Guitar Noise

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

• News and Announcements
• New Lessons and Articles
• Worth a Look
• Forum News
• Sunday Songwriters Sessions / Sunday Composers
• Reviews
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Well, I’m back in Chicago for the month of December. It’s hard to believe that this time next month I’ll be totally moved into the new place. Needless to say, there’s a lot to be done. So let me apologize right now if I take a while to get back to your emails and things. If we can all get through the next five weeks, then I think we’ll be more than okay.

And speaking of okay, I’d like to thank all of our readers for their overwhelmingly positive response to my proposal for a series of Guitar Noise Seminars. Because of this response, it definitely looks like this project will hit the road in more ways than one. But more on that in a moment.

Right now, allow me to give you our initial schedule for the 2004 Guitar Noise Seminars:

Saturday, February 21, 2004
Topics: Strumming
Basic Theory

Saturday, March 20, 2004
Topics: Beginning Finger-style
Intro to Chord Voicing

Saturday, April 17, 2004
Topics: Beginning Electric Guitar
Beginning Electric Guitar (part 2)

In order to ensure that everyone gets plenty of personal attention, each of these classes will be limited to 10 people, so if you’d like to attend let me know!

The specifics:

Classes will be held at my (new) home in Egremont, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Great Barrington. We’re an just over an hour out of Albany, NY or Hartford, CT, under two hours from Boston and just over two hours from New York City.

By the bye, there’s lot’s of skiing in the area if you want to make a (longer) weekend out of it. Plus, the area has many tourist-y spots.

The time of the classes will, for now, be dependent upon enrollment. I’ve tried to group the lessons in a way that would make it worth your while to attend the whole day and I’d like to sweeten the pot, if you will, by offering this deal: Attendance for any of these first three full-day seminars (that’s six hours of class plus food, (nonalcoholic) drinks and jamming afterwards) will cost $100.

If you’d like to attend any (or all!) of these, drop me an email at dhodge@guitarnoise.com and be sure to put “Seminars” in the subject line. I will get back to you with details (within three to five days of your sending it) and will be more than happy to answer any of your questions.

Trying to arrange all of this, while in the middle of moving and all sorts of other things, is a bit overwhelming, to say the least. So I appreciate all of the patience everyone has shown me in getting my act together.

And speaking of getting the act together (that’s a (really) bad joke alluding to the earlier “hit the road” line – and you know that if you have to explain a joke…), there’s been so many people who don’t live in the general area of my new home interested in seminars that it only seems fair to try to get out to see as many of you as I can. So this is my plan:

If you’d like to have a Guitar Noise seminar in your area, think about (a) what topic or topics you’d like to have covered and (b) how many people you think you might be able to get together for one. You don’t really need a big crowd because more than a dozen people usually cuts down on the individual attention one can give to the participants. Six to ten is optimal. Where do you find these people? Well, you could start on our forum pages! Right now we’re working on finding out if there’s enough interest to hold a day-long or possible two day seminar in Toronto this spring.

Then think about where one could be held – a small group can easily fit into a home or a small school or church hall. You’ve got to have room for everyone to comfortably sit with their guitars.

If you think you have the logistics covered, write me and I’ll be more than happy to work out more of the details with you in order to make this happen.

And maybe I’m getting a little ahead of the game, but this doesn’t have to be a “United States only” thing. If interest warrants it, we can take Guitar Noise overseas. I’m already thinking that England might be up for a very long visit.

But none of this can happen without you. Let me know and we can start working on the possibilities.

All right, then, let’s return to the here and now and see what’s new this week at Guitar Noise.

New Lessons And Articles

About Naivete
by A-J Charron

Being naive can both hurt and help you. It’s a great asset to the artist or songwriter but it can also lead one to make less-than desirable (read “disastrous”) choices. A-J explores both sides of this trait in this interesting and thoughtful article.

Conversations With Adrian Legg
by Chris Juergensen

Chris knows some truly gifted people! Read his latest piece for Guitar Noise, a Q & A with the legendary Adrian Legg. Plus get some great examples of Adrian’s techniques (banjo rolls, open string incorporation and pedal steel licks) to practice on your own.

Worth A Look

Since December is now upon us, we must be looking ahead to Christmas. Paul’s put up the lights on the home page and we’re also putting up a favorite of last year’s, a finger-style version of Silent Night, just for the holidays.

This is a fairly straightforward piece that even most of you beginners should be able to work through (with practice, of course!).

Forum News

If you’ve never visited the Guitar Noise Forum pages, you’re missing out on a lot of exciting discussions and ideas. For instance, did you know that some of our members are currently investigating the possibility of a Guitar Noise T-Shirt? One of our forum members has even posted possible designs and colors!

Or how about dreaming up the ultimate jam night with anyone you could imagine playing with? Could you (would you) sit in with a band that included Shane McGowan, Albert Einstein and Catherine Parr (last wife of Henry VIII)?

And that’s just a sample of what’s on one of the pages! Come visit the Opinions and Polls page on the Guitar Noise forums.

See you on the boards!

Sunday Songwriters Group / Composers

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.

The Sunday Composers page is the newly created musical extension of the Sunday Songwriters Group. On this forum page the emphasis is on music writing rather than lyrics. Join us for exercises and discussion on the other half of “lyrics and music”.

And now that you all know what’s going on…

Sunday Songwriters Group – the Second Year!

SSG2 – Week 6:

We have had a fantastic response to the start of the second year of the Sunday Songwriter’s Group. This week is a bit of a breather as we’ve been going at quite a fast pace so far. This week we’ll be trying to finish off some of the songs we’ve written taking into account peoples critiques of them. If you’re new to the group look at Nick’s articles in the songwriting section of the website, take a song you’ve written in the past and rewrite it with those articles in mind or feel free to pick a previous topic, write a song and post it here.

This breather is for one week only we’ll be back into writing on demand on the run up to Christmas. The response has been fantastic let’s keep it going

Good Writing

Bob

Reviews

Tom Yoder: Eat This It’s Safe
Tom Yoder has that rare quality in a guitarist which allows you to enjoy what you hear rather than feel annoyed at a festival of useless showmanship.

Into the Arena
To kick off their new European tour, Arena, oddly enough, played to North American dates. The first was Québec City, where they’ve played many times before, the next was their first ever presence in Montreal.

Thoughts and Feedback

So I was riding the bus home from a lesson last night…

The weather, being a typical early December evening in Chicago, was rainy and a wee bit on the cool side. Snow was in the air but not yet on the ground. Few folks were on the bus and, after stopping at North Avenue, there was only myself and the bus driver.

“You play guitar?” he asked. “Can you play Sloop John B?”

I wondered if he was kidding but he insisted on me coming down to the front of the bus, taking out my guitar and I strummed along as he sang this old Beach Boys tune that I probably haven’t played in ten years. He had a great voice and we traded melody and harmony lines between Grand Avenue and Diversey with me strumming out chords and him pounding the beat (quite nicely, I might add) on the steering wheel and fare box.

He said, “I love the sound of the acoustic guitar. Wish I played.” And this, of course led to me giving him the website address and assurances that you’re never too old to learn. This sort of thing (the age stuff) almost always amuses me because he had to be younger than me! Anyway, I’m betting he finds an acoustic guitar under his Christmas tree, even if he gives it to himself.

To say that music is in the air, no matter what time of year it may be, is to have a keen grasp of the art of understatement!

I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe. Sing a lot!

And, as always,

Peace

David