Newsletter Vol. 3 # 74 – September 15, 2008

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #74 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

Greetings, News and Announcements
New Lessons and Articles
Email of the Moment
Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
Podcast Postings
Testimonials Page! A (kind of) New Guitar Noise Feature
Reviews
Random Thoughts

Greetings, News and Announcements

Hello and welcome to the September 15, 2008 edition of Guitar Noise News. How does that old joke go? I just flew in from New York and, boy, are my arms tired!

Okay, that joke certainly is tired. It’s somewhat apropos, though, as I just got home three hours ago from Nashville, Tennessee. So, as you might guess, I’ll yet again a little behind on things. While I’m writing this newsletter, I’m also mixing down the Guitar Noise Podcast that’s due to go online tomorrow. Plus, I’m waiting on word from Paul who tells me one of the components of one of the lessons I sent him before leaving on Tuesday night is apparently missing. Hopefully, we’ll get this all sorted out at some point in the next few hours. Wish us luck,

You’ll be reading a lot about this trip to Nashville in the weeks to come here at Guitar Noise. It was a lot of fun and we did a lot of things and met a lot of people that I’m sure you’d be interested in meeting and knowing yourself. And before you give me the “Oh, Nashville – that’s just country music,” line that everyone says, I’ll tell you nothing could be further from the truth. But we’ll explore that notion, as well as the current Nashville music scene, in great detail in the upcoming weeks.

Email of the Moment

Hello there,

I have just visited your web site, www.guitarnoise.com, and I have a few questions regarding the site. Firstly however let me say how brilliant the site is and how absolutely wonderfully written the articles are. I am actually a beginner guitar player and have purchased two guitars to learn on – an LP and a Yamaha ERG 121 but that’s neither here nor there.

I have purchased x amount of dvd’s to learn on and signed up to Jamorama on the net which is really quite good and by all accounts I am learning and can play a couple of songs but what I wanted to ask is – is Guitar Noise free? As in for Academic progression or reference as this is what it says in your disclaimer. The reason I ask is because I have dedicated time to learning the guitar and generally play as much as possible and between books dvd’s purchased and online courses the theory I have read from your site actually makes sense to me, now that I have visited the site I really don’t wish to be left out of future lessons so if there is a subscription can I please have the details. Also some details on the mission of the site would be cool.

Thank you,

Hello and thank you for writing.

Thank you as well for your kind words for Guitar Noise. This website is 100% free. You won’t be left out of any future lessons; the newest ones are always posted on the home page. You can also keep track of what’s new by signing up for Guitar Noise News, our twice-a-month free newsletter.

While Guitar Noise is free, you can certainly help to keep us up and running. One of the best ways is to visit our sponsors and affiliates. You can read about that aspect of our website on any page of the Guitar Noise Forums.

If you’d prefer to contribute directly to Guitar Noise, we also have a “tip jar,” which you can find here.

Regardless of which method you decide to use, we at Guitar Noise thank you for thinking about us. For over ten years, and I think I can say thiswithout coming across as bragging, Guitar Noise has been one of the premiere guitar tutorial websites. Our lessons are often described as being far and away better than many of those you have to pay for. Hopefully we’ll be able to be doing this for decades to come, and just like anyone starting out learning the guitar we certainly can use some help along the way. Thank you
for caring about that.

And I almost forgot – if you’re interested in our “mission statement,” or simply want to know more about Guitar Noise, you can always go here.

I hope this answers your questions. If not, feel free to write again!

Peace

Alright, then! Are we ready to check out what’s new here at Guitar Noise since our last newsletter? Just what has been going on while I’ve been away? Glad you asked:

New Lessons and Articles

Beyond Up and Down
Part 1 – “Sock Puppets”
by David Hodge

Guitarists nowadays think of rhythm in terms of “up” and “down,” the motions of strumming, instead of thinking of rhythm in much simpler terms – numbers and counting. In this, the first of a series of four articles, we begin to hone our strumming techniques so that any rhythmic pattern will be within our grasp.

Combining The Major Scale With The Minor Pentatonic
Turning Scales into Solos (Part 4)
by David Hodge

Last time out we sampled the different flavors the major and minor pentatonic scales offered us as tools for soloing over blues progressions. While each had its owns merits, we can create an even more tasteful (not to mention useful) solo when we combine the major scale with the blue note elements of its own minor pentatonic. Come listen!

