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 / Composers
• Reviews
• Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

When there’s a lot of news, there’s just a lot of news! And I don’t truly know where to begin. How about with our Guitar Noise Shadow Stand Guitar Stand Giveaway?

We got a lot of good suggestions from all of you! And last Monday, while I made jokes about it being the Ides of March, Nick had one of our moderators volunteer to, essential, draw a name out of a hat in order to select our winning entrants. Congratulations go to Danie Mann and Bruce Cornett, our two winners! Nick will be contacting you personally, if he hasn’t done so already, so that he can make arrangements to get your prizes to you.

And for those of you who didn’t win, our thanks for all the suggestions. There will undoubtedly be more contests of this nature in the future, so keep an eye out for details. And if I ever manage to announce my own name as winner, well, then you might expect the world to end shortly thereafter!

Say, what are you doing Friday night? This Friday, March 26th to be specific. If you’re anywhere within shouting distance of New York, why not come and join in the first Guitar Noise Jam at the Studio?

Dan Lasley has taken the time to set this all up and confirm it. Guitar Noise will have three “rooms” where you can meet fellow GN folks (and friends and family) and jam the evening away. One of the rooms will be specifically for an acoustic instrument jam, so don’t think this is only for the electric folk!

We’ve got the rooms for the evening, from 7-11pm. The cost is $25 per person at the door. If I remember correctly, the Studio is at 231 W 30th, which, if I remember correctly, is pretty close to both Penn and Grand Central Stations, for those of you who might want to commute in.

The Studio has amps, effects, keyboards and drums, so do feel free to invite folks. If you’re left handed, you can even borrow one of my guitars since I’ll be there!

Check out the Studio: www.theStudio.org

And we’ll see you this coming Friday night!

More news from Len Collins of Guitar Breakthrough concerning his shot at the “world’s largest guitar lesson” coming up in England this May. Did I mention that there’ll be prizes? One of the prizes (and that’s right, I said “one”) will be a new Yamaha EZ-AG guitar.

This is a great guitar for the absolute beginner, no? And this is just the tip of the iceberg! For info on more prizes, just keep your eyes peeled to this page! And remember, anyone can join in this event whether you can play or not! All you need do is grab an acoustic guitar (borrow one from a mate!) and to register (free).

Next week, I may have more news to impart concerning what is turning out to be the event of the spring.

But how about the event of this winter? In case you missed last week’s newsletter, well, you’re about a week late in getting the news that The Portable Guitar Noise CD 2004 is available! Paul’s been working on this project for a while and I have to tell you that it’s been worth the wait. This CD-Rom has almost everything that has ever gone up on this site from its inception up ’til through January of this year. That’s more than three hundred and fifty lessons (including all of mine!), not to mention all the MP3s, charts, TABS and notation. And some of our terrific friends like the folks at Guitar Breakthrough, Acousticguitarworkshop.com and Guitarandbass.com.au have provided us with some bonus material that’s not been seen on this site before. If that’s not enough, and for what it’s worth, you can even find a bonus MP3 in the For What It’s Worth lesson.

And in case you’re wondering where you can get a copy of The Portable Guitar Noise CD 2004, then you’ve got to check out the new Guitar Noise Store! You can access it from any Guitar Noise page, simply look at the top and you’ll see a set of five icons arranged like the tabs of an index file. One of them says “Store.” If you click on it, you’ll go here.

You’ll find not only The Portable Guitar Noise CD 2004 here, but all sorts of other things as well. And while we’re very excited about this, we’re even more excited about all the stuff we’ll be bringing you in the future. So keep an eye out. You never know what you might find there!

And moving right along, I’d like to announce the May through July 2004 schedule of the Guitar Noise Seminars! And I might as well throw in April while I’m at it!

Saturday, April 17 – Beginning Blues Seminar

A day of the blues! In the morning we’ll walk through the basics: structure, rhythm and (a very little) theory, by the end of which you’ll be able to play along with almost any blues song you know.

