Newsletter Vol. 2 # 95 – October 17, 2004
Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.
In This Issue
- News and Announcements
- News Lessons and Articles
- Reviews
- Thoughts and Feedback
News And Announcements
Greetings!
Welcome to Guitar Noise News!
Of course, no sooner do I write about trying to get this newsletter back “on schedule,” even giving myself a deadline that I’ll have it to Paul no later than Thursday, here it is, four in the morning on Friday and I’m just getting the chance to put things in place.
Sigh.
It’s been a bit of a strange week, but I’ll mention that a little later. Maybe even in the next newsletter. Right now, I’ve got to catch you up on the latest and then get of to the airport so I can make my plane to Chicago. When you read this, depending on when you do, I should be either flying back home to Massachusetts or maybe even have gotten back already.
These short trips are fun, but they do take a lot out of you!
By the way, one of the reasons for the trip to Chicago is the Guitar Noise Neil Young Song Seminar, which I’ll be teaching tomorrow, which is Saturday, which I guess is yesterday, or even the day before yesterday, depending again on when you’re reading this. See? It’s not just being up at this hour that makes things weird!
In the meantime, I’d like to iterate an idea we first mentioned last week, and that is the possibility of a “Guitar Noise Camp.” This thought came about from 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. Or maybe even in the early fall (say up through the middle of October), as it’s so beautiful here and that there’s lots of fresh raspberries still growing that I can use to make pancakes for breakfast!
Now, we obviously wouldn’t be able to host the huge number of people who attend a GNW event. In fact, keeping a week’s participants to a group (or groups should there be interest in multiple weeks) of between six to ten or twelve would probably be optimal.
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 camp-full), 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 choose, 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.
As I mentioned last time, 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. For what it’s worth, I have gotten some response from last week. And who knows? It could be the start of something very special.
As far as costs, right now I’m going off the top of my head and it’s all extremely preliminary. I’m pretty certain I can keep everything, room and board included, at about $100 a day. But don’t hold me to this quite yet.
So let me know what you think about the idea of a Guitar Noise Camp. Meanwhile, let’s get on with the show!
New Lessons And Articles
Hands-On Intervals
By Oleg Twerdov
First time contributor Oleg gives us a great approach to looking at your guitar in terms of musical intervals. This is a terrific method to use for lead playing as well as sight reading and increasing your ability to take the music that’s in your head and bring it out of your guitar.
Reviews
This week we’ve got two reviews from A-J Charron: the latest from the band Pain of Salvation as well as new stuff by Guitar Noise contributor and guitarist extraordinaire, Gilbert Isbin. You can find them here:
Thoughts & Feedback
This will hopefully be the last “short” newsletter for a while. As I mentioned last time out, I spent this week first leading a day long conference of local public school music teachers in a discussion on bring the guitar to the classroom. Then there’s tomorrow’s (or yesterday’s) (or the day before!) Guitar Noise Neil Young Song Seminar in Chicago. And then, just to make life a lot more interesting, there’s also all the private teaching. Don’t want to forget my day-to-day students, after all!
Next week, I’ll tell you all about what’s been going on and we’ll also have some new interesting articles. And if I can get home in time to do some recording, maybe we’ll even have a song lesson just for Halloween!
I hope that each of you has a wonderful
And, as always,
Peace
David