Newsletter Vol. 4 # 5 – June 17, 2011
Greetings,
Welcome to Volume 4, Issue #5 of Guitar Noise News!
In This Issue:
- Greetings, News and Announcements
- Guitar Noise Featured Artist
- Topic of the Month
- New Articles, Lessons, Reviews and Stuff
- Great Advice from Great Teachers
- Events Horizon
- Random Thoughts
Greetings, News and Announcements
Hello and let me first apologize for this latest issue of Guitar Noise News (your free twice-a-month newsletter from Guitar Noise) being a bit late. In fact, I don’t even know what date it’s eventually going to go out, but I’m hoping sometime between now (June 17 as I write this) and June 20.
And while I’d love to regale you with some exciting or exotic tale as to the “whys” of this tardiness, the matter is actually simple – last Thursday, our house got hit by lightning and, lightning being what it is, several things got toasted.
No worries on our behalf, please! Things are fine. Charley and Lily, and all the inhabitants are well and healthy and happy as ever. But our Internet was out until fairly recently. And since it’s been back, there’s been quite a lot to catch up with. So if you’ve sent me an email or a question recently and I’ve not yet replied, my apologies for that and rest assured I will get ’round to answering you in the (hopefully) very near future.
Owing to this lack of Internet access, this will be a relatively brief newsletter. We’ve got a number of new articles and lessons that will be going up online during the next week, so please check either the Guitar Noise homepage, or our Facebook wall for up dates on what’s new.
Two things I can relate to you at the moment:
First is that Paul has taken another couple of huge and positive steps in the ongoing quest for bringing back our Guitar Noise song lessons. It’s been an amazing and educational process going through all this and we’re hoping to have some definitive news to give you very soon.
Second is that I’ve spent a bit of time chatting with Moderator-in-Chief, Nick Torres and he has decided to once again take up his role of mentor and caretaker of the Sunday Songwriters’ Group, or “SSG” as we refer to it on the Guitar Noise Forum boards.
As many of you know, Nick was one of the co-creators / founders of the SSG back in 2002 and I’m very honored to have his back running the show. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have such dedicated and positively-encouraging folks such as Nick and Vic Lewis and Bob Mothers to handle the day-to-day work in running what is probably the Internet’s most helpful songwriting forum. Don’t take my word for it. Come on by the Sunday Songwriters’ Group the next time you can and join in on the fun and creativity.
Guitar Noise Featured Artist
It’s hard to believe that it’s going on sixteen years since Jerry Garcia passed away. And it’s hard to believe it’s taken us this long to make him a Guitar Noise Featured Artist of the Month. Read more about Jerry in Paul’s wonderful bio, which you can find on the Guitar Noise Profile Page.
Topic Of The Month
For some reason, the blues and summer just seem to go together! There may be no cure for the summertime blues, but you can certainly kick off your summer getting your blues mojo working! Just pop on by the Guitar Noise home page and visit our latest “Topic of the Month” up in the top left corner, just below the blue banner and start checking out all the great articles full of tips and information we have for you. Before the summer’s out you’ll be playing the blues like you were born to it!
New Articles, Lessons, Reviews and Stuff
We some new material from two of our favorite contributors this time out. Be sure to check out:
Speed Secrets – Part 1
by Tom Serb
In this brief series of lessons, Tom Serb reveals some of the ways guitarists can learn to play much faster in a relatively short period of time.
Great Advice From Great Teachers
Tom Serb returns this issue with the second of a multi-part lesson on “Speed Secrets.”
Speed Secrets (Part 2) from Tom Serb
Now that we’ve covered the basic mechanics of distance, and how to practice slowly, we’ll move on to eliminating tension. Many guitarists ‘choke up’ their muscles when they need to play a fast run, and the resulting tension creates fatigue. You might be able to squeeze out a quick burst this way, but you won’t be able to sustain it.
One of the keys to staying relaxed when you’re playing fast is using the correct muscles to drive the pick. Picking strings can be done with three different sets of muscles: the fingers, the wrist, or the forearm.
