Newsletter Vol. 2 # 112 – February 20, 2005

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

  • News and Announcements
  • New Articles and Lessons
  • Email of the Week / Worth A Look
  • Hot Off The Press (Releases)
  • Forum News
  • Sunday Songwriter’s Group
  • Reviews
  • Thoughts and Feedback

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

First off, a hearty thank you to all of you who’ve written with congratulations for my upcoming lesson in Acoustic Guitar Magazine. As soon as we can give you a photo of the cover and a link to their online site, rest assured we will!

I’d also like to thank a number of our readers in Europe who have taken the time to write me about their CD projects. We will be posting reviews of a number of these within the next few weeks. We’ve got some very talented folks out there! And I’m hoping that many of you talented individuals will take a peek at today’s item in the “Forum News” section as you may have the chance to use your talents to help out in a very worthwhile way.

And yet another thank you to those of you who have made the effort to write me with your stories and tips on playing with others. As you’ll see, we’ve started to post some of these and I’m truly looking forward to putting more online as they come in. Please keep them coming! Each story has been a joy for me to read and I believe that many of our readers will find them to be inspirational in their own lives.

In fact, let’s get right to it, shall we? Here’s what’s new this week at Guitar Noise:

New Articles And Lessons

Making Music – Part One
Tales of Playing Well With Others from our Guitar Noise Readers
Compiled and edited by David Hodge

Sharing music is what Guitar Noise is all about and what better way to do so than to help give a little encouragement to someone? Here are a few stories and tips from Nick Torres and three other Guitar Noise readers from around the world.

Email Of The Week / Worth A Look

This week’s question gives me a chance to make mention of some old pieces, so I thought, “Why not combine our “email of the week” with the “worth a look” section?”

It’s just amazing. You have helped me learn about modes where as nobody else could. I recently learned from your page: A La Modal but I have a tough question. How in the world are you playing the rhythm and the melody notes at the same time in MP3 Example One? I can play the A,D,G,D (chords) with no problem but I don’t see how it’s possible to play the lead (you say bass line in the mp3) at the same time. Are there two guitars playing?

I sure look forward to hearing from you! I have been in a guitar rut for many years and just about gave up. Also, if you have a moment, can point me in the right direction to learn the ins and outs of putting chord progressions together?

Thanks for writing and thank you as well for your extremely kind words concerning my article on modes. I’m glad that I’ve been able to be of some help to you.

To answer your question, I am playing two separate guitar parts in those examples. The point was for people to be able to hear how the modes worked along with the rhythm of the guitar.

To answer your second question, we’ve quite a few articles here at Guitar Noise that can help you learn some of the conventions of putting chord progressions together. I’d like to suggest you start with A Before E and I’ll be more than happy to suggest others as well. Most of them you’ll find on the Songwriting page but others might be found in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect, like Unearthing The Structure or Minor Progress, which can be found on the Guitar Column page.

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

Peace

Hot Off The Press (Releases)

From Tim in Toronto, the very same gentleman who pretty much single-handedly coordinated last year’s Guitar Noise Seminar there, comes this exciting bit of news, courtesy of Randy Finney, President & Founder of the Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association:

The following is being presented by the Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association (more info below):

Tommy Emmanuel All-day Workshop

Date: Sunday, April 24, 2005

Time: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Doors open at 9:30 a.m.)

Location: North York Civic Centre – Members Lounge (5140 Yonge Street – Mel Lastman Square-North York Centre Subway. This is an excellent space. It’s large and the layout is such that it will allow Tommy to move freely and no one will feel like they are at the back of the room.)

Cost: $105 (your ticket price breaks down like this: $100 goes to Tommy and the other $5 is for administrative and technical costs. Space rental is complimentary through the sponsorship of City Councillor Karen Stintz)

Other Details: Maximum seating is 50. Bring your guitar.

Make cheque payable to: Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association

Mail to:
Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association
c/o Randy Finney
460 Fairlawn Ave.
Toronto, ON M5M 1V1

About the Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar Association

The TFGA is a non profit association dedicated to building a strong and vibrant Fingerstyle Guitar scene in the GTA. There are currently no membership fees for the TFGA. The TFGA began organizing in July, 2004 and officially launched in Spetember, 2004.

Members: 207 (pros, teachers, and hobbyists)

What we do:

  • organize performance opportunities for both pro and amateur local players
  • organize pickin’ parties and workshops for the hobby guitarist
  • sponsor performances by international and national Fingerstyle Guitar Virtuosos
  • TFGA Open Stage – every second Monday at the Old Nick (123 Danforth) Next one is Monday, February 21. FREE
  • TFGA Pickin’ Parties – one Sunday every month at the Royal Conservatory of Music (90 Croatia Street) Next one TBA. FREE

Previous Concerts and Masterclasses have featured:

Bob Evans – September 1, 2004
Pat Kirtley – November 20, 2004
Tony McManus – January 15, 2005

Reviews of all our concerts are available at http://www.thelivemusicreport.com.

