Newsletter Vol. 2 # 108 – January 23, 2005

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

  • News and Announcements
  • New Articles and Lessons
  • Worth a Look
  • Email of the Week
  • Sunday Songwriter’s Group
  • Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

We’ve got some congratulations to pass around this week!

First off, we at Guitar Noise would like to congratulate Jamie Andreas whose Guitar Principles won a Silver Award in Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s 2004 Player’s Choice Awards in the category of “Instructional Material.” Pick up the February 2005 issue and find out more!

In our second item of news, if you happened to be in Springfield, Ohio a week ago Thursday, you might have gotten a chance to see Tim Bennett, Guitar Noise moderator (known on the boards as “Musefreund”) and Professor of Languages at Wittenberg University, playing his heart out with the Wittenberg Faculty Rock Ensemble and Entourage.

Yes, GN’s beloved Beatlephile made his stage debut and you can read all about it here.

From what I gather, it was a great time and, for those of you who will certainly ask, I did manage to get a “set list” from our Moderator-turned-Performer. Guess what? It was all Beatles tunes!

  • With A Little Help From My Friends
  • Day Tripper
  • I Want To Hold Your Hand
  • She Loves You
  • Paperback Writer
  • Can’t Buy Me Love
  • Two Of Us
  • Blackbird
  • Yesterday
  • Across The Universe
  • Dear Prudence
  • The Long and Winding Road
  • Because
  • Come Together
  • Something
  • Let It Be
  • Revolution
  • While My Guitar Gently Weeps
  • Back In The USSR
  • You Never Give Me Your Money
  • Hey Jude

My apologies if I left out a song or two! And I truly wish I could have been there to listen. Congrats to Tim and his band mates for a very successful and enjoyable show! Maybe this will become an event to put on next year’s calendar!

And speaking of calendars, here’s what’s gone up online here at Guitar Noise since we last chatted:

New Articles And Lessons

Extended Chords
by Tom Serb

Tom tells me that one of his resolutions for 2005 is to write and contribute more articles to Guitar Noise. I think we’ll all agree that this is a terrific gift for our readers. In this lesson, Tom unravels some of the mysteries of chord progressions. We’ll learn about cadences, the natural harmonic series, chord extensions, secondary dominants and much more.

The Secret Of Speed / Finding The “Incredible Lightness”
by Jamie Andreas

Jamie gives us a follow-up to Finding Your Discomfort, showing us how to find the right touch and to lose our tensions. Gaining comfort and ease is just the first step to becoming a smoother, faster player and Jamie provides exercises to help us recognize and develop the ability to play without tension.

Worth A Look

If you’ve read Tom Serb’s latest article and couldn’t help thinking about well he writes and explains things, then you’ll probably be very interested to know that he’s written a terrific book on music theory, specifically for the guitarist. You can find our own Nick Torres’ review of this great tutorial here: Music Theory for Guitarists.

You’ll also find that Tom spends quite a bit of time on our Forum pages answering various questions. So do feel free to drop him a “thank you” note whenever you’re next visiting.

Email Of The Week

My thanks to all of you who are trying to teach me who Maisy Mouse is. Now I feel that my life is a little closer to complete! In the meantime, we’ve gotten a lot of email like these first two since last time.

Loved the lesson for Harvest Moon posted on the Guitar Noise web site. You and Neil both rock.

I look for your lessons every week. You have helped my guitar playing immensely.

The MP3s are a great addition to supplement the tab/music notation (I’m one of those people that need to hear it as well as see it).

Keep up the great lessons (more Neil Young!!)

Glad you liked it and I think it’s a safe bet we’ll be doing more of Neil Young in the future.

David,

Yesterday my wife asked me if I could learn Harvest Moon. She had enjoyed my practice on my new acoustic as I learned Christmas songs and played them over the holidays, but after Christmas I gravitated back to the electrics and blues.

I was surprised when I saw your posting for Harvest Moon (I was looking for something else), I was off work today and found your lesson very easy to follow and very helpful, my wife will be surprised when she gets home from work today.

I have not been playing very long, and at 48 years old this old dog needs help to move quickly. Thank you.

P.S. – I can’t figure out the harmonics…I am trying but it seems difficult.

Sometimes I think everyone connected to the Guitar Noise site has an impeccable sense of timing! As for the harmonics, be sure to check out the Guitar Column, Harmonic Convergence. It should be a good place to get started. Harmonics, like most other aspects of the guitar, can become second nature with practice and patience. I will try to write an article later this winter or spring on how to start incorporating them into more of your playing.

Sunday Songwriters Group

Year Three, Week 12

We’re going to finish up on structural elements by getting incredibly tight on structure. We did this assignment towards the end of last year but in this year’s programme it fits better here. This week it’s all about brevity – saying a lot within a relatively confined structure. So for this week your song should contain only three verses, each no longer than six lines, a chorus of two lines only after each verse. I’ll let you have a bridge but no more than four lines.

This may seem similar to last week’s assignment but places more constrictions on the writer.

Good writing

Bob

Thoughts & Feedback

If you made any New Year’s Resolutions, now is usually about the time where you start forgetting about them! So let me put a little bug (or two) in your ear…

First, if you made or make any resolution to become a better guitarist or musician, be certain to add an amendment to it: Resolve to play with other musicians. I can think of mo better way to both enjoy playing and learn a lot at the same time. As long as you can keep the silly thoughts of competition away, I think you’ll find that there is little as pleasurable in the world as playing music with others.

And to promote this, I’m asking for the assistance of our readers. I’d like everyone to pass along their stories about playing with other musicians. Whether for the first time, or whether it’s something you make a regular part of your musical life, I’d like to hear about it and to share it with everyone at Guitar Noise.

Why? Well, I could get cute and say, “This is my Chinese New Year coming up (the upcoming year is the Year of the Rooster, which is my Chinese zodiac sign) (and, yes, that does mean that I’ll be turning an age that can be evenly divided by twelve!), and I’d like it to be special.” Or I could come up with some clever little slogan like “Tales of People Who Play Well With Others” or something like that. But the truth is that I honestly believe that this is a big part of music that needs to be actively encouraged. I feel that playing with other people brings out the best in you, both as a guitarist/musician and as a person.

So please send me your stories. Use my dhodgeguitar@aol @ddress and please put “story” in the subject header if you can remember to do so. I look forward to reading them and to sharing them with all of you.

Next week we’ll have a new piece by long-time Guitar Noise favorite Gilbert Isbin plus a few surprises and maybe (at last) a few teasers about some important projects that I think you’d like to know about.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace

David