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

A Bit About Learning Songs

Here are some thoughts about which songs to learn. If you’re a beginner, the chord progressions and songs you may be playing now are only a glimpse of what you will be able to play if you stick with it. You’ll want to have a large repertoire of different kinds of songs to help you grow as a musician.

Having a large repertoire can invigorate your playing, as can studying jazz. Jazz is all about playing things in a new way, and in a way that encourages individual expression. Mark Levine’s excellent Jazz Theory book drives this point home, and offers many, many ways of adding variety to playing the changes. There’s an entire section devoted to chord substitution. This section shows how to swap the V for ii, ii for V, precede the I with its V, and many other approaches for substitutions.

How many changes and songs to play?

Edwin Gordon, the great music educator, says learning as many songs as possible is important to building true musicianship. The more variations you can get in your ear, the more possibilities you can hear. So, the more interesting your playing will be to you and others.

It’s interesting when you’re playing along on one song that you half remember, and another song intrudes, and you start playing the two songs combined. This shows one way in which knowing lots of songs can reinforce your performance and fill in memory gaps.

Which changes to play?

Which songs and chord progressions should we play? Obviously, if you’re in a band you need to learn what the band is going to perform. But what do you do when you’re able to choose which tunes you’ll perform?

I choose tunes I like and that swing. There may be lots of songs I like that no one will remember ten years from now, but if learning these tunes keeps me interested in playing, I’ll go with the favorite tunes.

It is helpful to reach beyond yourself, and learn a tune you wouldn’t normally choose to learn. A good time to select such a tune is when you’ve just finished learning a tune you do like. You’re feeling great that you can play a complex tune you’ve loved to listen to for years, and you’re feeling like you could learn anything. Choose a tune that makes you stretch as a musician. You may surprise yourself by becoming interested in it, and even developing an affection for it. Start with a tune that grabs you, a song you can make sound good.

Here are some tips for picking out a song to build your skills with:

Pick a song you like
Pick a song that has changes that can be found in many songs. When you

do this, you’re learning many songs for the price of learning one.

How do you know if a song’s chord changes are found in lots of other tunes? There are lots of books and web sites that can answer this. If you look on the web, your search term would be “popular chord progression.” Doing a little research will help you dig up chord progressions that appear over and over in many tunes.

Thanks for reading.

Darrin Koltow

Podcast Postings

Guitar Noise Podcast #17 – “Streets of Laredo” (Part 2)

Hello to all!

Let’s get right on with our work with the traditional song, “Streets of Laredo,” one that some of you may recognize from Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings IV.” In this Guitar Noise Podcast, we’ll look at creating walking bass lines from D to G chords. We’ll also start to tackle the “chorus” section of this song.

Paul and I try to post a new Guitar Noise Podcast every other Monday, so look for the next one this Monday, September 29, 2008.

Testimonials Page – A (kind of) New Guitar Noise Feature

An interesting thing about all the recent interest in donating to Guitar Noise has been a reworking of the old “Testimonials” page. Between Paul and I, there is almost not a day goes by without one of us getting an email of thanks for the Guitar Noise website. And it only makes sense to share these “thank you notes” with you, our Guitar Noise community. After all, you’re a huge part of what makes this whole website work.

We obviously can’t post each single note, so we’re choosing a few each month and posting them up on our newly formatted “Testimonials” page.

It’s very cool to read any of the emails we get and think “how cool to be helping make all this possible!”

Reviews

John Scott Evans – Above the Sun
CD Review by Alan Green

Wonderful melodic finger style guitar from someone who’s played with artists as diverse as Chet Atkins and the Atlanta Chamber Orchestra.

Random Thoughts

Maybe now would be a good time for that joke. Boy, are my arms tired!

Not only my arms but just about everything else. And I’ve got a full slate of students, beginning at ten tomorrow morning. So, as much as I’d like to stay and chat, I think I’d better get a bit of sleep. We’ll catch up more next time.

Until our next newsletter, play well. Play often. Stay safe.

And, as always…

Peace