In the afternoon, we’ll build upon the morning lesson and learn some variations and some basic soloing theory and technique. By the end of the afternoon we’ll (hopefully!) be working on single-guitar instrumental blues songs where you’ll be playing both rhythm and lead at the same time!

Saturday, May 1 – Guitar Noise Song Lesson Seminar #1

The concept of this seminar comes from someone who came to the very first one! And I have to admit it’s a great idea. We’re going to go over, one by one, a number of our song lessons that are posted here at Guitar Noise. For starters, this first seminar will concentrate on songs that work on strumming techniques. Songs that will be covered will be Hurt, Wish You Were Here, Tangled Up In Blue, Nowhere Man, Babylon and Losing My Religion. We will also go over new songs, not covered on our pages, which employ the same techniques. Which ones? Come and see!

Saturday, May 15 – Open D Tuning Song Lesson Seminar

For this seminar, we’re going to explore songs in open D tuning. Of course, we’ll need to learn a few things about playing in open D as well! This should be a lot of fun! Songs will include a handful from Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, such as Shelter From The Storm, Simple Twist of Fate and Buckets of Rain. We’ll also explore how to create arrangements of songs that weren’t originally recorded in open D tuning such as Fleetwood Mac’s Over My Head and the Police classic Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. And if we’re really ambitious, we might tackle Suite: Judy Blue Eyes!

Friday, May 28 and Saturday, May 29 – Guitar Noise In Toronto

We’re going over the border! If you want to have a vacation over Memorial Day Weekend, this might be just the ticket. Venue and topics for this event will be posted soon and there’s rumor of all sorts of distinguished guests attending!

Saturday, June 12 – Neil Young Song Lesson Seminar

So how can I not do a focus on Neil? Come learn a ton of these great songs spanning almost forty years worth of a brilliant career. I’m doing my best to make all the song arrangements playable by anyone who’s been playing for at least six months. If you can play the eight chords in my Absolute Beginners lesson, then you’ll be able to play songs like After The Gold Rush, Heart of Gold, Old Man, Cinnamon Girl, Like A Hurricane, Pocahontas, Rocking in the Free World, Harvest Moon and maybe even a song or two from Greendale, such as Be The Rain. Come build up your personal repertoire and learn a lot of technique and theory at the same time. How can you lose?

Saturday, June 26 – Absolute Beginners Seminar

Summer’s officially here and it’s high time to learn the guitar! Even if you’ve never held one before, you’ll be playing by the time the day is out! Acoustic and electric players are both welcome. We’ll learn basic chords, some very simple music theory and even five or six songs!

Saturday, July 10 – Basics of Finger Style Guitar / Intro To Chord Voicings

Learn to fingerpick! We’ll start with very easy arpeggios and work up to simple two and three finger patterns that can be used in a wide variety of genres. From there we’ll add in bass lines and melody and harmony parts.

And to give you some more fun reasons to practice your finger style lessons, there will be a short but intense discussion on chord voicings. We’ll take the basic open position chords and learn how to use them all up and down the neck to come up with some cool chords that sound terrific, especially when used as finger style patterns.

Saturday, July 24 – Basics of Soloing Seminar #1

We’ll look, step by step, at making a solo, by examining “classic” solos and by creating our own. Again, this is open to both acoustic and electric players. Or bring both! We’ll look at scales, modes, chord shapes, standard riffs and more as we give ourselves both the knowledge and the confidence to play guitar solos.

That’s a pretty full schedule, no? All these seminars, with the obvious exception of the one in Toronto, will be held at my home just outside of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It’s a big tourist area and there’s plenty to do if you want to bring your family and make a weekend out of it. Each seminar is $100 for the day’s lessons and includes food and (non-alcoholic) drinks. And you can always stay and jam the evening away!

If you’re interested, please email me at this address:

dhodgeguitar@aol.com

and include “Seminar” in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you.

And I think that’s more than enough news for the time being, don’t you? Why don’t we look and see what new articles, lessons and reviews have gone online at Gutiar Noise since last week:

New Lessons And Articles

Rules For The Road
Some Sound Advice for the Gigging Single Guitarist
by Matt Purkey

Guitar Noise reader Matt Purkey wrote me and asked if I’d be interested in his article. After reading it I knew that everyone would be interested in it! Here, indeed, is some great advice concerning getting gigs and continuing to do so. A must-read for those of you who are contemplating taking those first steps to playing out in front of people.

