Newsletter Vol. 4 # 8 – August 1, 2011
Greetings,
Welcome to Volume 4, Issue #8 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
- Spotlight on the Sunday Songwriters Group
- Events Horizon
- Random Thoughts
Greetings, News and Announcements
Hello and welcome to the August 1 edition of Guitar Noise News (your free twice-a-month newsletter from Guitar Noise).
I’d like to kick off this newsletter with a note from Lars Kolberg. Lars has been part of the Guitar Noise community for quite some time (I think he started posting regularly on the forums in late 2005 or so) and while he’s not been active of late, he did drop by to let us know about his latest news. He’s been playing in a “punk / bluegrass” band (he’s the tall guy with the trombone, violin and harmonica) called “Flea Market” and it turns out that the band is going to be playing a week of shows here along the East Coast of the US. Here’s a bit of the promotional material:
Flea Market – Norway’s finest Bluegrass punk
“Love songs for lumberjacks, bluegrass for punk rockers, serenades for sailors, drinking songs for desperate nights; love, insanity, murder, natural disaster and three-legged dogs are some of the themes covered in the Flea Market songbook, blending shadows from the Norwegian forest with darkness from the margins of America. When civilization collapses and mankind once again huddles around communal bonfires, the songs of Flea Market will rise up through the night… ”
And this is the complete tour list for “American Splendor Tour 2011:”
August 5 – NYC, NY – Banjo Jim’s
August 6 – Brookyn, NY – Hank’s Saloon
August 7 – Baltimore, MD – Free Farm
August 8 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fire
August 9 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
August 10 – Wilmington, DE – Mojo 13
August 11 – Chapel Hill, NC – The Cave
August 12 – Richmond, VA – The Camel
August 13 – Philadelphia, PA – Raven Lounge
Now, I know I’m an unabashed and chronic sentimentalist, but I cant’ help thinking what a great thing it is for these guys to be doing this small tour of small clubs, far from home and undoubtedly in front of a relatively small handful of strangers. Especially in light of recent events in their home country (Lars is from Oslo, Norway).
And maybe that is the point – that an incredibly intense moment sharing music and dreams can make any evening, any day, any life a lot better. So, if you can, get out to see Flea Market if they happen to be in your neck of the woods. Or just get out of the house and away from the computer and connect with whatever live music you may happen to find close by. At the heart of it all, music is about communication and about sharing emotions with one another. And heaven knows we can all use that whatever chance we can get.
In other news, and I don’t know where the time has gone, but it seems that on Tuesday, August 5,The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Art of Songwriting will be arriving in bookstores, both online and in the physical world. This is the first book I’ve co-written, my partner being the extremely talented (and Grammy nominated) Casey Kelly. Any of you who’ve seen George Strait in concert will be familiar with Casey as his song, “The Cowboy Rides Away,” is usually George’s closing number. Casey has also written hit songs for Kenny Rogers and Dottie West and Tanya Tucker, among many others. We put in a lot of time and effort into this songwriting tutorial and I hope that those of you who might happen to buy it find it worth you while.
As always, you can email me with any questions you may have about the book at [email protected]
Guitar Noise Featured Artist
Guitar Noise’s Featured Artist for the month of July is Jeff Healey, a remarkable blues-rock artist whose unique style of playing the guitar flat across his lap won him many admirers. Read all about him on the Guitar Noise Profile Page.
Topic of the Month
A lot of people pick up the guitar in order to play and sing songs with other people. Singing is something that anyone can learn to do. Much like learning guitar, it’s a physical activity that you can improve with the right practice.
And there are many articles and lessons here at Guitar Noise to help you get started on singing. These lessons look at singing and playing guitar at the same time. Not only is this something you can do, but with proper practice, you can even learn to do it quite well.
Visit the Guitar Noise home page and check out all the lessons and articles you’ll find about singing (both while playing the guitar and without) by clicking on the latest “Topic of the Month” up at the top of the middle of the home page, just below the blue banner.
New Articles, Lessons, Reviews and Stuff
Owing to a number of summer activities, some of these new articles may not be up online on August 1, try as we might to make that so. If you find one that’s not, don’t panic! Just give us a day or two and you should find it posted up and ready to read!
Making A Living As A Guitar Teacher – Part 3
by Alan Green
Alan has been teaching guitar full-time for two years now. In his latest blog post he reveals more about what he has learned in that time.
Speed Secrets – PART 3
by Tom Serb
There are all sorts of barriers to playing fast. In his latest post Tom shares some practice tips for developing speed in all of your fingers.
Great Advice From Great Teachers
Let’s get back to Tom Serb’s multi-part series on “Speed Secrets:”
Speed Secrets – Part 4
Next we’ll up the difficulty level by changing strings. You’ll do the same exercises, but change strings in a regular pattern, moving right across the fretboard. Here’s a sample drill using fingers 1 and 3 at the fifth fret, changing strings every four beats (each stroke is an eighth note):
-5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7- -----------------5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7- ---------------------------------5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7- etc.
