Guitar Noise

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #94 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

• Greetings, News and Announcements
• Topic of the Month and Featured Artist
• Coming Attractions
• This Day (or Approximately) In (GN) History
• Random Thoughts

Greetings, News and Announcements

Hello and welcome to the July 15 issue of Guitar Noise News, your free twice-a-month newsletter from Guitar Noise (www.guitarnoise.com).

There’s a lot going on but not so much in the way of news. Charley asked me to pass the following article along to you, but I suspect this is old news: Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds

Meanwhile, summer is moving too quickly, as summer tends to do. Do the winter months fly by in the Southern Hemisphere? Can’t help but wonder…

But part of summer is summer vacation, and we’re going to be giving Darrin a well-deserved break for this newsletter. I hadn’t realized it, but he’s written something for each of the ninety-three newsletter since July of 2005. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s time we gave him a little time off?

Because things happen fairly regularly at Guitar Noise, particularly with the newsletter and on the forum pages, it’s easy to forget that everyone involved is volunteering his or her time. Personally, I’m glad to know that our Forum members (and moderators), as well as our contributing writers don’t spend their days sitting in front of the computer. Hopefully, they are getting in some time playing guitar.

Topic of the Month

“Music Theory” is the Topic of the Month for July. Did you know that there are over thirty-five articles on various aspects of music theory here at Guitar Noise? They range from basic introductory overviews, such as “The Musical Genome Theory” trilogy of lessons to articles on specific topics, such as extended and altered chords.

So if you’d like to delve more into the wild and wonderful world of Music Theory, bop on over to the home page and click on the “Theory Without Tears” box up at the top left (just under the banner) and help yourself to the contributions many talented writers and teachers have made to Guitar Noise over the years.

And feel free to post an email to me if there’s a particular topic you’d like to see given “Topic of the Month” status at some point in the future.

And, in case you missed it last time out, Michael Jackson is the Guitar Noise Featured Artist this month. You can read about that on our artist profiles page.

New Lessons and Articles

How to Improve Your Sweep Picking
by Mike Philippov

Sweep picking isn’t easy. But if you look at the pitfalls you’re likely to run into, that can go a long way toward making this technique work for you. Mike Philippov examines the aspects of sweep picking that most players stumble on and provides some very helpful practice techniques.

Coming Attractions

We are constantly working on new lessons of all sorts here at Guitar Noise. Just to keep you updated as to what’s coming along in the pipeline, the following lessons are still on track for being posted up online in the next few months, although not necessarily in the order in which I’ve written them!

My apologies that the book is taking precedence over the lessons at this point, but new material will be coming online at Guitar Noise before you know it. Look for a lot of new material after the first of August.

Coming up in the very near future will be a lesson called “Subdivide and Conquer” one of the first of the long awaited sequels to “Sock Puppets” (which is, in turn the kind of sequel to “The Pattern Trap”). In this new lesson we’ll look at strumming in terms of sixteenth notes, as well as tied and dotted notes, and show how you can easily suss out a “down and up” pattern based on written music notation, even if you can’t read notes. As a bonus, we’ll use the verse and chorus patterns from the Jack Johnson’s song “Taylor” for our examples.

And in honor of the finches flocking to the birdfeeder here at my home, we’ll also have a lesson on Coldplay’s “Yellow” and, just to show I learned something from June’s “Topic of the Month” (Alternate and Open Tunings), I’ve come up with an arrangement for Mark Knopfler’s “Sailing to Philadelphia” in EADGBD tuning that I think you’ll enjoy.

And there’s more coming to Guitar Noise as well:

Easy Songs for Beginners: Sweet Home Alabama, Ziggy Stardust, Mister Bojangles, Banana Pancakes, Peace Train, Just Like Heaven

Songs for Intermediates: Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, If I Had A Boat, Homeward Bound, Hello In There, Fire and Rain

Plus more on the “Turning Scales into Solos” and “Beyond Up and Down” series, not to mention our new “Music Meccas” series, as well as more of our “Chord Melody Song Arrangements,” which will deal with pop and rock songs, like Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” or old standards like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and maybe even a surf tune, such as the Ventures’ classic “Walk Don’t Run.”

This Day (or Approximately) In (Guitar Noise) History

I had to do a little checking, but this week is another Guitar Noise anniversary – somewhere around July 15, 2003, we posted our first (and only!) video lesson! If you’ve ever wanted to see what Nick Torres’ fingers looked like, here’s your chance! Plus we also had a great article on replacing pickups, courtesy of Bill Cozzo:

My Journey Into The World Of Replacement Pickups
Part one – The Definition of Tone
by Bill Cozzo

If you’re like me, you probably think that changing the pickups on your guitar is a thing best left to the pros. But it doesn’t have to be. Bill Cozzo brings the same style that defines his reviews to help us get through the first step in choosing a new set of pickups – deciding what we want in the first place! And then knowing how to get what tone we desire from our guitar.

Tap, Hammer On, Pull Off, Repeat
by Nick Torres

Hold on to your hats! Don’t try this at home! Amaze your friends and family! Have I missed anything? Nick Torres literally brings another new dimension to Guitar Noise with this lesson on Eruption by Van Halen. Now you can WATCH how to tap, hammer on and pull off while you read a wonderfully enlightening piece on this mysterious combination of techniques.

Random Thoughts

And with that, we’ll see on August 1. I’ll actually be on the road then, but as soon as I hit home on August 3, watch for a lot of new stuff here at Guitar Noise.

Until then, stay safe. Play well and play often.

And, as always…

Peace