Forum News

Electrablue, one of our forum members from Texas, has got some great friends. One of them, Hunter Payne, who used to play with Bonnie Raitt and worked with Leonard Bernstein………. anyway, he has just started putting together a thing for the long-term Tsunami relief (it’ll take 10 years before that part of the world is truly livable again. What he’s doing is putting together some compilation CD’s to be sold with the proceeds going toward the long-term help. And the kicker is, he’d really like to highlight some new talent! That might be you!

If you want to find out more about this terrific chance to help others while getting your own chance to get your music out to other people, join in on the discussion here.

And my best to all of you who participate one way or another!

Sunday Songwriters Group

Year Three, Week 16

Changing Faces – This week we’re going to write about ourselves how different (or how similar if, like me, you’ve never quite got around to growing up) we are now to when we were younger. The idea is to keep flicking between the two ages – it’s all in the comparison.

Good writing!

Bob

Reviews

Steve Howe’s Remedy – Elements
CD Review by A-J Charron

Steve Howe has taken a moment out of Yes to give us an album with his side project, Remedy, which features his sons, Virgil (keyboards and harmony vocals) and Dylan (drums), as well as Gilad Atzmon and Derrick Taylor. This album covers a variety of genres with a heavy focus on jazz.

Magellan – Impossible Figures
CD Review by A-J Charron

Trent Gardner’s Magellan are back with a new album. Impossible Figures is an album that marries different styles. One will find heavy keyboards, in the genre associated with Jean-Michell Jarre or Tangerine Dream, yet the overall sound quickly reminds one of Yes.

Thoughts & Feedback

Let’s deal with the second major aspect of our earlier email on “Playing With Others:”

Now… what do you play? I’m guessing there are a lot of “I only strum chords” players. If two of them get together, what sort of material works well? If you don’t find some ways to sound good together, you’re not likely to want to do it again. There aren’t a lot of books of accessible songs arranged for two guitars.

Actually, there are quite a few books, particularly tutorials, that are chock full of duets. But, as one might guess, most of them don’t fall into the “accessible song” category!

When people get together to jam, they usually want to play songs that they know. This is, as we discussed last week, why it’s important at the start to have a bit of a handle on what sort of music you and your fellow jammer (s) enjoy. Or to have enough of a musical background that you can play from a wide range of material.

My home is literally littered with songbooks, both published and “homemade.” Making up song material isn’t all that hard. You can even make copies off of your favorite TAB site. The chances are very likely that it’s more a “chord chart” than the actual TAB anyway!

It’s always good to start out well. This is why I think it’s great to know some two or three chord songs that just about everyone knows. And, believe it or not, this is why I pick a lot of the songs I do for the lessons we use here at Guitar Noise. The more familiar everyone is with the material the easier things tend to go. I know so many two and three chord songs that it’s hard at times to get past them! And they run the gamut of genres, from Hank to Hendrix, as they say, with some Talking Heads, Green Day and Beatles thrown in for good measure.

The first time through a song, things should stay pretty basic. If both players are strumming the exact same pattern, then fine. But once everyone’s happy they know they can play the song, then it’s time to have fun and experiment. One player can stick with the original strumming pattern while the second can play in a picking or arpeggio style. Just having two guitars playing two different patterns can create a whole new depth to the song.

Where you go from there truly depends on the abilities of those involved, the willingness of the participants to experiment and learn and their courage to not worry about making mistakes. To give you an example of what I’m talking about, let me tell you about one of the highlights of the Guitar Noise Seminar held in Toronto last May. We had seven guitarists, plus Paul and myself, making a total of nine players. As you can imagine, that made things a little cluttered! One of the songs we examined was Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl. It’s a fairly simple song, using only four chords – G, C, D and the occasional Em.

So we started out with making certain we all could play and strum along with the song. Once this was accomplished, we began to add some variety to the sound. Some of the students played with a capo on the fifth fret of their guitars and others placed a capo on their seventh fret. So we had people playing the following chords:

Capo chart

Now we had three different guitar parts going without changing the strumming at all! Then we had some of the more advance players try their luck at playing simple lead parts or a basic walking bass line and that added two more distinct parts. Finally we let a few people use more of an arpeggio style of playing and soon it was like having a small (and somewhat chaotic!) orchestra going on! It was a lot of fun and it certainly sounded much more interesting than having everyone strum the very basic chords.

Part of this arrangement process can also be dictated by the types of guitars that people have brought to the jam. If you’ve got a good mix of acoustic and electric guitars, try to use the electrics sparsely, either as arpeggios or riffs and fills, while the acoustics handle the bulk of the rhythm work. Or let them have a sparser rhythm using barre chords.

The important thing is to let people have turns trying out things that they might not normally do on their own. Start out with a place of comfort and then branch out and extend yourselves a bit. Not everything is going to sound terrific! But the ideas you come up with can, with a little extra practice, turn a song into something special.

I will try, during this upcoming year, to come up with a few song lessons where we look at arrangements for multiple players. But, like all of our lessons here at Guitar Noise, you should simply think of them as starting points. The true key to a fun jam is to let each player find his or her own strength.

I hope you all have a grand week. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace

David