Newsletter Vol. 1 # 55 – June 07, 2002

Hello Guitar Players,

Welcome to the June 7, 2002 issue of Guitar Noise News.

How would you like to hear some new progressive rock? This past week our own columnist A-J Charron put some of his own tracks up on MP3.com. These three songs are what you might call leftover tracks from his upcoming album. A-J had this to say about the songs:

The two with vocals are songs that were to be on the album but were dropped because they didn’t fit the format. The other’s a quick instrumental I wrote and recorded one night. Bear in mind that drums are programmed (I hadn’t gotten the drummer in at that time) and nothing has been engineered. Also, the mix is simply all the tracks put together, very basic. Anyway, it’ll give you an idea of what’s coming up on the album.

Enjoy!

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 GODS

There are guitar gods, and then there are Guitar Gods – the former of whom are those who excel in many areas, but the latter of whom are the elite few who manage to radically re-shape our view of what the guitar can do. Michael Hedges was a revolutionary player, combining pristine classical technique, rhythmic fire, a fresh ear, and a flare all his own to create something that was wholly new in the world of music.

Check out a short interview with Michael Hedges from 1990 courtesy of Tinfoil Music.

Guitar and Bass Lessons

Thematic improvisation II – making something out of nothing
By .MAtt Butler (07 June 2002)
In our last discussion I mentioned that we would be looking at a few ways to generate material to improvise with (or compose, for that matter). One of the ways to do this, which we will be discussing in this article, was influenced by serial compositions such as those by Schoenberg, Webern, etc.

Jazz Comping I: Building a chord voicing vocabulary
By Hans Fahling (06 June 2002)
This series on comping – the skill of accompanying with chord structures – will happen in four installments. We will start in this edition with harmonizing the major scale by building seventh chords on this seven step system.

Double Your Pleasure – A Guide to the Twelve-String Guitar
By David Hodge (05 June 2002)
For those of you who have always wondered, let me take some of the myth and mystery out of this beautiful instrument. If you can play a six string, you can play a twelve. But just as playing an electric guitar requires a different mindset than playing an acoustic, one also needs to develop the right feel for the twelve.

How To Advertise Yourself and Your Band
By Lesa McCabe (07 June 2002)
The “Life Blood” of a band, any band, is advertising!! I’m sure you have heard the saying “Any press, even bad press, is good.” Why? If you can get people to hear about you, say your name, talk about you over coffee, without hurting anyone or committing a crime, this is “good”.

In the last newsletter we had an article about changing strings as well as one about tuning your guitar. As a follow-up I came across two other websites’ take on changing strings and wanted to pass the information on to you:

CHANGING STRINGS LESSON
Learn how to change strings quickly with our simple guide that takes you through the process of changing strings in a simple, step-by-step manner.
http://www.electric-guitar.co.uk/lesson.php?id=21

Acoustic Guitar Tips

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

12 String Guitar Tuner

I’ve searched and searched for this info. in books and on the internet and I just can’t find anything on the 12 string guitar as far as tuning and frequencies and such. Because so many people have requested help in this area, I decided to make my own 12 string guitar tuner. I borrowed the pic from Tip 28 and tuned my Taylor 12 String with a chromatic tuner and recorded the notes into easy to play Real Audio files for you to listen to to tune your 12 string guitar. Just click on the knobs and listen to the pitches.

It’s much the same as a 6 string guitar E A D G B E low to high except the 4 lowest pairs of strings are tuned an octave apart. Be careful, not all 12 string guitars (especially old ones) are designed to be tuned up to this pitch. Some have to be tuned a note or two lower. Caution: There are a few rare cases where you may buy a 12 string guitar and it will be strung differently than this. Make sure the thinner high octave strings are in the same positions as pictured below. In some rare cases they will be switched from a manufacturer.

Gman ( o )==#

Click here for the 12 String Guitar Tuner.

For more tips visit Guitar Man Acoustic Guitar Tips.

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

CD Reviews

Kelly Simonz’s Blind Faith – Sign of the Times
Kelly Simonz is a multi-talented instrumentalist and vocalist who delivers the whole album himself.

Tony MacAlpine – Violent Machine
Speed, but not too much of it, combined with superior melodies, that is essentially what this album is about.

New Sites

The Indie Bible – Promote your music to the world!
Metaltronix Information Exchange – Information on Metaltronix amplifiers including manuals, settings, schematics and message board. We also have information on Lee Jackson amplifiers and his early Marshall mods including manuals and instructional materials.

Also don’t forget:

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.

Email of the Week

Jumbo Frets
What’s the deal with jumbo frets, like the ones on the Jackson’s brand guitar?

David’s Response
I hope that I can explain this right…Jumbo frets are a cheaper way of producing what is known as a “scalloped” fretboard. The idea behind this is to make it so that your fingers don’t have to actually press all the way down onto the neck of the guitar, thus allowing you to have a lighter (and therefore (supposedly) faster) touch. What some guitarists would do is to have the fret board slightly dug out (scalloped) between the frets. Putting slightly higher (or “jumbo”) frets is a lot cheaper than having a scalloped fretboard.

But does it help? When you use a guitar with either a scalloped neck or with jumbo frets, you have got to know that your fretboard is now supersensitive to touch. If your finger is not fretting a note precisely, you are going to be a little shaper or flatter than normal. This may not seem like much (and can be compensated for with practice) if you are playing single note leads. But if you are playing chords, well, you can imagine that it’s not going to sound pretty.

Bottom line, if you are already a guitar virtuoso, perhaps jumbo frets might be a new direction for you. If you’re just starting out, it can cause you a lot of grief and you’ll never know why you always sound slightly off.

I hope that this helps. Thank you again for the email and I look forward to hearing how things are going with you.

Peace

David Hodge 2002-06-07

As you will gather from the above information it has been an active week. If you missed the newsletter last week (there wasn’t one) the four new lessons this week will more than make up for it.

All the best,

Paul Hackett
Executive Producer