Guitar Noise

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #62 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

• News and Announcements
• New Articles and Lessons
• Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
• Podcast Postings
• Event Horizon
• Reviews
• Guitar Noise Staff Picks
• Coming Attractions
• Random Thoughts

News And Announcements

Shortly after putting out the last newsletter, I got an email titled, “Stop complaining about the snow!” which read:

David

I have been following Guitar Noise for nearly a year now, ever since I picked up a guitar. I have learnt a heck of a lot and am having fun. Thanks for your very approachable teaching style.

Give a thought to us down here in West Australia when you are shoveling snow. We have just had the hottest period in 44-years. Every day has been 35 to 42 deg C.

Thanks again

Well, that made me smile and also made me think. People who know me will tell you that I’m not one for complaining about the weather. If for no other reason than if I could do anything about it, I think I’d find a lot of other more important things to do first!

But I definitely do see that I have been griping about it a lot of late and my apologies for that. So, except for this past week’s assignment for the Sunday Songwriters’ Group, I think I’ll put the weather behind me…

So, anyway, here it is the first of March and here’s the latest edition of Guitar Noise News. And it’s going to be a relatively short one. My apologies for that, too! But we’ve got one great new lesson and some others on the way very shortly.

Before we get to that, though, let me mention again that Doug Sparling, a long time contributor of lessons on Celtic and other traditional songs here at Guitar Noise, has a song on a recently released compilation CD, Celtic Shores 2.

And he’s also penned a brand new tune (”Mother and Child Reel”) that will be on a CD to accompany the book, Heart of a Mother, by Sheryl Roush.

So give Doug a big congratulations! He’ll appreciate hearing from you.

Okay, back to what’s new since we last chatted…

New Articles And Lessons

Cinnamon Girl
A Guitar Noise “Songs for Intermediates” Lesson
by David Hodge

It’s been ages it seems since we’ve had an intermediate song lesson. It also seems like it’s been ages since we’ve done something with an alternate tuning. And when was the last time we did a Neil Young song? And don’t let the “intermediate” label put you off – even beginners (with some practice, of course!) can make this song sound sweet…

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

One Finger Guitar Chord Primer, Lesson 8

Welcome back to the One Finger Guitar Chord Primer. In this lesson we’ll learn another two-finger chord shape.

Here’s the new two-finger shape: http://www.maximummusician.com/OneFinger/Gchord.jpg

Play this on strings 1 to 3, on any fret. In fact, you can use most of the shapes in the One Finger series on any starting fret.

Form the new shape by first making the one-finger foundation shape on strings 1-4, any fret. Then, bring in finger two directly onto string 3, one fret up from the first finger. Don’t let finger two touch any strings besides string 3.

This lesson will have to end here. Practice the shapes and chord progressions in the previous lessons of this series. As always, take the time to experiment.

Send your comments to dk_NO_SPAM_@MaximumMusician.com. Remove the no spam bit.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 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.

Podcast Postings

Just in case you’ve been in Internet limbo (or if you live in the same county I do!), we at Guitar Noise are thrilled to announce that we’ve launched a series of Guitar Noise Podcasts. These are thirty-minute lessons with me, that you can download and listen to on your computer at home or even your iPod!.

You can listen to these lessons directly on your computer by clicking on the “Play” icon at the Guitar Noise Blog. You can also download them directly onto your computer or even onto devices such as iPods. In fact, we’d prefer that you do download the lessons in order to help us save some bandwidth!

If you are an iTunes user check this out: From the “Advanced” menu click “Subscribe to Podcast.” Paste the following link http://feeds.feedburner.com/GuitarNoisePodcast into the box and click “OK”. iTunes should automatically download the latest podcast when it’s published.

For everyone else: You don’t need an iPod or iTunes to listen to the lessons. Below the play button is a link that says “Download.” Right-click and “Save as”. You can listen to it on your computer or transfer it to any music player you have.

You can find all the Guitar Noise Podcasts up online at the Guitar Noise Blog.

Our third GN Podcast hit the air last Monday, February 25 and it starts with looking at the differences between strumming various note values, in terms of timing, and try a very simple exercise to help you work out the strumming of quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes and triplets.

We’ll then focus on the “generic” strumming pattern from the end of the second podcast and work up ways of making it more interesting and fun by applying ideas from the first two podcasts (hammer-ons and alternate bass lines) to the pattern.

One thing I do have to apologize for and that’s the fact that in the podcast I refer to an article that’s not yet up online. But it should be before the next week is out, so I thank you for your patience in this matter.

And, as I’ve mentioned before, our first series of Guitar Noise Podcasts will cover strumming - moving step by step from the very basics to alternate bass picking, to adding hammer-ons and pull-offs to spice up simple patterns to crosspicking and partial chord playing to incorporating other playing techniques, such as palm muting and choking, to bring even more excitement to our strumming. Plus we’ll look at how to listen to patterns so that you can readily replicate complicated patterns you hear on recordings. And I’ll try to do my best to walk you through things step by step, just as we do in the many song lessons at Guitar Noise.

Paul and I are hoping, schedule-wise, to post a new Guitar Noise Podcast every other Monday, so look for the next one on Monday, March 10, 2008.

And, as always, feel free to give us your feedback. You can post your thoughts here, at the Blog, or even PM or write me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com

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 July (that is, after the fifteenth), then let me know by the tenth or the twelfth. If you’ve already got a show in August, 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.

Reviews

We’ve no new reviews this time out, but I’m currently working on two that should be up online before we next chat.

Reviews are one of the hardest parts to keep up with here at Guitar Noise. We’re continually getting requests to review things, such as CDs and tutorial books and even the occasional bit of gear, but we don’t have anywhere near enough staff interested in taking the time to write reviews.

So we’d like to ask the Guitar Noise community for help. If you have something you’d like to review – doesn’t matter if it’s 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 at 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. And it’s a great way to let people know what you think about your Christmas presents!

Seriously, please feel free to contact me about any aspect of reviewing. Or anything else concerning writing for Guitar Noise, as you’ll read about in just a moment…

Coming Attractions

Getting Past “Up And Down”
by David Hodge

Way too many guitarists get caught up in visuals. And one of the easiest visual traps to fall into is to think of strumming in terms of “up” and “down.” Fortunately, there is an even simpler way to avoid this snare and it’s as easy as “one, two, three…”

And Don’t Forget

Guitar Noise is a community and it’s our sense of community that sets this website apart from other guitar sites on the Internet. People from all over the world, people who speak and read all sorts of languages and listen to all sorts of music, come here to help each other create music in their lives and to share that music with the rest of the world.

And I’m always amazed at how many people are willing to offer ideas, to share their musical knowledge and expertise. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t take part as well. If you’ve some thought about sharing what you can with your family of Guitar Noise readers, take a look at our submissions guide.

You don’t have to have a huge article. Don’t forget that we also now have the Guitar Noise blog, which nicely accommodates small pieces. So, why not make a New Year’s Resolution to become a bigger part of the Guitar Noise community? Feel free to send along an email to me and try to put “proposal” in the subject line. I’ll be more than happy to chat with you about your ideas and to see whether we can bring them out to the rest of the Guitar Noise community.

Random Thoughts

Once again I find myself apologizing for the brevity of this newsletter. Not to mention for the lack of some items that I fully intended to have ready for this issue. Can’t get into too many details right now, but hopefully all will be cleared up long before we chat again.

So until our next newsletter, play well. Play often. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace