Newsletter Vol. 1 # 54 – May 25, 2002

Hello Guitar Players,

Welcome to the May 25, 2002 issue of Guitar Noise News.

This week our Ezine takes a step back to cover some fundamental topics, namely how to string your guitar, how to tune it, and how to keep it clean. Sure it may be common sense stuff for a lot of you, but think about how often you see people hauling “weather-beater” guitars around. The advice in this week’s newsletter should help you keep your guitar looking and sounding decent, even if it is a “hand me down.”

In this newsletter:

News
New Guitar 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

GUITAR BREAKTHROUGH

Guitar Breakthrough – guitar tuition software – designed to encourage all guitar players young and old, of all skill levels, beginners to experienced, to become great lead guitarists and solo guitar players – acoustic and electric.

Visit the Guitar Breakthrough website or read our review of the software.

Guitar and Bass Lessons

Stringing and Cleaning Your Guitar
By Alan Horvath (25 May 2002)
I don’t know why anyone would string a guitar by putting the end of the string through the tuner-hole, and then winding and cranking and winding and cranking … Have you ever seen the wad of string that sits around the peg of a guitar strung that way? That is *not* the reason they give you all that extra string.

This next lesson is not a new one. But it does follow the above lesson very nicely if you want to approach things step by step.

How to Tune a Guitar
By Paul Hackett (01 Aug 2000)
Tuning a guitar is the single most important concept for a beginning guitarist to learn. At the same time it is often their first stumbling block. If your guitar is not in tune, you will never sound good. Rather than having your friends tune your guitar for you all the time you should learn how to do it for yourself. This lesson contains instructions for a beginner to tune a 6 string guitar to standard tuning.

Acoustic Guitar Tips

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

Advice On Pulling Stubborn Bridge Pins When Changing Strings

After you loosen the string with enough slack, push the ball end of the string into the bridge wire hole while gently jiggling the bridge pin with your fingers. You’ll feel the ball end go into the guitar body, removing pressure against the bridge pin. The pin should now pull out very easily with your fingers, however if it is still stuck tighter than your fingertips can handle, I bought a very common plastic string winding tool at a local music store that has one end shaped like a U. Put the head of the pin in the U and gently rock it back and the pin comes out.

NOTE: The other part of the plastic tool is a crank so you can turn the tuning pegs fast. I don’t recommend that part. Buttons can unscrew and come off before you know it.

Gman ( o )==#

I have tried many techiques for removing bridge pins – most damaged my bridge. Here is the best method I have found. Keep a short length of smooth twine in your guitar case. Wrap it around the pin and gently pull.

Cheers,

Stuart

For more tips visit Guitar Man Acoustic Guitar Tips.

We want to print your guitar tips here. Please send us your tips with “Guitar Tips” as the subject of your message.

CD Reviews

Jane Blackstone – Natural Habitat NYC
Thankfully, there are singers like Jane Blackstone. Her album, Natural Habitat NYC, is a tribute to the power of good songs and great arrangements. Style and substance meet and the result is breathtaking.

Project 814 – Declassified
A good, honest, effort at music for the sake of music. Project 814 doesn’t endeavor to take you into boy band land or screaming metal land. Instead, it concentrates on delivering good music played in a stunning manner.

Bernie Tormé – Live Sheffield 1983
Although this album was recorded in 1983, it has never been released before. Bernie Tormé started off his career as guitarist for Gillian in the 70’s and early 80’s before joining Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard of OZ.

New Sites

Howard’s Steely Dan guitar tablature and chords – Accurate guitar tab and chords for over 20 Steely Dan songs.
Jimmy Page Online – Includes news, concert information, message board, and photographs.

Email of the Week

“House of the Rising Sun” – What key is it in?
I was trying to put together a guitar solo for House of the Rising Sun. What scales would you use? The chord progression is telling me that the song changes key throughout.

David’s Response
Thanks for writing. House of the Rising Sun is an incredibly interesting song because it flits between all three of the minor scales (natural, harmonic and melodic), never staying in one scale for long. However, it is always in A minor.

You could go a couple of different ways with this. First off, A minor pentatonic (A C D E G) will work over most of the progression. The only thing that could really hurt would be wailing on the G note over the E chord. True, G is a blue note in the E blues scale and the E minor pentatonic so if you use it wisely you may be fine.

What would also work would be to remember that leads are built upon more than just scales. Using chord shapes along “chord substitutions” will give you some very cool lines. For instance, Am is made up of A, C and E. If you kept those notes cycling in a triplet like this:

E - 12 - - - - - - - - - -
B - - - - 13 - - - - - - -
G - - - - - - - 14 - - - -

through the first part of the chord progression, you’d have this:

and that would sound very dynamic.

We’re going to be looking at leads that combine scales and chord shapes a little later on this summer. Be sure to keep check the new articles.

I hope this helps. Thank you once more for the email and I look forward to chatting with you again.

Peace

David Hodge 2002-05-25

If you missed it, here is a link to David’s House of the Rising Sun guitar lesson. In this lesson you will learn two different fingerpicking patterns for House of the Rising Sun. The first is very straightforward, simply arpeggiating the chords in a very easy finger style. The second pattern features slightly more complex picking which includes a bit of a moving bassline as well as using a standard alternating bassline in a few spots. Many people have written to report their success after studying this lesson. If you haven’t tried it before, give it a go this week. And let us know how it goes with you.

All the best,

Paul Hackett
Executive Producer