Newsletter Vol. 2 # 5 – October 06, 2002
Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.
In This Issue
- News and Announcements
- New Lessons and Articles
- Email of the Week
- Things To Do People To See
- Guitar Tip
- Hot Forum Topic
- Thoughts and Feedback
News And Announcements
Greetings!
Before I forget, let me make a general announcement that I lost a bunch of emails over the past two weeks. So, if you wrote me before Monday, September 30th and you haven’t heard back from me, don’t panic. Just write me again. Quick note to [email protected] – your email isn’t letting me get through to you. Just drop the pick and use your fingers…
News? Announcements? Okay, how’s this – owing to a lot of emails on the subject, I am thinking about (no pun intended) temporarily shelving my book plans and putting together the first official Guitar Noise Tutorial CD. It will be on rhythm and strumming. Do you think it’s worth doing? I need to know.
At the end of the newsletter (and no fair skipping ahead – there’s lots of good stuff to get through first) I’ve laid out my thoughts on the project as well as a (very) tentative “table of contents.” It will be good to get your feedback.
But first we have a newsletter to go through. After all I did slave away all week at this…
New Lessons And Articles
Can you believe it’s October already? Where does the time go? In addition to a seasonal treat, we’ve got new articles from Dan Lasley and Jamie Andreas as well as a new Easy Songs for Beginners lesson (and I’m doing my best to get a new one each month…). Here’s what’s gone online since we last chatted:
Fretless And Free
Bass for Beginners #16
by Dan Lasley
What looks like a bass, sounds (mostly) like a bass and plays (kindasorta) like a bass? How about a fretless bass? Dan gives us a guided tour of this mysterious and beautiful instrument. Warning: Dan and I may both be (more than) slightly biased because this incredible bass player we both knew in school played fretless…
GET THE JUICES FLOWING
by Jamie Andreas
(special to Guitar Noise from www.guitarprinciples.com)
There’s a big difference between playing a bunch of notes and playing music. Jamey discusses the importance of feeling and expressing what the music is all about. Sometimes simply enjoying your playing is the key to making yourself sound better.
PLUS: A bonus lesson on the finger vibrato used by Angus Young in the AC/DC classic Back In Black.
We kick off October with our first batch of frightful narratives from the big scary outside world. So you want to be a rock and roll star? Maybe not… but then again, these things (hopefully) can’t happen to everyone.
GOT A SCARY STORY??? Send it in and let us share it!
Happy
Easy Songs for Beginners #18
by David Hodge
I really wanted to call this “How knowing how to play a first position Am7 chord will enable you to play almost seventy percent of the Rolling Stones’ repertoire” but that seemed a bit unwieldy. We’ll look at an arrangement of this classic for the single acoustic guitar, made possible by the use of open G tuning and a cool driving rhythm. After this lesson you’ll have no trouble at all playing rhythm like Keith Richards. Of course we’ve included MIDI files to help you.
Email Of The Week
A few words on do-it-yourself guitar this week (and yes, this is part of an ongoing correspondence so my apologies if you feel like you came in on the middle of something)…
Thanks for your response David,
I appreciate the advice, and I have to say that I’ve already saved each of the lessons you have on your website. I plan on going through them on my own and reading through them. I think they’ll be helpful. I do have a musical background, so I’m right with you on the theory, and this website is the best I’ve seen in that regard. I was wondering about going for actual lessons with a teacher though. Do you think I can really improve with do-it-yourself guitar lessons? I know that it’s all discipline, and I can go through these lessons rigidly. Anyway, thanks for the help, and keep the website going… It’s great.
Hi again.
I wrote an article a (long) while back that deals with the different aspects (good and bad) about various ways of learning: Common Sensei
Speaking only for myself, I have found that I’ve learned more (and more often) by playing with other guitarists and musicians. This is why I host (very) informal jams at my home for friends and students. Being able to apply in real life something that you’ve only practiced in theory is important. And it’s also great to see what methods other people have come up with to help with their playing.
I obviously have no idea of the environs where you live, but I heartily recommend you try getting together with others whenever possible. As long as everyone involved is there for the fun, you’ll learn a lot.
Things To Do – People To See
Hello, Los Angeles! Sheryl Bailey will be performing with David Krackauer Klezmer Madness at The Knitting Factory (7021 Hollywood Boulevard) next Friday and Saturday (October 11 and 12).
