Newsletter Vol. 3 # 16 – February 15, 2006

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #16 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

• News and Announcements
• New Articles and Lessons
• Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
• Event Horizon
• Reviews
• Random Thoughts

News And Announcements

Happy “Day After Valentine’s Day” (you didn’t forget, did you?), and welcome once again to Guitar Noise News. This newsletter will be a little shorter than usual. I could blame it on February being the shortest month but that’s a little too convenient.

Anyway, while this issue may not be as long as it’s been of late, that doesn’t mean it will be short on news and new articles.

First off, a quick update from Frank Wright, a volunteer for Guitars Not Guns:

David…

I want to thank you very, very much for the coverage you gave us at Guitars Not Guns. You did a good job, and we surely appreciate it.

Just as a note….We started another class two weeks ago with fifteen students. We were able to put in that many on this class as some had their own guitars and some guitars were donated for the class. We had enough volunteer teachers to handle the fifteen as well.

Again, thank you and Guitar Noise with the help you gave GNG.

Frank

In case you missed our last newsletter, you can find out about more about this organization that is providing both guitars and instruction to children at www.guitarsnotguns.org. They currently have chapters throughout California and are working on starting up in New Mexico and Georgia. Check out their website and, if it turns out to be something of interest to you, drop them a line. And if you’re looking for a charity that you can get behind this year, please give Guitars Not Guns your consideration. Maybe instead of trading in an old (but playable) beater, you might consider giving another person a chance to play guitar!

New Articles And Lessons

Buachaill On Eirne
by Doug Sparling

Doug kicks off a series of traditional Celtic pieces with one of his favorite Irish songs, Buachaill On Eirne (Boy From Ireland). A common tune that most Irish musicians will know, this beautiful song has been recorded many times, perhaps the most well known version is from Clanadd’s LP Macalla in 1985. Another popular recording is by The Corrs, who recorded Buachaill on Eirne on their CD Home, which was released in 2005.

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

Let’s explore a tip that has a lot to do with music — no matter what instrument you play. We’re talking about singing. What do we guitarists need to know about singing? Maybe we should scrap the whole topic and let vocalists pick this up. But maybe we should investigate a bit.

What’s the point of singing? What do we sing to help us play guitar better? First, a fact: Singing helps you memorize and understand music better (than if you didn’t sing.). We’re not going to slog through all of the academic, scholarly research done to prove this. Instead we’ll get practical, so you can prove the usefulness of singing to yourself.

Pick any two tunes from your favorite artist. Pick two tunes that you don’t know how to play yet and that sound fairly similar to each other. Some possible artists to start with: Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel. we’re going for catchy, simple melodies. We’re not going to work with chords in this tip.

Learn the melodies of both tunes completely by ear. For the first one, don’t sing it all. Just dive right in, and pick out the major scale pattern you are most comfortable with, and try to pick out the tune’s notes within that pattern.

For the second tune, don’t touch the guitar yet. Sing the tune, and keep singing it, repeatedly, until you are confident you know the melody without any backup harmony. Only then, work it out on your guitar. Use the same major scale pattern you used on the first melody, if you can.

Now for the moment of truth: which tune was easier to learn? I bet it was the one you sang.

Keep this in mind: Your first instrument, and with many people their most musically accurate instrument, is your voice.

Thanks for reading.

For those of you who might like to know more about Darrin, let me direct you to his website, Maximum Musician and also to his page here at Guitar Noise.

Once again, let me thank Mr. Koltow for his continued presence on the Internet. Darrin helped inspire many to contribute their knowledge online and I know that many of the readers of Guitar Noise appreciate his efforts.

Event Horizon

Supporting Guitar Noise and the Guitar Noise community is not always about money or time. 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’d 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 March (that is, after the fifteenth), then let me know by the tenth or the twelfth.

If you’ve already got a show in March, let me know, too! It’s never too early to plan for things!

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

If you’re in the Midwest, you probably already know there are many GN members scattered all about. Bish hails from the Illinois/Iowa border and his band, Hap Hazard, play very regularly in the Quad Cities area.

You can catch Hap Hazard in March at the following venues, dates and times:

March 3 at the 11th Street Bar and Grill in East Davenport, where the music runs from 8 PM ’til midnight.

March 17 at Blue Port Junction, located at the southeast corner of I-280 and Highway 61 Interchange just west of Davenport. Music runs from 8:30 PM ’til 12:30 AM. It’s never to early to plan for Saint Patrick’s Day, no?

Over on the other side of the state of my former home state, you can see GN Forum member Missy51633 (all of seventy-two years, mind you!) playing with Fender Benders (one of three bands she regularly plays in!) here during February:

February 18 at the VFW, 201 Court in Fairfield, Illinois

February 25 at the American Legion, located at the corner of 9th and John Streets in Saint Francisville, Illinois, from 8:00 PM until 11:00 PM.

March 4 at the American Legion, 111 SW 4th, Fairfield, Illinois

March 5 at Moose Lodge, 255 S Depot Street in Brazil, Indiana

March 10 and 11 (yes, two nights!) at the VFW located at 101 South Market Street in Mount Carmel, Illinois

Reviews

Reviews go up almost all the time here at Guitar Noise. But we also know that what we post is, pardon the cliché, the very tip of the iceberg. If you’d like to pass along a review of an album, concert, DVD (tutorial, concert or otherwise), book or even a guitar or guitar/music product, feel free to drop me a line and try to put “proposed review” in the subject.

For those of you who are always thinking about “giving back to the community,” this is certainly a fine way to do so.

In the meantime, here are the latest reviews to be posted on our site:

Michael Bianco: Guitar Innovations
CD Review by Jimmy Caterine

Michael Bianco is one of the masters of the two handed tapping technique. He deserves his place right along side Stanley Jordon and Jennifer Batten. Guitar Innovations contain compositions that are beautiful, mostly new age with a classical feel and a touch of Latin influences, Highly recommended.

Jason Sadites: Orbit
CD Review by Jimmy Caterine

Jason Sadites’ debut CD is an exceptional collection of well-crafted guitar instrumentals. Tasteful playing and superb engineering make this CD a must-listen.

Random Thoughts

As mentioned at the top, we’ve got a bi of a short newsletter this time out. Those of you who’ve seen this before know that we usually make up for it with an extra long one the next time, which is what I’m going to start working on as soon as I ship this out to Paul.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of February. Stay safe and play well.

And, as always,

Peace