Newsletter Vol. 2 # 83 – May 16, 2004

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
  • Sunday Songwriters Group / Sunday Composers
  • Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Without a doubt, the big news here at Guitar Noise is the upcoming “sabbatical.” Those of you who’ve been with us a bit know that each year, Paul takes a break from things and, effectively, the site goes on a short holiday for anywhere from a few weeks to three months. Last year our fearless leader produced and directed a film (which he also somehow found time to write!) during his “free time.”

Next week begins this year’s sabbatical. We’ll have some new lessons go online this week and next, but after that, the Forum Pages will be the only “active” part of the site for a while. Does this mean that nothing is going on at Guitar Noise? Far from it, as you’ll no doubt read further on in this week’s newsletter.

Maybe even not all that much further on!

Before we check out what’s new, though, I’d like to repost something that I wrote last week, just in case you skipped through it:

I’d like to remind everyone that the Forums are intended for discussion purposes. If you’ve got something that seems like a rather lengthy piece, whether it’s something you’ve come up with and would like to share or even an answer to a question that was posted, you have the option to write it as an article for Guitar Noise.

In fact, if you are going to go through all that trouble to write something at length, why not get the VIP treatment? I am always happy to put new material on the site and I think that a lot of our readers who don’t visit the forum pages (and there are quite a few of those!) would benefit greatly from some of the terrific advice that comes from many of our Forum readers. This is how a lot of the Guitar Noise writers got their start.

Keep this paragraph in mind as well as we move right along…

New Lessons And Articles

Performance Anxiety
by Laura Lasley

There are all sorts of reasons to not join in on the fun of playing with others. Hopefully, though, you’ll find that you can work your way through most of them! Here are some thoughts from our resident doctor, mom and guitarist that might help you overcome some of the anxieties that may cause you to miss out on some great times.

This Is Only An Exhibition…
by Steve Schmieding

It was a rough draft of a different article that Steve sent me that led to my coming up with this month’s discussion of why musicians tend to look at things with such an eye toward competition. And he came up with this great piece in order to take part in the discussion!

Competition
by John Tucker

Here’s another wonderfully personal and thoughtful take on the concept of competition among guitarists. My thanks go to John for taking the time out to share his ideas with all of us.

Worth A Look

This isn’t actually an article as it is a trip through time! Paul was kind enough to send me this reminder of what Guitar Noise actually looked like back in the days when we were receiving far less than fifteen million hits a month and the forum members didn’t even know what avatars were!

You, too, can step through the “Way Back Machine” and take a look at when “GN Beavis” would greet everyone at the front door.

Was that really only four years ago? I’m getting old…

Email Of The Week

I received an interesting email this week concerning the “traditional” teaching on the suggested fingering of the major scale:

Hey, I have no one else I can ask, so if you have the time I’d appreciate an answer but I understand if you are too busy. You must get a ton of mail.

Why is the following major scale seem to be the one most shown (G major in this case – please excuse the crudeness)

E--23-----
B----3-5--
G--2-45--
D--2-45--
A--23-5--
E----3-5--

This is the one i taught myself. It was no real specific reason….I just chose to do it this way by making a fretboard chart and picking which notes I thought it was easiest to go to.

E-------5-78-
B-------5-78-
G-----45-7--
D-----45-7--
A----3-5-7--
E----3-5-7--

I’m just very curious why the other scale is the one I should learn and use. Since it seems to be generally accepted as the “definitive” major scale.

Thanks for writing and before I answer, let me say that both of these scales are fine to use. And that what you’ve done by working out both the fretboard chart and figuring out the “easiest way to go” shows a lot of effort on your part and that kind of thinking will take you far as a guitarist.

One other thing that will take you far, as you’re doing, is to look at the conventions of scales and question why things work.

The main reason that this first scale is taught first is a matter of spacing. When working on the fretboard, the number of frets involved in any given scale will ultimately affect your speed and accuracy. Therefore, the fewer total number of frets involved usually means the more accurate (and hopefully faster) one can be.

The first scale involves a total of FOUR total frets. If you use your middle finger on the root (third fret), your other fingers will fall into place like this: index finger on the second fret, ring finger on the fourth fret and pinky on the fifth. You never have to move your fingers from their position when playing this scale, so, theoretically, you should be able to be very accurate because you don’t have to have your fingers jump around so much. They have a specific place to be.

The second scale covers a span of six frets, and for many people, their fingers cannot make the leap from the third fret to the fifth and then to the seventh (used in the first six notes) with the same speed and accuracy that they can achieve with the first scale.

But not everyone’s hands and fingers are the same. I have some students with huge hands and they find your scale a lot easier to play than the first one. And, with practice, they manage to play it just as quickly as most people can do on the first.

Two additional things are worth mentioning here: First, this is one of the reasons that most guitarists prefer the pentatonic scale to all others – you never have a span of more than three frets almost anywhere you decide to play it. Second, this is also one of the reasons that a lot of people get frustrated while learning note for note transcriptions. Because not all hands are built the same, you will not always be able to perform a fingering that’s written out. If the best reach I can get with my short fingers is four frets, then I simply have to work out a different fingering if, say, the Wes Montgomery TAB I’m looking at has many places where he’s using one finger on the second fret and one on the seventh.

Being able to know what those notes are and where else I might find them on the fretboard or what sort of substitutes are available to me might be the only way for me to play that particular piece.

I hope this helps. Thanks for the question.

Sunday Songwriters Group / Sunday Composers

Don’t think that a Sabbatical stops the SSG! Check out to what Bob has posted as the latest assignment!

Thoughts & Feedback

Even though we’ll be taking a bit of a breather from lessons here at Guitar Noise, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to do here!

Chances are, if you’re anything like me, you may not even know of half the material that’s here on the site. I’m actually hoping to spend the “downtime” getting more MP3s recorded for old lessons and writing up some new ones. Not to mention editing new lessons and articles from others.

Why do we do it? I recently posted a note on the forum to someone who wrote about another musician’s response to the use of music theory. Basically, and you hear the same thing about why anyone should even bother to read music, the thought is that “theory means having limitations on what you can do.” Here’s my reply:

I think that this is indeed inspirational, but I also think that, for many people, music theory is like gravity. What I mean is that I’m not sure that I can explain gravity to anyone else, let alone myself, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We don’t fall off the earth, after all.

Music theory is nothing more than an explanation of why certain things sound good together and how notes work to form chords and how certain chords can work together to form progressions. That’s all. There’s nothing really much to it other than observing. If you, for instance, play a G chord, you’re using music theory, whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not. Kind of like when you jump up in the air and you come back to earth.

Most musicians, especially guitarists, simply don’t know that they know music theory. It’s cooler to say one doesn’t need it, but the truth is that they use it to tune their guitars!

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that theory is “limiting” – it’s not. Or that knowing more about theory takes away from your creativity. That’s like saying knowing more about physics or chemistry or even language can’t help you at all. You probably already know more than you think

Theory is merely a tool to help you understand things and nothing more. Like any tool, it’s up to you to decide how to use it, or whether or not you (consciously) use it at all.

Theory exists outside of ability. It’s really that simple. It’s what makes music music. It’s not “good” or “evil” or anything that you might stick a label on. It just is.

For whatever that’s worth…

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

And, as always,

Peace

David