Newsletter Vol. 3 # 115 – June 1, 2010

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #115 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
  • Emails? We Get Emails!
  • More Emails
  • Event Horizon
  • Random Thoughts

Greetings, News and Announcements

Hello! It’s June1 already! And here to help you welcome in the new month is your latest issue of Guitar Noise News, the twice-a-month newsletter from Guitar Noise (www.guitarnoise.com).

Following up on some of last month’s announcements, I’m pleased to note that, despite numerous potential setbacks, not to mention the weather making more of a nuisance of itself, Guitar Noise Forum member, JWMartin” and his band Spookhand played a successful benefit show last Firday (May 28th) at The Pond in Franklin (Tennessee). All told, the participating bands raised about $1,000 for the American Red Cross of Williamson County.

You can read all about it here.

Here in the New York / Massachusetts / Connecticut border area, there were three FODfest shows this past weekend as well, each one different and delightful in its own way. Some of the Saturday and Sunday shows can be seen here.

And it’s also time to announce our last five winners for the current giveaway. 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):

Randy Bennett of Ontario (Canada)
Alan Fiddament of Ontario (Canada)
Carla Mora of Massachusetts (USA)
Ken Rogers of Florida (USA)
Milly Tan of Singapore (Singapore)

I’d like to thank everyone who has written in and to also let you know that we’ll be running more giveaway contests later on this year.

And please be assured, we’ll be having more giveaways throughout the year (and next year), including a contest in November and December to win a copy of each of the three Complete Idiot’s Guides I’ve written. Stay tuned for details!

Topic Of The Month

In June, the Guitar Noise Topic of the Month is Scales and Modes – we’re highlighting the many articles we have on this fascinating subject, ranging from our beginner’s explanatory lessons, like “Scales within Scales,” to a series like “Turning Scales into Solos,” which puts your knowledge to practical use. So make a visit to the Home Page, be sure to take a look at some of the many fine articles on this topic, authored by a wide range of Guitar Noise contributing writers.

Guitar Noise Featured Artist

And if you flip over to the Guitar Noise Artist Profiles page you’ll discover that our Featured Artist for the month of June is none other than Tom Petty, who will be releasing his latest album with the Heartbreakers, “Mojo” on June 15. Paul’s put together a great bio on this artist whose long career is a testimony both to his love of music and his support for the rights of artists.

New Articles and Lessons

We’re running a bit behind here with some of the new articles, but keep an eye out on the home page. We’ll have Part 3 of Jamie Andreas’ series on “The Learning Curve,” a new piece from Tom Hess on how to get more people to come to your live shows and two from my own computer – one on learning to change direction when picking (using a riff from Three Doors Down to demonstrate) as well as a fingerstyle lesson on creating your own blues song, in Drop D. And the next Guitar Noise Podcast, too! All will be out this week and weekend!

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

Tip for June 1 – Practicing Modes (Part 31)

We’re exploring the C Dorian mode via the C minor chords today. Last issue was an exploration through C minor chords with melody notes on string 1, the high E string. Today we’ll walk through the melody notes on string 2 (B string) chords.

Substitutions used include G9 (from the C melodic minor scale) and D min 7b5 (from the C harmonic minor scale).

Here’s the run:

|-------------------------------|
|-13--11--10---8--6--4--3--1----|
|-12--10--10---8--5--3--5--0----|
|-13--12---9---8--6--5--3--0----|
|-10--13--10--10--5--3-----3----|
|--------------8--------4-------|

If you have the free Power Tab application, you can load the file from the following link into it. This file contains the run just given.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright 2010 Darrin Koltow

Emails? We Get Emails!

Let me first say what a great web site and I love the pod casts. My question is I am starting to play from piano song books. Of course the have the chords listed above the treble clef. I keep seeing instead of say just an Am or F chord something like G/B or C/E. What chord exactly am I supposed to play????

Thanks

Hi!

Thanks for writing and my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I’ve gotten more than a bit behind with my email correspondence and, hopefully, I’ll be able to start catching up on that this upcoming weekend.

To answer your question, chords like G/B or C/E are known as “slash chords.” Usually when playing guitar, we play chords with the root note (the note that shares the same note name as the chord) as the lowest note in the chord. That’s why, for instance, you typically strum a C chord from the A string down, as you’re playing the lowest C note (on the third fret) of that string, instead of strumming all six strings, which makes the chord sound muddy.

