Newsletter Vol. 1 # 41 – February 23, 2002

Hello Guitar Gang,

Paul here for another Guitar Noise newsletter. This issue is going out on February 23, 2002. How’s everyone doing this week?

Before I get into it this week I want to make sure that everyone knows this newsletter is not just some tripe compiled by a couple of guys who help run the site. This is not a ploy to get you to return to the site and click on our ads. At the end of every week I sit down and actually think very hard about what to say.

The purpose of this ezine is to share all sorts of information that is timely and informative, and present it to you in a compelling manner.

I’d love to hear how I’m doing so far. Drop me a note at Guitar Noise and give me a grade from A to F – A being excellent and F being a complete failure. Don’t be afraid to take off the gloves.

In this newsletter:

  • News
  • New Guitar and Bass Lessons
  • Acoustic Guitar Tip
  • Recommended Reading
  • CD Reviews
  • New Links
  • Email of the Week

Why not help a fellow musician? You can do them a favor by forwarding them this newsletter.

News and Announcements

Coming Soon
I don’t often announce future plans in this newsletter. I like to be a man of my word and sometimes I get busy and don’t get around to finishing everything I start. Everything seems to be under control at the moment and I think I can safely make this announcement.

Next week we will be adding a new author to our roster. Hans Fahling from Berlin is going to take over writing Jazz lessons. Rather than giving you his first lesson this week I’d like to give you a chance to find out more about this distinguished musician first. This week David has written reviews for both his CD and his upcoming book. The reviews are great so be sure to read them this week. I know you’ll be eagerly anticipating Hans’ debut next week.

The reviews are mentioned later on in this issue.

A Few Ads
How would you like to advertise in this ezine? It might not cost you anything. If you have your own website or ezine we would like to trade links or ads. Get in touch with me to set something up.

Guitar and Bass Lessons

Right on the heels of last week’s article Favorite Songs, Laura is back this week with another lesson. This one was co-written with David. I really enjoy working as editor on articles that are co-written in this format. If you are interested in working together with one of our staff writers please get in touch.

Landslide
The Other Side Column # 12
by Laura Lasley and David Hodge (22 Feb 2002)
One of my favorite songs is Landslide, which was written by Stevie Nicks when she was with Fleetwood Mac. I bought a Fleetwood Mac songbook and attempted to learn the song. I was discouraged by the chords that were written out, and was unsuccessful at deciphering the box code. I begged my teacher to help me with the song. It turns out that this is a very simple song… if you use a capo!

Guitar Tip

This week our tip comes to us courtesy of Guitar Man Acoustic Guitar Tips.

Guitar Stand or Guitar Case

Question:

Some guitarists tell me to leave my guitar in it’s case when I’m not playing it. There are others who say to keep it out on a stand and only put it in the case when I take my guitar somewhere. Personally, I like it out (I play it often). Does it matter? Will keeping my guitar out affect it in a negative way?

Answer:

The best place to keep your guitar is in it’s case. If you want to leave it on a stand, do the following…

  1. Keep the sun away from it, even as the sun passes by a window.
  2. Keep the temperature and humidity of the room around 65-80 deg. F. and 40%-50%.
  3. Make sure it’s in a place where someone won’t accidentally bump it over.
  4. Keep the kids, pets, treadmill repairmen (see below), etc. away from it.
  5. Dust it periodically.

It’s much easier & safer just to keep it in it’s case believe me!

One interesting view I read on the subject was, “If the guitar isn’t easily reachable, I won’t play it.” That statement convinced me a little because I wasn’t playing as much as I should at the time. What I did was, I had a plywood guitar that I didn’t care much about and used it mostly for learning songs on & stuff anyway so I left it out. Yea, I played a little more I guess but one day the treadmill repairman came in and almost knocked it over. Luckily I was there to rescue it.

Gman ( o )==#

For more tips visit Guitar Man Acoustic Guitar Tips.

Recommended Reading

As mentioned already this week we reviewed two worthy submissions from our new author Hans Fahling. Here is a quick snippet from our review of his forthcoming book.

Bebop Improv Concepts
Hans Fahling has come up with a very detailed step-by-step method, which involves the guitarist right from the start. It is up to you to chart your course as Hans guides you through lessons on Jazz Cadences, Chromaticism, and Melodic Development. It’s definitely a workout for both your hands and your brain and, as he points out in his introduction, patience and persistence will be your greatest allies.

