Newsletter Vol. 3 # 112 – April 15, 2010

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #112 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

• Greetings, News and Announcements
• Topic of the Month
• Guitar Noise Featured Artist
• New Articles and Lessons
• Exploring Guitar with Darrin Koltow
• Event Horizon
• Random Thoughts

Greetings, News and Announcements

Hello and welcome to your April 15th issue of Guitar Noise News, the twice-a-month newsletter from Guitar Noise (www.guitarnoise.com). I’d be remiss if I didn’t say, “Please make sure you’ve filed your taxes before the day is out” to our readers in the United States. After all, I promised I’d remind some of the readers of this in our last newsletter.

But I’d rather share some very cool news with you – GN Forum member Tom ”Tommy Gunz” McLaughlin’s band, Grand Theft Auto, received third place in the “Best New Band” category from Suburban Nitelife Magazine (a national award winning publication that been serving the Chicago suburbs for almost twenty years now). Not only that, but the band’s bass player, John Nardi, took home first place in the “Best Musician – Bass” category!

All of us at Guitar Noise extend our heartfelt congratulations to Tom and his band and we look forward to reading about them being “number one” next year! If you’re out in the south and southwest Chicago suburbs, be sure to look them up!

And speaking of congratulations, last time out we announced the first five winners of our current giveaway. By next Monday, an autographed copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar” will be making its way to the following Guitar Noise followers (listed in alphabetical order by last name):

Jeffery Bosserman of Pennsylvania (USA)
Ellen Krauss of New York (USA)
Roy Parker of North Carolina (USA)
Allison Stokes of New South Wales (Australia)
David Watts of Merseyside (England)

And while we’re congratulating our first five winners, we also wish all of contestants the best of luck for the remainder of this contest. In case you’ve not yet entered and would like to do so, you need to send me an email with the following information:

1. your name
2. your email address
3. your mailing address (and it doesn’t matter where in the world you are)
4. the title of your favorite article at Guitar Noise
5. the name of your favorite rock guitarist

Please send only one email per person to me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and put ”CIG ROCK GUITAR” in the subject line.

The next group of winners will be announced here and on the Forum pages on May 1 and June 1. The best of luck to you all!

I’m also starting to receive photos for our second contest. This one is for a seventeen-month long giveaway of autographed copies of the all new ”Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar,” which will be out this fall (figure late October or November). We’re calling it “Complete Idiot’s Rock in the Free World,” and here’s how it works:

If you do buy a copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar,” take a picture of yourself with it someplace. You don’t have to have the Eiffel Tower or Mount Rushmore in the background, but be creative. Paul and I will select two photos a month, starting in August and running through all of 2011 and will send an autographed copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar” to those whose pictures we select.

So please send your photos to me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and be sure to include an email address where you can be reached, as well as a mailing address. And please put “Picture Book” in the subject line of the email. We’re looking forward to seeing where in the world the books end up! Best of luck to you on both contests!

Finally, a quick note to those who have emailed me requests in the past two to three weeks – I’ve not forgotten any of you! Unfortunately I had some emergency fixes to deal with on the books (and I also had to file taxes) but I’m all set to get going. If you’ve not heard from me via email in the next three days, don’t hesitate to email me. My thanks, as always, for your patience!

Topic of the Month

With the changing of the seasons, and the inevitable getting ready for either spring, fall, dry or wet (depending on where you live), few people have got practicing on their minds. In fact, you could probably say that about any time of the year! Bearing that in mind, we feel that it’s important to make “Practicing” the Guitar Noise Topic of the Month for April. Given the importance of practice, we could easily make it the topic of the month every month!

So the next time you mosey over to the Home Page, be sure to take a look at some of the many fine articles on practicing, brought to you by a great group of writers and teachers like Tom Hess, Jamie Andreas, Tom Serb, Nick Minnion and more.

Guitar Noise Featured Artist

Paul Simon is the Guitar Noise Featured Artist for the month of April, 2010. He was also named by Time Magazine as one of their “100 People Who Shaped the World” and has received numerous awards and accolades.

And although he and I have never met (I have seen him in concert), he is also one of the people who taught me how to play guitar. The very first book I bought after buying my first guitar was “The Songs of Paul Simon” songbook, which contained piano music and chords for all the songs of the Simon and Garfunkel albums as well as the first Paul Simon solo album. From there I spent more time listening to the music in order to hear what his guitar was actually doing, learning to strum rhythms and to create finger picking patterns and to use slides and hammer-ons and pull-offs as part of my playing. I became a better player because his music taught me to be a better listener.

You can read our bio about Paul Simon on the Guitar Noise Artist Profiles page.

New Articles and Lessons

Essentials for the Successful Band
by George Pittaway

Check this out if you are starting an band or want to tune yourselves up for a more professional sound and effect. It’s easy to start a band, Sounding good is another story.

