Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

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

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

As the year is winding down, things here at Guitar Noise are really picking up. First off, I guess that when I say “here” at Guitar Noise, I’m not referring to a specific physical place. Perhaps the best definition of “here” would be the lives of Paul, me, A-J, Dan, Laura, Nick and all the other souls that put so much of their lives into making this the place it is.

First, some bad news: The completion date of the Guitar Noise strumming CD is being pushed back. There’s simply no way I can make it as good as I want to have it before I have to move at the end of the year. But the good news that goes with this is that once my move is over the final production work and post production work should be a breeze.

In conjunction with this news, I’m also happy to report that the Guitar Noise Seminar schedule will be ready in a few weeks. Also, it’s looking very good for having seminars in other areas of the United States before the next year is out. And while I don’t want to promise anything, there’s also a really good chance of doing a few of them in England in 2004. I’ll keep you all updated as I figure more of the logistics out.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got a lot of great announcements to make throughout the end of 2003, and I think you’re going to find some great and exciting developments happening here at Guitar Noise.

Sometimes I get so caught up in what’s coming that I forget about telling you about this week’s new lessons!

New Lessons And Articles

How To Buy A Guitar
by Len Collins

Buying a guitar is a complicated business and it is easy for an unsuspecting first time buyer or inexperienced guitarist to leave the shop with an instrument that is nearer their worst nightmare than the guitar of their dreams. Len Collins of Guitar Breakthrough shows the way through the maze.

Buying Your Second Guitar
by John Tucker

More often than not, buying a second guitar is more daunting than buying your first. All sorts of things are running through your head and, as the cliché goes, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Contributing Guitar Noise reader John Tucker recently went through the pangs of choosing a second guitar and has kindly taken the time to give us his thoughts and observations on the matter.

Worth A Look

Believe it or not, before I started writing for Guitar Noise, there was another columnist, Jimmy Hudson. Paul got a note from Jimmy this past week and I thought I’d pass along the news that Jimmy is now the Head Guitar Instructor and Co-Founder of American Guitar Institute. For those of you who may not know, he was Educated at the Atlanta Institute of Music and has learned personally from Shawn Lane, Barry Richman, Jimmy Herring, Sid Woolfolk, Carl Cullpepper, Nite Driskoll, Shane Theriot, Joe Gambale, Chuck Hughes, and many others. He spends most of his time studying music, recording, and creating new teaching concepts for the guitar. He has been teaching for almost ten years now and playing for well over fifteen. Jimmy has taught guitar on every level from private lessons in stores, studios, in clinics, on the web, and in school systems. You can Email Jimmy at Jimmy@AmericanGuitarInstitute.com.

As I mentioned, Jimmy wrote a number of articles for Guitar Noise. Here are links to those terrific columns:

1. Getting The Most Out Of Your Practice
2. A Study On Intervals
3. Modal Thinking
4. Maximized Technique
5. Key Changes
6. The Importance of Musical Knowledge

There’s some great information here and I hope you take the time to make use of Jimmy’s knowledge and generosity.

Email Of The Week and (Guitar Tip)

This week’s email offers a bit on chord construction and also a bit of advice:

Hi, I’m learning an Ani Difranco song that I love, “Angry Anymore,” and I can’t for the life of me find or understand two chords she has on there: G(add 9)/B and C6sus2

I would appreciate any help ??? Thanks

Thanks for writing. “Gadd9″ is a G chord (G, B, D) with the A note added to it. “Gadd9/B” means that you want the B note in the bass. On a standard tuned guitar it would be like this:

E – 3rd fret
B – open
G – 2nd fret
D – open
A – 2nd fret
E – don’t play

“C6″ means that you add the sixth (A) to a normal C chord (C, E and G). “sus2″ means that you replace the E in the C chord with the D. So “C6sus2″ would be like this:

E – 3rd fret
B – 1st fret
G – 2nd fret
D – open
A – 3rd fret
E – don’t play

If you want to learn more about how to make these chords yourself, check out my article Building Additions (and Suspensions).

Now, I should note here that Ani DiFranco uses a LOT of alternate tunings. If you haven’t checked out the AniTABS site, you should.

I hope this helps. Thanks again for the email and I look forward to hearing how things are going with you.

Now you might wonder how I found this site. I just typed in the words “Ani DiFranco + TABs” into the MSN search engine. No lie. There are so many sites out there that have been created by people for their favorite artists that it’s impossible to list them all on any links page. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there.

The point is, you’ll never know what you might find if you don’t take a stab at looking for it.

Forum News

Say you’re a beginning guitarist with a limited number of chords under your belt. How would you like to go to a website, type in the chords you know and then get a list of songs that you could jump right in on and play?

Well, one of our readers is making such a place! Tentatively dubbed the “Easy Song Database Project,” Mark (who goes by “markyesme”) joins the ranks of Greybeard and others in creating an excellent resource for his fellow guitarists and musicians. Check out the thread on the Guitar Noise Forums and pitch in your ideas and thoughts. And be sure to give the guy a hearty “Thank you!” for his time and efforts. This is a project that will take time and also require many contributions, so come on and join in making this a reality.

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 Songwriters Group – the Second Year!

There’s a brand new session of the Sunday Songwriters Group starting out this week. Not only will there be the now-traditional work on lyric writing, there will be assignments on crafting the music as well. I guess Nick has bought into my “Life-is-a-guy-spinning-a-bunch-of-plates-on-a-bunch-of-poles” philosophy of life!

Check out the latest assignments, grab your guitar and start in fresh.

Also, take time to throw in your thoughts concerning the SSG Year One CD proposal! See you on the boards.

Thoughts and Feedback

All this talk about buying instruments reminds me that I should also make certain you know we have a whole page of articles devoted to the subject: Buying Equipment.

Don’t forget that you also have a whole community to give you advice should you have questions. That’s what the forum page is for.

And while we have a community, it’s also to remember that you yourself are capable of helping out! Being active in looking for things, whether a TAB page (as described in the “email of the week”), or a new brand of guitar or whatever, the community works best when everyone contributes. Don’t worry that you may be new or inexperienced, everyone is capable of bringing something that is needed.

Taking initiative is important. Being willing to help out even when you don’t think you have the necessary abilities is an attribute I cannot stress enough. If you think about it, that’s what learning is all about – acquiring skills through experience at a time when you have neither the skills nor the experience.

I read an interesting quote a few weeks back and I wish I could remember to whom it was attributed. In a nutshell, the quote was “in order to have a creative frame of mind, you have to put aside your fear of being wrong.” Just as I’ve mentioned in my lessons that the only way not to make a mistake is not to play, there’s only one sure way not to be wrong: don’t do anything. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t live that way. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again and again and again. I’m not an expert guitarist. Nor am I a phenomenally talented one. But I am more than willing to share what I know and to keep learning more so that I can keep sharing.

Speaking of sharing, sometime this week, Mr. Nick Torres made his 3,000th post on the forum pages. Now while we’ll all joke about the fact that this proves he has no life, I’d like to point out that maybe instead it means he’s more concerned about all our lives. My thanks, Nick, for making time in your life for Guitar Noise.

And that same thanks goes to everyone – from Paul to the other staff members and especially to all our readers. We’re all in this together and I’m pretty happy with the company I’m keeping these days!

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

And, as always,

Peace

David