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 Songwriting Sessions / Sunday Composers
• Reviews
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Okay, I’m back sitting at my window in Massachusetts. There are boxes strewn everywhere but there are also guitars now hanging up on the wall. Slowly but surely I’m moving in!

And I think that both Paul and I are ready to get Guitar Noise 2004 on its way. My thanks to all of you for your patience over the past few weeks and I hope that this New Year is off to a grand start for all of you.

I’d also like to take the time to thank those of you who chose to donate to Guitar Noise during the month of December. We truly appreciate your gifts and plan to use them to make this site even better in the upcoming year.

Another bit of news – Guitar Noise Contributing Writer Tom Hess has recently released a new CD! HESS ~ Opus 2 is now available through his website, www.guitar9.com and many other distributors around the world.

And speaking of Tom, let’s look and see what’s new this week at Guitar Noise…

New Lessons And Articles

Perseverance, Vibrato Control and Picking Hand Discipline
by Tom Hess

Tom Hess, as many of our readers know, has frequently contributed to Guitar Noise over the past year. Just before the holidays, he sent us a bunch of short articles which he had written before being published on our pages. Reading them, it made perfect sense (to me, anyway) to print them all as one big omnibus. Enjoy!

Wish You Were Here – The Intro Solo
Songs for Intermediates #13
by David Hodge

Let’s kick off the year with a bit of a challenge. Here you’ll find step by step instructions for playing the second acoustic guitar part of this terrific song. Since this particular guitar part involves the four basic guitar techniques (hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and bends), you’ll find it a great way to start learning how to play solos.

Worth A Look

In our latest Intermediates’ Lesson, we run into what I call the “four basic food groups!” Hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and bends are the basis for a lot of soloing. Ages ago, I wrote an article as a way to introduce new players and aspiring soloists to these techniques. You can find it here: Tricks Of The Trade

Also, many people may not be aware of the fact that I actually wrote a piece on Wish You Were Here that focused on, of all things, playing the solo between the verses. Despite the fact that it’s written as a “look what you can do if you put your mind to it” piece, those of you who want more on this great song might find it very enlightening: Applied Science

Email Of The Week

I’d just like to use this section to thank everybody for the emails (and forum posts) concerning my move. Things went (and are still going) well and I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness involved.

I’d also like to mention that, owing to the move and various other computer glitches, I might have lost a few emails between December 26th and January 5th. If I haven’t yet written back to you, please feel free to send another email. I look forward to chatting with you all fairly regularly again soon.

Forum News

So Paul and I go away and what does Nick do? He opens up a Guitar Noise chat room! It’s like living in an episode of “While You Were Out!”

If this sort of thing catches on, maybe we can use it to schedule group discussions on specific topics at specific times. Give us your thoughts on this matter.

See you on the boards!

Sunday Songwriters Group / Sunday 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.

Now in our second year (!), Nick and Bob are continuing to put us all through our paces, giving us weekly assignments to help everyone sharpen their abilities.

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!

I have to tell you, when I looked in on the SSG this week and saw that there were twenty new submissions (and it’s only Thursday as I write this!), I had to smile. Having a group like this is a wonderful support tool for anyone looking to improve on his or her writing skills. If you’ve ever thought about exploring songwriting or just getting better at your craft, then I highly advise you to check it out and join in on the fun.

Let’s give Bob a big hand for working so hard on making this second year of the Sunday Songwriters Group so vibrant!

And now, let’s see what he’s got in store for us with SSG2 – Week 11:

Take any two choruses written in last week’s exercise and write the verses that surround it. Here is the suggested scheme:

Verse 1
Chorus
Verse 2
Chorus
Verse 3

If you write three four-line verses, that’s a grand total of 12 lines. You can do it. Of course you can write 8 line verses or add another verse in somewhere if you please. If you’re really in a writing frenzy, throw in a bridge.

Do I have to say you can’t use either your own title or chorus? I didn’t think so.

Good luck and good writing!

Reviews

We’ve got reviews of two recent Billboard Books on the music business that should be of interest to everyone.

This Business Of Music Marketing And Promotion
Tad Lathrop walks you through practically every scenario you can expect to run into in the world of music business.

Start And Run Your Own Record Label
Dayelle Deanna Schwartz leads you in a wonderfully logical progression, starting with coming up with reasons for doing so and working through the steps of setting up your label, financing it and keeping it solvent.

Thoughts & Feedback

I have what I think is a wonderful problem – the knowledge that there’s too much to learn! One of the gifts I received over the holidays was a hammered dulcimer. It’s a no-frills, hand-made (from a kit I suspect) model and I haven’t the slightest idea of where to start with it! Actually, I do – I’ll get some books and read up on it and then get it in tuned and then start on it like a true beginner.

And then I’ll try to find the time to work on it regularly. But “finding time” is almost always a problem, isn’t it? There’s never enough time to practice or play or even to write lessons it seems!

Over the past year especially, I’ve come to learn that it’s often not a matter of finding time as it is one of “making time.” In some ways this is harder because you often have to choose between many things that you want to do, not to mention those that you have to do.

But I do believe that there are ways to balance all sorts of things out. When I make time to practice and/or play, I am doing something that makes me happy and being happy makes doing the things I “have” to do a lot easier. Often I find I do them faster and more efficiently because I know that by doing so I’ll have made even more time for the fun things.

I know that a lot of my thoughts concerning things like this are incredibly simplistic, probably to the point of being naive, but that’s what I’ve found works for me. Few things in life are actually simple, but by breaking those down into simple components I find I can often come up with answers that enable me to make my life better, and also the lives of those I live with. Maybe this is why I approach my “Easy Songs for Beginners” and “Songs for Intermediates” lessons the way I do…

So as you start out this bright, shiny New Year, make some time for yourself. I hope you’ll find that it allows you to make time for all sorts of wonderful things.

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

And, as always,

Peace

David