Picking with the fingers alone involves holding the hand stationary, and moving the pick up and down using only the motion of the thumb going down, and the index finger going up. The muscles used to create this picking motion are largely those in the hand and fingers. This approach is most useful for slow, quiet passages, or for very short runs – I’ll use this technique for things like a quick subdivision, where I’m playing 3-5 notes in the space of a half of a beat.
Picking from the wrist keeps the arm stationary, but moves the hand up and down over the strings. When you pick from the wrist, you’re using the larger muscles of the forearm instead of those of the hand and fingers – and bigger muscles don’t get tired as quickly. Wrist picking probably accounts for 85% or more of the picking I do, and it’s probably where you’ll spend most of your time practicing.
Picking from the forearm transfers the workload even farther up, and uses mostly the bicep and triceps muscles to drive the pick. This is done by ‘locking’ the wrist, and making the motion from the elbow. Since these are the largest muscles you can use in picking, they can handle the most sustained effort. This approach is best for tremolo picking, and it’s also useful for sweep picking.
To practice the various techniques and make them habit, it’s best to isolate the picking hand at first. That means you’ll practice while repeating a single note (which can even be an open string if you’d like). This is where you’ll eventually discover your ultimate top speed, as you’ll never be able to pick a complicated run any faster than you’ll be able to move the pick back and forth across a single string.
After you’ve decided what muscles you’ll use for the exercise, concentrate on staying loose. If you find you’re becoming tense, slow down! A useful exercise for developing your speed by staying loose is one I borrowed from the ‘fartlek’ (speed play) training that runners do: you’ll start picking slowly, build up the speed, back off a bit, and repeat. A typical drill for this sort of practice might look like this:
50% speed for 10 seconds
75% speed for 5 seconds
90% speed for 5 seconds
75% speed for 10 seconds
90% speed for 10 seconds
100% speed for 5 seconds
75% speed for 5 seconds
50% speed for 10 seconds
Notice that the drill takes just one minute. After that, shake out your picking arm, relax for a minute or so, and then repeat it. As with slow practice, you want to be focused on your goal: changing speed without increasing the tension in your muscles.
You’ll also want to devote some practice sessions to eliminating tension in your fretting hand. Many players tend to increase the force of their fingers when they increase the speed, and this creates tension that ultimately limits your top speed. Playing fast requires a light touch; your fingers need to dance across the fretboard, not stomp on the strings. Fartlek type drills can be useful for this; just concentrate on using as light a touch as possible without sacrificing your tone – it’s probably a lot less pressure than you think.
Events Horizon
Tom McLaughlin is sitting in with a new band, “Life is Drama” and his first show with them is Saturday, June 18 at the Uptown Tap (24035 W Lockport Street in, Plainfield, Illinois) at 10 PM.
And if you’re in Charlotte, North Carolina on Saturday, June 18, you can catch relatively-new-to-Guitar-Noise member Blakley Leonard be performing at the Tosco Music Party, which will be held at the Knight Theatre of the Levine Center for the Arts. He’Il be one of twenty artists performing for the show which has a Beatles Tribute theme this year. It runs from 7 to 11 PM and there’s only about 200 tickets left, so get them early.
Those of you in England can catch a really fantastic Australian group called The Wishing Well. They will be in Swindon at The Beehive on Sunday, June 19 for an 8 PM show.
And you will find them The Bell in Bath (103 Wolcott Street)on Wednesday, June 22 starting at 9 PM,
Random Thoughts
Earlier I mentioned how lucky we are at Guitar Noise to have so many great teachers and mentors among our contributors and volunteers. It’s always great to hear from people who are out performing and playing and sharing music and both Paul and I are glad to be able to help musicians all over the world in whatever way we can.
It seems like ages ago when Nick helped me run a Guitar Noise “mini-camp” on playing at open mics. We met a lot of terrific people and I’m thrilled to announce that one of the participants, Marilyn Miller, is releasing her first CD in the upcoming weeks. It’s called “Nighthawk” and you can read all about it here.
Both Nick and I (and quite a few other folks) got to play with Marilyn at last summer’s Riverside Jam and I think we’re all quite happy that she has succeeding in achieving her dream of sharing her music with the world.
Until our next newsletter, play well and play often. And stay away from lightning whenever you can!
And, as always,
Peace