Here is Why Your Guitar Picking Speed Isn’t Improving
by Mike Philippov

If you aren’t yet playing at the speed of at least 200 BPM in sixteenth notes (but really want to), then Mike Philippov’s latest article will greatly help you to get closer to this goal.

Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Easy Songs for Beginners #43
by David Hodge

Get a bit of a preview of the totally new “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar” (coming out October 5) with a lesson on this wonderful traditional song, which many people were introduced to through Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged Session. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Guitar Noise’s own Nick Torres sing, here’s your chance!

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

Tip for April 15 – Practicing Modes (Part 28)

Thanks for rejoining this virtual tour through the musical modes. Our current interest is the C phrygian mode. Here’s a 5-note run that substitutes the G min 7b5 arpeggio for the C7 (C phrygian) arpeggio:

|-----------------|--------------9-13-|-9----------------|--------------|
|-----------------|-----6-9-8-11------|---11-8-9-6-------|--------------|
|-----------------|---6---------------|------------6-----|--------------|
|-----------3-6-5-|-8-----------------|--------------8-5-|-6-3----------|
|---------4-------|-------------------|------------------|-----4--------|
|-1-4-3-6---------|-------------------|------------------|-------6-1----|

See the previous issue for some thoughts on why this substitute sounds cool. Another reason it sounds cool has to do with where and when the notes fall. The first time you hear the F note, for example, it’s on a downbeat. The next time you hear it, it’s on an upbeat. This on-off dynamic makes your ear say “Nifty: sounds similar, and yet different. I dig it.”

Thanks for reading.

Copyright 2010 Darrin Koltow

In case you’ve never visited Maximum Musician, hurry on over to Darrin’s website. You can also read his past contributions to Guitar Noise here. And you can also read some of Darrin’s past Guitar Noise News posts over at the Guitar Noise Blog.

Event Horizon

Just as it’s important to support each other when it comes to CDs, it’s also important (probably more so) to support live music. Sometimes it’s about being there. Literally. As musicians, it’s always good to support each other simply by being at a gig if it’s at all possible.

One thing we at Guitar Noise would really like to do is to help promote your shows, whether it’s in a stadium or at a ten-seat coffee house. Not only is it a great way to help support each other, it’s also a terrific way to meet more musicians!

So please feel free to write me if you’ve got some gigs coming up. Remember that Guitar Noise News is sent out on the first and fifteenth of each month. Usually I will have it ready to be sent out a few days ahead of time, so plan accordingly. For instance, if you’ve got something coming up in the last two weeks of January (that is, after the fifteenth), then let me know by the tenth or the twelfth. If you’ve already got a show in August, 2010, let me know, too! It’s never too early to plan for things!

Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends at upcoming holiday shows!

Send your gig dates to me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and try to put “gig alert” in the subject header.

Word is that Doug James (“Moonrider” on the GN Forums) is in a new band called “Southern Roots” and you can check them out tomorrow night (Friday, April 16) at Hooah’s Sports Grill at 5380 Oaklawn Boulevard in Prince George, Virginia and then this Saturday (April 17) at the Chester Moose Lodge, located at 9500 Jefferson Davis Highway in Chester, Virginia. Both shows start at 9 PM. And they’ll be playing an outdoor show on Saturday, May 1 at Boondocks, 2220 Broad Rock Boulevard in Richmond, Virginia, beginning at 5 PM.

Marilyn Miller will be the opener for the Jack Stafford Foundation at a house concert on Saturday, April 17 at 204 South Undermountain Road in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Show is from 7:00 until 10:00 PM.

And I’ll be making one of my pilgrimages to the Princeton, New Jersey area to play with some friends (including Guitar Noise Forum member Greg (“gnease”) Nease at the Grover’s Mill Coffee Shop next Friday evening, April 23. It’s located in the Southfield Shopping Center at 295 Princeton Hightstown Road in West Windsor. The show starts at 8 PM. And I really wish I was going to be there the following night, when many local performers will be doing a Bob Dylan Tribute show beginning at 8 PM as well.

Random Thoughts

I also got a notice from Todd Mack saying that the first three FODfest shows of 2010 will take place over Memorial Day weekend. They’ll be at the following venues and dates:

Friday, May 28 at the brand new Club Helsinki in Hudson, New York

Saturday, May 29 at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Sunday, May 30 at the Infinity Hall and Bistro in Norfolk, Connecticut

If you’ve not heard about FODfest before, check out the website at http://www.fodfest.org/ and click on the promotional video on the home page. You might even see me at the 1:10 mark or so having the time of my life because Corky Siegel is playing a harmonica solo for one of my original songs, “Man in Black Blues.”

Until our next newsletter, play well and play often.

And, as always…

Peace