Repeat this drill with each finger combination. Your top speed will be slightly less than it was practicing on a single string, but over time the difference won’t be a noticeable one.
With this much technique development under your belt, you can turn to scale runs. The difference between the simple drills shown above and most scale patterns is the number of notes on a string – if there are three notes, your hand will end up in the wrong place to pick the next note. Here’s a C major scale in 7th position:
----------------------------------7-8- ---------------------------8-10------ --------------------7-9-10---------- -------------7-9-10----------------- ------7-8-10------------------------ -8-10-------------------------------
Strive for accuracy as you play. Remember everything we’ve covered so far, and focus on keeping your motions as small as possible in both hands, and stay relaxed.
As you played through that exercise, you’ll find your top speed is not as fast as it was with the earlier drills. That’s partly due to more complex fretting hand movements, but it’s also a result of your pick being in the wrong place for the next stroke – if you start with a downstroke, the third note on the fifth string will be a downstroke – which means you’ll now have to move PAST the fourth string in order to maintain alternate picking. We can eliminate this motion through economy picking, but before we get there I’ll digress into string skipping; economy picking takes some effort to develop, and you’ll need string skipping in your bag of tricks to play most solos.
Many solos or runs, or at least some of the more interesting ones, have notes on non-adjacent strings. You’ll need to avoid the string(s) in between, and that presents a couple of new challenges.
When you’re skipping strings, your hands have to cover a greater distance between notes. As a result, your top speed for string skipping will be slightly less than going full out on a scale run, but with practice the difference can become manageable.
To practice string skipping, I like to alternate scale runs with a fixed note, called a pedal point. This example uses a 1st string pedal G note on an open position C scale – the scale note is a down stroke, the first string is always an upstroke:
---3---3---3---3---3---3---3----3---3---3---3---3---- -------------------------0---1---0--------------------------- -----------------0---2---------------2---0------------------ -----0---2---3-------------------------------3---2---0---- -3----------------------------------------------------------3- ----------------------------------------------------------------
For a drill that’s a little tougher, make the skip to an inside string. This exercise is an open G scale against a 2nd string D pedal. Put your third finger on the D note – you’ll need your fourth finger free to hit the F# on the fourth string:
- ---3---3----3----3----3----3---3- -----------------------------0------ -----------------0----2----4-------- -----0---2----3--------------------- -3------------------------------------- etc
Ok, back to solving the problem of the pick being out of position for the next note. A faster approach to runs like this is to shift to economy, or directional picking. Here ‘economy’ refers to economy of motion – and ‘directional’ is how you achieve it: if your pick is moving in the direction of the next note you’ll need to play, you simply continue in that direction, playing two notes in a row with the same stroke. I’d advise you not to start working on this until you’re very comfortable with alternate picking – otherwise you’ll find it more confusing, and perhaps counter-productive.
Here’s the same C major scale done with economy picking. The ‘D’ and ‘U’ notations show how your pick is moving:
D U D U D D U D D U D D U D U --------------------------------7-8- ---------------------------8-10----- --------------------7-9-10---------- -------------7-9-10----------------- ------7-8-10------------------------ -8-10-------------------------------
Finally, we come to sweep picking. Sweep picking is basically a slow-motion strum, with all downstrokes or upstrokes across the strings. If more than one note is sounded on a string, the second (and any additional) notes are sounded by hammer-ons and pull-offs. The trick to sweeping well is deadening the strings that aren’t needed. As this technique requires a bit more explanation, I’d suggest checking out some of the instruction videos available for it on YouTube and other websites – but I’d hold off until you’ve gotten the above techniques down.
Spotlight on the Sunday Songwriters’ Group
August, for me anyway, usually signals the annual Riverside Jam – a musical get together that was started back in August 2000 by Dan and Laura Lasley. You can read about that very first one at either of these two articles:
Over the years, I’ve gotten to meet a number of Guitar Noise folks at Riverside Jams, from GN founder, Paul Hackett, to Nick Torres to Tim (“Musenfreund”) Bennett. And the Riverside Jams have also featured some great music written by members of the SSG.
One of those songs, “One By One,” happens to also be one of the very first SSG collaborative effort, with me providing melody and music to a hauntingly poignant lyric that Nick had written as an SSG assignment. This song has probably gotten played at almost every Riverside Jam since 2003 and with good reason. It’s a powerful song that works well both as an individual showcase and as an ensemble piece. And Vic Lewis has managed to talk me into making it the Auguste Spotlight on SSG feature for the month of August. That means you get two interviews – one with Nick and one with myself – as well as a couple of recordings of the song – one as a solo (albeit multi-tracked) SSG demo and one where it gets the full Riverside Jam treatment.
And you can find all that here on the blog.
Events Horizion
Tom Hess is playing with Rhapsody of Fire at a number of festivals in Europe this month. You’ll find him at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Wacken, Germany on Thursday, August 4 and then in Szekesfehervar, Hungary at the Fezen Festival on Saturday, August 6. And the following Friday, August 12, all you lovers of fast metal guitar in England can catch him at Bloodstock, taking place in Derby.
