Newsletter Vol. 2 # 94 – October 10, 2004

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

  • News and Announcements
  • News Lessons and Articles
  • Worth a Look
  • Email of the Week
  • Reviews
  • Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

I’m trying like crazy to get this newsletter back to what I consider to be “on schedule,” meaning that I’ll get it off to Paul no later than Thursday of the week in question. Of course, that may mean not having all that much news to share with folks. Or all that much in the way of announcements, either!

Be that as it may, it can’t hurt to bring up a few old things. Or not that “old,” really! And I guess not a “few” either. First up is an addendum to Tom Hess’ note from last week:

Hi everyone!

I neglected to tell everyone the HESS concert next Thursday (Oct. 14th) is a FREE concert! No advance tickets are needed (so bring your friends). Just come to the Performing Arts Center at Harper College (its the tallest building on campus). The address is below:

Harper College
1200 West Algonquin Road
Palatine, IL 60067
847-925-6242

October 14, 2004 at 12:15 PM in the PAC (Performing Arts Center)

So remember that if you’re free this upcoming Thursday and happen to be in the area (or in the general area), make a point to go and see Tom’s band, HESS. And be sure to tell him I said “hello.”

Second thing I’d like to do is toss out and idea just to see what people think. Late last spring (perhaps early summer) I got an email from a reader asking whether or not we at Guitar Noise might consider doing something along the lines of the National Guitar Workshop’s week-long summer programs. Well, for reasons that are now pretty obvious, last summer was definitely not the time to even think about attempting something like that. But maybe we can to think about next summer.

So who’d be interested in a week of Guitar Noise Camp?

Obviously we wouldn’t be able to host the huge number of people who attend a GNW event. We’d be looking to keep the group (or groups should there be interest in multiple weeks) to fewer than ten or twelve people. Six to ten would probably be ideal.

Since we wouldn’t have the ability to totally fill a person’s day with lessons (having only a few teachers available as opposed to a campful), and also because I know that there can be a big overload of material in trying to cram each day full of playing, my thoughts are that we can make this kind of a combination guitar camp and vacation for the attendees. Not that we won’t be playing a lot!

The ideal for something like this is to break down each day into a series of topics that would be of interest to everyone. As in all of my seminars, we’d start out with a firm grasp of the basics and then start exploring. And while there would be a whole range of topics from which to chose, we’d definitely spend a bit of time working on arrangements for both the single guitar as well as learning to play in a group setting. There’d definitely be a lot of jamming.

As anyone who attended the Riverside Jam will be able to tell you, we’ve a great place to host people and we do our best to make everyone at home. Those who would prefer to pitch a tent in the yard would certainly be welcome to do so. And for those who prefer the comforts of a hotel or motel, there are certainly plenty of those around. And I would also make sure that people know families are more than welcome. On of the great things about the Riverside Jam is the participation of all the members of the family.

This idea might not even get off the ground, but I did promise the reader who wrote me that I’d at least try to see if there was an interest. Who knows? It could be the start of something very interesting.

As far as costs, I’d really have to sit down and figure it all out. Going off the top of my head (and this is extremely preliminary), I’m hoping to keep everything, room and board included, at about $100 a day. But don’t hold me to that as I might be able to do things cheaper. Or not…

So let me know what you think.

New Lessons And Articles

Amazing Grace
By David Hodge

Here’s a chance to work on your hammer-ons and pull-offs while playing a “Celtic soul” arrangement of this lovely song. Plus, you get to learn a lot about chord choices and voicing and even get to play around in Drop D tuning.

Worth A Look

Since Amazing Grace deals so much with both the technical aspects of hammer-ons and pull-offs as well as the artistic aspects of Celtic music, I might go out on a limb here and recommend the reading of two of our older articles.

Tricks of the Trade
Here we introduce four techniques that every guitarist should have in his or her repertoire: hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides and bends. Plus we use Dylan’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door as an example of how to incorporate these guitar tricks into your playing.

A Celtic Air
An exploration of what gives a particular song a Celtic feel. We look at the use of different tunings, particularly the Drop D and DADGAD. Plus we use an original song in order to examine and experiment with techniques that help give our guitar a Celtic voice.

Email Of The Week

And just to prove I can still beat a dead horse better than anyone…

Hi!

I just bought a guitar and am starting to play. Although I am having some difficulty as I am downloading tab and do not know how to do hammer-ons or pull-offs. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction or direct me to somewhere that will show me how.

Thanks.

Thanks for writing. There’s an old article at Guitar Noise called Tricks of the Trade that explains how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs (although this article calls them “pick-ffs”) very well.

Also, there’s going to be a lesson going up maybe this week on the song Amazing Grace that will essentially be a lesson on hammer-ons and pull-offs.

I hope this helps. You might also get a lot of different advice from the folks on the Forum Page if you post a question there. They’re always very helpful in giving advice.

Reviews

Daylight Massacre “A Lie Above Evil” – 6 Track Demo
Review by Becky Squire

I picked up this demo a while ago back at a gig where this band were supporting a completely forgetful, and therefore forgotten, act at “The Cave” in Chelmsford. It isn’t bad, but as usual, that’s not the whole story!

Duncan Ferguson – Monday Morning Blues
Review by A-J Charron

I said I hoped to hear more from this Highlander and he has delivered magnificently! Duncan’s newest album is once again a treasure!

Thoughts & Feedback

This will have to be another week where we cut things a bit short. Tuesday I’m going to be leading a daylong conference of local public school music teachers and there’s still a lot to prepare. Plus I need to put together the final touches for next weekend’s Guitar Noise Neil Young Song Seminar in Chicago.

And also I promised some friends that I’d learn a few songs they want to try out!

So I hope that each of you has a wonderful week. Stay safe. And we’ll chat more soon.

And, as always,

Peace

David