The First Time Ever I Tuned My Axe
by Graham Merry

You may know Graham as “Greybeard,” Guitar Noise Forum Moderator extraordinaire! In response to the many people who’ve written with questions on how to tune the guitar, he’s written this wonderful step-by-step process for those of you who are unfamiliar with how to tune with a tuner.

Worth A Look

It’s easy, for me, anyways, to forget how much information is available here at Guitar Noise. So our “Worth A Look” section offers me a weekly chance to go back and reread all sorts of wonderful pieces.

With the posting of Graham’s article, it’s a good idea to mention that we’ve a whole page about tuning.

As Paul says, it’s got something for everyone, whether you are just learning to tune a guitar for the first time or you are interested in exploring alternate and open chord tunings.

Email Of The Week

I have to share this, as it was especially heart warming to me this week. I got a note from Steve, who wrote the wonderful piece, Humble Pie, that we put online last week:

I appreciate all the help you’ve given me in getting my first article published on your web site. I’ve sent the link to all my friends and family. Just a little side note here – My brother bought a guitar after reading it. He has never played before in his life but is going to give it a go because he thinks that he might be able to learn using Guitar Noise. It was truly an honor beyond belief for a guy like me to see his article published on a web site that I hold in the highest regards…

And I have to say, that’s very cool! We may have the makings of a family band here before long! And it just goes to show that you never know who is going to respond to something that you write.

Forum News

Going back to continuing to speak of Graham, did you know that he has his own site? If you’ve never visited, I think you’ll be amazed at the wealth of information that’s there, full of wonderful charts and graphs that are perfect for anyone learning about theory. Take a minute and explore Greybeard’s site.

I think you’re bound to find some stuff you can use! And feel free to drop Graham a line anytime, either directly or through a message on the Forum page.

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!

Week 21

This week it’s all about love. We’ll continue our exploration of styles by looking at the out and out love song. Yep it’s time to pluck the old heartstrings, if they’re still in tune. So we’re going to do the standard love song except I don’t want it to be standard I want a surprise in it (sinister or otherwise) to come at the end that will make us, as the readers/listeners, jump in astonishment. I realize most of the songs we write our love songs but we do couch them in other terms be more blatant with this assignment but that’s not a license to forget the other principle of the SSG – imagery, show me don’t tell me and avoid cliches.

Good writing.

Bob

Revies

Keeping The Beat
by Aaron Wildman

Guitar Noise reader and Forum member “Twisted Fingers” has kindly provided us with a review of the Korg MA-30 Digital Metronome. Since I personally think that the metronome is too often neglected as a learning tool, especially by guitarists, I’m very happy to pass this review on to those of you who might find this an incredibly useful aid to your playing.

Béla Fleck: Perpetual Motion
by Russ Sprouse

Béla Fleck is still a young man, yet he has done more to expand the horizons of the 5-string banjo than anyone. His playing is rooted in the traditional bluegrass style.

Thoughts & Feedback

Two weeks ago I threatened to give you another song lyric of mine, a blues song l wrote for the Sunday Songwriters Group as both an assignment and a tribute to the late Johnny Cash. I’ve debated whether sharing this sort of thing is a little bit of grandstanding – I mean I write articles and lessons here all the time and now I’m posting lyrics on the newsletter!

Sometimes it’s a matter of the nature of writing, and of music and art in general. I’m sure that most of you get that. It’s great to play guitar but it’s even more wonderful to play for someone and even more so to play with someone. This is why I live for events like the seminars or this Friday’s Guitar Noise Jam at the Studio. To interact with others and to create something that’s more intense than I could ever do on my own is intoxicating.

If you get the chance to come by Friday, please do. I look forward to meeting you. And, as I said, if you’re a lefty, do feel free to borrow my guitar!

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

And, as always,

Peace

David