Newsletter Vol. 1 # 10 – March 09, 2001

Dear Guitar Player,

Welcome to Guitar Noise News, the weekly update for Guitar Noise. I was reading my favorite email newsletter again this week. In this week’s issue the author had this little story about those online ads that get right in your face:

Just this morning, I was surfing around looking for some information about the new Aerosmith CD. At Aerosmith.com, I was greeted with not only a pop up window, but also an applet pop up window that forced its way to the top of the browser pile. It had a timer proclaiming I had only 30 seconds to act upon this stunning deal for a free pizza.

After finding out about the CD, I split for Amazon.com to see if I could pre-order. Bingo. There was another pop-up window. I went to CNN. There was a pop-up window. I left and hit Camp Chaos. There was another pop-up window. I then left to hit Tabcrawler.com to get the guitar chords for that Foo Fighters song at the beginning of the TV show ED. There I was greeted with not only a pop-up window, but also the request to set Tabcrawler as my HOME. I had to click “no” twice to see this page. Furthermore, every time I returned to the homepage, I got that darn window again.

I felt a little bad about the whole thing because I ran a pop-up ad last week. It got me thinking that there might be a way to run a popular and successful website without annoying people by throwing ads in their faces. This week I would like to open this up for discussion. If you have any creative ideas for running a website without ads or pop ups or whatever, I would like to chat with you.

New lessons

Common Sensei – Guitar Columns
by David Hodge (09 Mar 2001)
Today we are going to examine the myth of the self-taught guitarist. Everyone got help of some kind in order to get to whatever level of playing ability he or she currently enjoys. And in order to reach whatever that next stage of development may be, more help is going to be needed.

Recommended Reading

This week I want to recommend one of the best selling guitar books on the Internet, Experience Hendrix. This book is published by Hal Leonard and contains the entire score for 20 of Jimi Hendrix’s greatest songs. This excellent publication features transcribed parts for lead vocals, backup vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, and all of the various instruments used in each specific recording session. All songs are arranged exactly the way they were recorded.

Experience Hendrix – The Best of Jimi Hendrix
This matching folio features exact transcriptions for every instrument played on 20 of Hendrix’s best: All Along the Watchtower * Angel * Bold as Love * Castles Made of Sand * Dolly Dagger * Fire * Foxey Lady * Hey Joe * Little Wing * Manic Depression * Night Bird Flying * Purple Haze * Red House * Star Spangled Banner * Stone Free * Voodoo Child (Slight Return) * The Wind Cries Mary * more. Includes brief intros to each song.

New Sites

Check out these cool free tunes on MP3.com:

Email of the Week

Recently we received an inspirational letter that is worth reprinting as our email of the week.

Just thought I’d drop this story in your lap and see if you would like to run with it. I think it’s a great inspirational story for all those bedroom studio guitarists, songwriters and instrumentalist out there in guitar-land. It shows that the playing fields in the music industry are leveling out more and more everyday and that you don’t have to be on a big label to be noticed.

On a lark I recorded and released an instrumental guitar CD on mp3.com. Under my nick name Little Bastard.

Before I knew it my cover of “The Grinch” skyrocketed up the charts to the # 1 position on the Instrumental Rock charts. Then before I could blink I was out-charting established artists such as Motley Crue, Tom Petty, Sammy Hagar, Liona Boyd, Neil Schon, Wolf Hoffman and Neil Zaza, (many of my own heroes), on the Guitar Rock and Rock charts. I was also getting more requests and downloads than most of them on a daily basis through mp3.com’s system.

“The Grinch” lasted 3 weeks at #1, day after day, and continues to remain in the top 50 on mp3.com’s instrumental rock charts, even after having been released 2 ½ months ago.

All of this landed me a short feature in the International British guitar magazine “Guitarist” showing how, now anyone can compete with the “big boys”. The article and charting positions of course started the endorsement and independent record label offers pouring in. (No deals have been worked out as of writing this.)

Now the second CD has been released. (as well as a third with almost everything from the first 2, plus “Jam Tracks” with the lead guitar simply removed from the songs, for all those bedroom jammers to have fun with.)

The first single “Untrodden” debuted at #23, reached #3 on the second day and is now sitting comfortably at the #1 position on the Instrumental Rock charts, and # 4 on the Guitar Rock charts.

I KNOW reading such a story when I was struggling through my first CD would have helped my motivation and drive, and I think it’s a great story for every guitar player’s motivation. We all want to make a CD someday, and this proves you can do it from your bedroom, and even succeed with a music recorded on a BOSS BR-8 and an Alesis SR-16.

GuyPaul Thibault
21 Codroy Ave.
Dartmouth
Nova Scotia
CANADA
B2W 3R3

At the moment many of us are awaiting the final verdict on Internet file-sharing and the future of services like Napster. In the short time that remains before MP3 becomes a format that record companies have a hand in, there is a window of opportunity to get your music out. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and opportunity only comes to those who are ready. If you have music already recorded, rather than wooing the record companies with it, you can distribute it yourself on the Internet, quickly build an audience and soon you may have the record companies courting you. This golden chance may not exist once downloading MP3s becomes just another cog in the recording industry’s wheel.

Also this week, some friends of Guitar Noise have done well on MP3.com. The guys at Acoustic Guitar Workshop, who send us articles every month, have already had a song hit the top of the Blues chart. They have also had 2 songs in the Top 20 on the main Blues Chart and 5 songs in the Top 40 of the Acoustic Blues Chart. They also have a Top 10 hit on the Folk chart and a Top 40 in the General Jazz chart. You can check out their songs for free.

Also worth checking out is Gilbert Isbin, also on MP3.com.

Next week we will return to the regular email of the week where we feature one of your questions and its asnswer. We are always thrilled to receive your email so please keep writing.

If you need help playing guitar or bass you can find assistance on our help pages.

That is all for this week’s newsletter. Stay tuned, sometime before the end of the month we will have another bass lesson by Dan Lasley and another Easy Songs for Beginners lesson by David Hodge.

Have another great week, and don’t break too many strings.

Peace,

Paul Hackett
Executive Producer