Australian band, The Wishing Well is also starting August with a number of gigs in Germany. They’ll be at the Waschlaus in Potsdam on Tuesday, August 2, and then in Bremen at the Burgerhaus Weserterrassen on Saturday, August 6 for an 8 PM show. From there they go on to the Cafe Live in Alfeld for a show on Sunday, August 7.
And then they, too, are off to England to perform at the Croperdy Folk Festival Fringein Banbury at the Brase Nose Arms on Station Road. That show will be on Friday, August 12.
As mentioned at the start of this newsletter, Lars Kolberg and Flea Market, Norway’s finest punk/bluegrass band, will be making a short summer tour along the East Coast of the United States. And in case you didn’t catch the dates earlier, you can find the band at the following dates, cities and venues:
Friday, August 5 – New York City, NY – Banjo Jim’s
Saturday, August 6 – Brooklyn, NY – Hank’s Saloon
Sunday, August 7 – Baltimore, MD – Free Farm
Monday, August 8 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fire
Tuesday, August 9 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
Wednesday, August 10 – Wilmington, DE – Mojo 13
Thursday, August 11 – Chapel Hill, NC – The Cave
Friday, August 12 – Richmond, VA – The Camel
Saturday, August 13 – Philadelphia, PA – Raven Lounge
I know there are a lot of Guitar Noise folks in the general area of most of these shows so, please, do yourself a favor and get out to one if it’s at all possible. You’ll have a great time and you’ll also get the chance to make some wonderful new friends.
Saturday, August 12 is going to be a busy day as Doug James and his band Southern Roots will be playing a show at the Colonial Heights Moose Lodge (170 Moose Lane in Colonial Heights, VA) starting at 8 PM. They’re always a great live show so catch them if you can.
And Lee Hodge and his band, Doesn’t Madder, will be rocking the houseat the Do Drop In, located at 6224 Highway 421 South in Mountain City, Tennessee this coming Friday and Saturday, August 5th & 6th. Shows start at 9:00pm.
Random Thoughts
And along the lines that opened this newsletter, I’d also like to share an email I got recently:
Hi David,
I think I have probably written you previously along the same lines, in fact, but I believe the work that you do needs to be recognized and lauded, particularly as it applies to some of the messages presented in this month’s newsletter as it pertains to teaching guitar lessons. And let’s face it, there’s an “unwritten” responsibility when taking young, impressionable minds under our wing, and it probably applies even more where music is concerned. Music being that bastion of rebellion and escapism that all of us have felt at one time or another…
David, I do not believe I am speaking out of turn, as I am married to a high school teacher – one of the real good ones, one who will stay up late dreaming of ways of making that difference in one kid’s life, finding a unique way to connect, to reach them, to illuminate the possibilities….and music teachers – even part-timers, knowingly or not – take on this same, critically important responsibility.
Your notes in this month’s edition (from Alan Green) touch on a really big subject that I hope resonates with teachers, students, and potential music teachers alike. Their day is spent not just teaching/learning the notes on the fretboard, but navigating the perils of growing up, and in some cases, a big responsibility, indeed.
Myself, I have had at least three music teachers that have taught me much more than musical theory and practice could provide.
Cheers,
Again it may be the sentimentalist in me, but I can’t help thinking that all of us, whether as guitarists and musicians or as music teachers or simply just as people going through our day to day lives, play a much more active role in the lives of others than we may truly imagine. The smile you happen to give someone who’s not having a good day, the patient acceptance that perhaps you might have to wait longer than you’d planned on, the simple act of truly listening to someone instead of waiting out a chance to speak your opinions on a topic, can mean the world to that person with whom you happen to be sharing that particular time and space. How you act and interact with others is constantly being used, and often repeated, by people you may not even know.
That may seem like a lot of responsibility, but it’s essentially two things – common sense and common courtesy. The sad part of both is that they are the constant joke where the punchline is something along the lines that they are no longer common.
But every little thing you do, pardon the obvious pun, is, or at least can be, magic to someone else. Especially when it comes to teaching and being a role model. Just think about playing guitar. While all of us certainly want to somehow one day be on a playing level remotely close to that of our most revered guitar idols (“remotely close” meaning somewhere in the same general solar system, give or take a couple of several hundreds of thousands of miles), we truly could find ourselves being very happy to reach a level of expertise where we didn’t fret about making mistakes in timing or technique. Achieving the level of someone who’s performing in a band night after night would be huge for most of us.
But all that takes (“all” being quite an understatement) is playing every night. Night after night, day after day, it’s all about showing up and doing whatever it is you’re supposed to do.
Likewise, making the world a better place simply a matter of practice, of showing up every day and doing little beyond treating whomever meet with the same dignity and grace you’d like to be shown. That’s hardly a Herculean task. At least not when one looks at it in these simple terms.
And, for most of us, the world could certainly stand to be a lot simpler.
Until our next newsletter, play well and play often. And for those of you going out and about, my best wishes for safe travel.
And, as always,
Peace