Newsletter Vol. 3 # 17 – March 01, 2006
Greetings,
Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #17 of Guitar Noise News!
In This Issue:
- News and Announcements
- New Articles and Lessons
- Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
- Forum Findings
- Emails? We Get Emails!
- Digging Through The Archives
- Event Horizon
- Reviews
- Random Thoughts
News And Announcements
Welcome to Guitar Noise News and a Happy “First of March” to you all.
Since switching over to the current twice-a-month format, I find myself thinking time keeps passing faster and faster. Seems like I finish one newsletter and, hello! It’s time to dash another one off to Paul.
This winter (and the past fall) has been particularly busy for me. It seems like I’ve been at Off The Beat’N Track recording studio in nearby Southfield, Massachusetts the past month and a half, working on finishing up the CD that will accompany The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Playing Bass Guitar. Between the recording and the final editing of the manuscript (not to mention double and triple checking all the music examples), and teaching my private students, there’s not been a lot of spare time.
But things should, hopefully, ease up a bit in the next few weeks. My plan is to try to get the whole backlog of articles, interviews, lessons and reviews up as quickly as possible throughout March. To those few of you who have been patiently waiting to see your work up onsite, I give my thanks for your understanding and patience.
I’m also taking advantage of “the recording bug” (those of you who do your own recording can certainly attest to the power of this addiction) to work up some MP3 files for our old lessons, as you’ll notice in our “Digging Through The Archives” section. With a bit of luck, you should be seeing three or four “revamped” lessons in each of the upcoming months until July.
A note from Jason Sadites:
We are doing a draw for a Budda BudWah wah pedal. Entries will be accepted at my site through the ‘entry page’. Entries will be accepted until May 31/2006 and the drawing will be held on June 15/2006. All the details are up on the promo pages on my site.
Guitar Noise wishes you the best of luck in this giveaway.
One thing I hadn’t counted on when switching over to the current twice-a-month format, is that we’re going to soon have an April Fool’s Day issue of Guitar Noise News. Some of you might remember that, ages ago, we once did a special home page for April Fool’s Day. I know we have a great many humorists out there. Should we try to come up with a comical newsletter or simply stick to the basics? Or both? Let me know what you think.
And now, let’s take a look at what’s new since our last newsletter:
New Articles And Lessons
Three’s A Crowd
by Paul Andrews
Paul Andrews returns to the pages of Guitar Noise with a primer on power chords, complete with practical examples from the music of Green Day, Nirvana, Blur, Blink 182 and (gasp!) The Kinks.
Walking Bass Jazz Blues – Fingerstyle Rhythm
by Peter Simms
It’s always a pleasure to get a new lesson from Peter Simms! His latest piece involves putting a walking bass line underneath a standard jazz blues progression. When you put it all together, you’ll definitely think it was worth the extra practice!
Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
And here’s the latest tip from Maximum Musician’s Darrin Koltow:
Let’s look at a simple but pleasing pattern to break up the monotony of the standard scale pattern. We can call this the Stardust pattern. These are all eighth notes.
|-8-5-6---5-------|-----------------| |-------8---6-8-5-|-6---5-----------| |-----------------|---7---5-7---5---| |-----------------|-----------8---7-| |-----------------|-----------------| |-----------------|-----------------| -----------------|-------------| -----------------|-------------| -----------------|-------------| -8-5-7---5-------|-------------| -------8---7-8-5-|-7---5-------| -----------------|---8---6-8-5-| |-----------------|-----------------| |-----------------|-----------------| |-----------------|-----------5---7-| |---------------5-|---7-5-8-7---8---| |---5---7-5-8-7---|-8---------------| |-6---8-----------|-----------------| ---------------5-|---6-5-8----| ---5---6-5-8-6---|-8----------| -5---7-----------|------------| -----------------|------------| -----------------|------------| -----------------|------------|
If you want to continue working with this pattern, you might try these additional exercises: transpose to another major scale pattern; start on a different note; jump by a perfect fourth instead of a third.
Thanks for reading.
Darrin Koltow
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.
Forum Findings
At the start of the year, a number of our Forum Members made a resolution to quit smoking. Three months into the New Year, they are still non-smokers! One has even bought himself a new guitar with the money he’d normally spend on cigarettes! Now, that’s a great reward!
I like to extend congratulations and the best wishes to a continued healthy lifestyle to you all. And also thank everyone on the Forum who’s been generous in their support (sixteen pages of support so far!) of these folks’ efforts to kick the habit.
Emails? We Get Emails!
Dear David,
Just wanted to say how much I enjoy guitarnoise.com. I started playing guitar around 1996. However, my life got so busy (graduated college, got married, and baby!) that I laid my guitar down for a number of years. These last few months I’ve been practicing again (getting the calluses back on my fingers!) and have been using the guitarnoise site. I’ve been hammering out “Eleanor Rigby”. Again thanks for your site and keep up the great work!
You’re very welcome and thanks for writing! If you peruse some of the stories on the “Meet And Greet” page of the Guitar Noise Forum, you’ll find many folks who share the same basic story and even more who share your love for the guitar.
Remember that if you have a story about playing with others that you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. Help inspire others to bring their music to the world! Write me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and please put “playing with others” in the subject line if you can!
Digging Through The Archives
As mentioned, I’ve been on a bit of a recording binge of late, between the new lessons and my own songwriting. So I managed to put together some MP3 files for two of our older song lessons:
I’m hoping to add more as the year progresses, so keep your eyes (and ears!) open for the latest additions to our audio files.
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 May, 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.
And don’t forget we’re an International Community, as evidenced by our first item:
Bill MacPherson, of Native Vibe, will be playing in Nosara, Costa Rica with his new acoustic band “The Medicine Show”:
Every Tuesday night- The Gilded Iguana in Nosara- 7:30 – 10:00pm
Every Thursday night- Blue Dog Surf Club- 8:30 – 11:00pm
Every Saturday night- The Beatle Bar- 8:00 – 10:00pm
Every Sunday night- Cassa Tucan- 8:00 – 10:00pm
The Medicine Show is made up of all acoustic guitars and one mandolin. Conga drums and other percussion instruments round out this 5 piece band. The music is an eclectic mix of jazz, blues, bluegrass/country, acoustic rock and folk rock. The Medicine Show is the hottest music in this small foreign tourist area and has been filling music clubs to capacity. The crowd seems to really dig the mix of music and they dance like crazy. Email junglejoe33040@yahoo.com for more info.
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 March:
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:
Sara Wendt: Here’s Us
CD Review by Mary Gilbert
Romantic and emotional, this six-song CD is full of cleverly written songs sung with powerful feeling. You’ll be left wishing it had twice as many songs!
Random Thoughts
I’ve got to dash this off to Paul so that it makes this month’s deadline. But we’ll have much more next time out. I hope that everyone is well and that you’re getting lots of chances to play music.
Until our next newsletter, stay safe and play well.
And, as always,
Peace.