Find out more about Hans and how to order his book below:

Hans Fahling Workshops offers free features such as solo transcriptions for jazz guitar and other instruments. It also introduces Live-Video Lessons by internet with guitarist/music educator, Hans Fahling. This incorporates state of the art technology (mostly freeware), enabling convenient, world-wide instruction. Additionally offered are Fahling’s CD releases on Origin Records and his instructional book “Bebop Improv Concepts”.

CD Reviews

The Hans Fahling Quartet – Hamburg: Port of Call
A CD of eleven songs, each one inspired a Patrick Haskett painting. Each song, much like any good painting, deserves to be heard over and over again. Every new “viewing” of a particular piece reveals more depth.

Finisterre – Storybook
Italy’s Finisterre perform a classic Progressive genre, one which you don’t hear often anymore. Complete with flutes and grand themes! Makes me want to learn Italian in order to understand the lyrics.

Miyuki – Mick & I
Miyuki (The One) presents us with her first solo album. Here she plays keyboards and does beautiful vocal harmonies as well as arranging and production. The album’s title comes from the participation of her longtime friend, Mick Taylor =(The Rolling Stones).

Symphony X – Live on the Edge of Forever
Symphony X have been around for quite a while. Not quite a metal band, yet not quite a Prog band either. A nice blend of both and, as their name says, leaning toward the symphony.

New Sites

Is your site listed on Guitar Noise already? If so, that’s great for you. How about linking back to us? We link to thousands of websites that have relevant information and useful tools for musicians. Only a fraction of those sites link back to us. To build our site and strengthen our support we rely on word of mouth – that means links back to our site from you. It’s not necessary to use a graphic as text links and personal referrals work just as well.

  • Chordinversion.com – Chordinversion.com is an unique webtool which generates every inversion out of whatever given chord – sometimes you get chords where you didn’t think they exist! Every chord is hearable in the browser.

Email of the Week

We get a lot of email at Guitar Noise. We love reading it and always take the time to reply. If you ask us a question and we know the answer we will certainly send it to you. If we don’t know the answer to your question we will try and find out and let you know either way. It is the personal touches like this that make our website stand out from the rest.

What are Spanish and Hawaiian guitars? What’s the difference?

David’s Response
Thanks for writing. This is not the most accurate answer – my apologies for that. But I hope it will answer your question.

The term “Spanish guitar” is what we nowadays call a “classical guitar.” The guitar as we know it now was developed in Spain close to three hundred years ago. The classical guitar came to America, and later Hawaii, along with the Spanish explorers and sailors. It was smaller than the typical acoustic model of today and the strings were made from gut (nylon in the present day). Nowadays people use the term “Spanish guitar” and “classical guitar” almost interchangeably, although it more often than not describes the music the guitar is playing rather than the guitar.

The Hawaiian guitar, is just as confusing a term. Believe it or not, Hawaii was apparently the birthplace of the steel string guitar! I can’t confirm this, but there is a great story and you might want to check this out.

Presently, if only to be more confusing, most people think of any guitar that you play on your lap to be a Hawaiian guitar. “Lap steel guitar” is also a typical name for it. Lap steel guitars look like short, stumpy pedal steel guitars but without the pedals.

But in Hawaii, a “Hawaiian guitar” is any guitar played in “slack-key” style. Slack-key is, essentially slide guitar done on an instrument with lowered (hence “slack”) tuning. Traditionally Open G is the tuning of choice.

I hope this helps. I do not profess to be a guitar historian and, like most things in the music world, where you come from often dictates what you know. Post a thread on the Guitar Forums and let’s see how what our readers can add to this knowledge.

Thank you again for the email and I look forward to hearing from you again.

Peace

David Hodge

Just as an addendum to David’s answer, I found some more information by searching our own archive of lessons. Visitors interested in this topic may also be interested in reading History & Origins Of The Slide Guitar In The Blues and A Brief History of the Guitar. We also have lessons dealing with “slack” or “open tunings” on our Tuning page. In addition to all this you can find a single Hawaiian guitar scale on our scales page.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this newsletter. I have certainly enjoyed researching and writing it this week. Please don’t forget to send me a report card to let me know how I am doing.

All the best,

Paul Hackett
Executive Producer