of anything involving that much commitment and patience would have scared me out of trying to attempt it. Fortunately, I learned better.

There are enough things out there in the world to truly be frightened of. Playing the guitar (or being called “Mr. Hodge”) shouldn’t be one of them.

I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe. Please call me David.

And, as always,

Peace

David