Sometimes, though, you want to play a chord with a note other than its root note as your bass note. These are called slash chords and, with your permission, I’m going to quote a bit from the lesson on “Eleanor Rigby” here at Guitar Noise:

A slash chord looks like two chords with a slash (“/”) between them. Something like this:

Em/D

Whenever you see a slash chord, simply remember that the chord is to the left of the slash and the note on the right side of it indicates a new bass note. So in this example, we want to play an Em chord, but we want to have a note in the bass. In other words we want the D note to be the lowest note of our Em chord.

Slash chords can cause confusion. In the above example we are technically creating a new chord, an Em7, when we add the D note to the Em chord. So if we were being sticklers for protocol, we’d call it “Em7/D.” But slash chords don’t always create new chords. Suppose we wanted an Em chord with B as our bass note. B is part of the Em chord, so writing it as “Em/B” is perfectly correct. Many times, these notes are thought of as “passing tones” – they are simply meant to highlight our moving from one chord to another. So don’t
worry too much about what they are called. Worry instead about how to play the original chord and the new bass note.

This lesson goes on to explain how slash chords are used to make the chorus more lively. Even though the tablature and notation isn’t there, you can get a good picture about how they work by reading the text and listening to the MP3 examples. And if you do have questions, just email me again and ask.

I hope this helps and I look forward to chatting with you again sometime.

Peace

More Emails

Hi Dave

First, thank you for the great website and lessons. I’ve been just playing approx a year and a half. I took the challenge to learn “Dust in the Wind” from your website and have it pretty good control of the song.

I was wondering what might be a good next level finger style song to try (“Time after Time” and “Fields of Gold” are a little too advanced). Any feedback would be appreciated.

Cheers

Hi

Thanks for writing and thank you as well for your kind words concerning both Guitar Noise and my lessons on the site. It’s always good to hear that they are being of help to someone and I appreciate you making the time to write and say so.

Have you tried either the lesson on “Blackbird” or “Scarborough Fair” yet? “Blackbird” may actually be a “sideways step” for you in terms of difficulty – you may actually find it too easy. “Scarborough Fair” is terrific because it involves switching between several different easy patterns. If you can handle the switches in finger patterns in “Scarborough Fair,” you may find yourself up to taking on either “Time After Time” or “Fields of Gold.”

I hope this helps. Please feel free to write anytime. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

Peace

Event Horizon

Got a note just this weekend from Tom (“tommyguns”) and I definitely want to pass this along to you all:

Hi Dave,

Just a quick note on my next upcoming gig – I’ve just joined the band Slightly Offensive (good friends of mine)and my first gig with them is Saturday, June 12 at Morgan’s, which is at 18700 South Old LaGrange Road in Mokena, Illinois

Here is a little info on Slightly Offensive, which nitelife.org voted as “Best New Cover Band” in April 2010!!

Slightly Offensive is a high energy band. We play songs that make people want to sing along and dance to. Slightly Offensive simply means we rock songs out! Whether it’s a pop song, rap song, or just regular rock, we play it beefy!!!

We’re a cover band playing radio hits from the past and present, covering artists such as Aerosmith, 4 non-blondes, Violent Femmes, Katy Perry, Don Henley, Kid Rock, Pink, Pat Benetar, Motley Crue, Joan Jett, Georgia Satellites, and many more!!

Anyone who comes to a show will have a great time! So if you weren’t invited to “the” party like us because you’re seen as a little “Offensive” to “Them,” that’s okay! We’ve decided to throw our own party and you’re invited!!!

So come on out!!! We are Slightly Offensive!! But in a good way!!

….

It certainly sounds like it’s going to be a great time! If you’re in the area, drop in and say hi from me!

Random Thoughts

Kevin Kasper, a musician, teacher and writer for LoveToKnow.com, asked me to do a brief Internet interview a few weeks back. We discussed teaching and writing in general as well as topics specifically geared toward the beginning bass student. It’s just come online this week and if you’re interested in reading it, you’ll find it here.

Until our next newsletter, play well and play often.

And, as always…

Peace