Guitar Tip
Chord Substitution
In an effort to give myself a bit more breathing space (not to mention to make the newsletter a tad more interesting than having me drone on for ages), I’ve invited some people to offer us guitar tips in this section. First up is Darrin Koltow. Some of you may recognize Darrin from the articles he’s written for us at Guitar Noise. But you should also check out his website – Maximum Musician – if for no other reason than to see the newsletter he writes! Maybe if I keep practicing…
Chord substitutions are great to learn for a number of reasons: they can give you alternatives to those hard-to-play chords; they give you a deeper understanding of how harmony works; they let you change the feeling of a song.
Begin with simple substitutions: In the key of C major you can swap the F major for Dm, the Bdim for the G7 and the Am or Em for C.
One way of determining how to make substitutions such as these is to find chords that share two or more notes in common. For example, both Am and C have the notes C and E in them. This is a great example of how the more you know will lead you to more and more substitutions. While the Am and C share these two notes in common, an Am7 shares three: C, E and G.
Play with passion!
Darrin Koltow
Hot Forum Topic:
from Bass Players Discussion
Although this is titled “Dumbest Question Ever???” it’s a pretty good one:
I am a relatively new guitar player and I have never played in a band, but I am starting to jam with drum machine and another guitar player – playing blues. It sounds pretty good at times.
So here’s my question: Why does a band need a bass player? Is a rhythm guitar good enough?
I know of a few successful local 3 man bands – drums, bass guitar, lead guitar. Obviously they know what they’re doing. I want to know why it works that way – why wouldn’t they want the rhythm guitar rather than the bass?
In addition to the bands with “drums, bass, lead,” like the Who or Rush or the Police, this made me think of others. How about the Doors? Drums, guitar and keyboards. I just reviewed the Sheryl Bailey 3, which has the same instrumental line up. And, no lie, this summer I met a guy who played in a Neil Diamond cover band trio – accordion, oboe and something else I don’t remember except that it was just as odd…
Obviously, there are all sorts of bands out there!
Come and join in on the discussion on the Guitar Noise forums.
Thoughts and Feedback
Last time out I bored you to tears with my week. This week, let’s look at the future. As I mentioned at the start of this newsletter, I’m thinking about producing Guitar Noise’s first instructional CD/book. It would be a CD/booklet combination on strumming and rhythm.
Here is a proposed “Table of Contents” for this project:
Intro
Tuning (getting in tune with CD)
Time Signature
4/4
Notes – whole, half, quarter and eighth
Strumming quarter notes
Strumming eighth notes
Basic 4/4 strumming patterns
3/4
Basic 3/4 strumming patterns
Speed – How strumming affects perception part 1
Bass note/strum – using root of chord
Bass note/strum – using alternating bassline
Bass note/strum – using walking bassline
Arpeggio strumming (think “house of the rising sun”)
Triplets
6/8 and 12/8
Arpeggios with triplets, 6/8 and 12/8
Basic blues shuffle
Palm muting
Blues shuffle with palm muting
Anticipations – How strumming affects perception part 2
Partial chords
Partial chords with palm muting (think any Neil Young)
General genres (rock, reggae, folk, ballad, etc.)
Examples of all types and combos
So, what do you think? Seriously.
Would anyone be interested in something like this? Would you still be interested if you knew that you had to pay for it?
Let’s discuss that. First off, I want to say that Guitar Noise is, and will continue to be a free site. I don’t want anyone to start freaking out, okay?
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be looking for ways to have the site pay for itself. Selling our own products could, at some point, eliminate the need for advertising. That would be something, no? It might also pay for us to be able to produce more things for the site, such as quality audio and video.
It is my intention to make certain that any product produced and sold by Guitar Noise be done in as minimal a way as possible. I have to tell you – I haven’t even gotten to the point of costing this out yet. It didn’t make any sense to do so if it turned out that no one would want one.
One thing that would keep the costs down considerably would be using generic examples. I would, for example, play a rhythm and explain that “you might use this in a song like Hey Jude,” or something like that.
A question to ask yourself is that would it be worth more to have a CD of actual song lessons. And if so, would you be willing to pay more for it? After all, we would have to pay to get the rights to perform these songs.
As you might have gathered, I would like to expand Guitar Noise so that it fills more of your needs. I envision this site becoming both school and source for learning supplies, such as books and CDs. But I have to know whether or not this is what you want. So, please, let me know your thoughts on this.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Oh, and if this hasn’t been enough for you, we’ve got another big announcement for next week.
As always,
Peace
David