Newsletter Vol. 2 # 97 – October 31, 2004

Welcome to the latest issue of Guitar Noise News.

In This Issue

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

News And Announcements

Greetings!

Welcome to Guitar Noise News!

Happy Halloween to everyone! Alternatively, especially if you’re reading this on Monday, I wish you a Happy “All Souls Day!”

This may not be so much “news” as it is an explanation. Occasionally when I am online I will get “Instant Messages” from people, usually readers of Guitar Noise. And, usually, I have no problem with that. Obviously if I am on my way to teaching a lesson or simply checking my email and getting offline, I don’t even need to respond to someone. But I usually do because I enjoy communicating with people.

But I do want to let those of you who do communicate with me know that using the Instant Message method is not always as foolproof as it is touted to be. If I haven’t mentioned this before (and it’s kind of hard to believe I haven’t), I don’t have the greatest of computer set-ups. My dial-up connection is rarely dependable. It often takes me hours to email MP3 files to Paul in Beijing and let’s not even get into the time it takes to download something.

But Instant Messaging seems to really play havoc with my computer. I might get a note from someone and be able to write back “Hi” and then have everything come crashing down on me. And then, by the time I’m able to get back online, I find that whomever I was just chatting with has left and I don’t have much of a way to apologize for leaving so abruptly.

So the gist of the matter is this: if you happen to make contact with me via Instant Messaging, please don’t be offended or alarmed if I happen to simply disappear on you. It’s not personal. It’s just me dealing with the wonders of technology.

Moving onward, I’d like to take a moment to point out the obvious: Guitar Noise is an international community. It may be easy to forget that, especially since so much of our news comes from the United States. But we’re trying to do our best to bring you the latest from the rest of the world as well. And this is where you can certainly help! Do feel free to drop me some lines concerning things happening in your part of the world and I’ll try to make certain we include it in our newsletters. Today’s press release, for instance, comes from Finland. And while today’s review of the Holmes Brothers’ is of a show that happened here in Massachusetts, my main reason for posting it is to alert our readers in Europe (primarily in Germany and Spain) of this terrific group’s upcoming shows there throughout November.

So let’s take a look at what’s new here at Guitar Noise since we’ve last chatted:

New Articles And Lessons

Making A Living As A Guitar Music Transcriber / Arranger
By Dale Turner

Whenever you pick up guitar magazine or look through a book at a music store, do you ever think about the fact that someone actually wrote out all that TAB? Dale Turner, who’s written for Hal Leonard, Warner Brothers and many others, has been very kind in giving readers of Guitar Noise a little insight into how to go about pursuing this kind of work as a career.

Worth A Look

Since today is Halloween, I’m thinking it’d be a good time to revisit our series of “Scary Stories,” a collection of anecdotes sent it by our readers relating various tales of horror and amusement. There’s a bunch of them and you can find them here: Scary Stories

Hot Off The Press (Release)

As promised, here’s a bit of news from Finland:

GHOST MACHINERY is the best gift of the vocalist/guitarist Pete Ahonen, best known as the frontman for the Finnish Metal outfit BURNING POINT from Limb Records.

GHOST MACHINERY specializes, with a top-notch performance, in a majestic and melodic Euro-Power Metal from nowadays. It has great songs, pleasantly well-executed vocals, excellent playing, technically demanding guitar solos, and lush production.

The songwriting is powerful and it is consistent from the first note to the last. You can find some slower tracks, a ballad and everything else is fast. There isn’t a bad, or even mediocre, track to be found on this album. Special mention must be given to “World of Unbelievers” and “Temples Of Gold” which are truly glorious and inspiring tracks. The Ahonen’s compositional skills are also at their peak, the lyrics contribute the most to the overall feel of the music. This album is destined to be remembered as nothing less than a classic in the genre of Neo-classical Metal.

As a side note, I’d like to add that we’re trying to get a copy to one of our Guitar Noise reviewers in the (very general) area. If you’d be interested in writing a review of this new CD, please get a hold of me.

Email Of The Week

In case anyone ever wonders, the majority of the mail we receive at Guitar Noise seems to be “Thank you” notes. And I’m pretty certain I speak for the entire GN staff here when I say that we truly appreciate and enjoy hearing and corresponding with you. It’s always good to know that the work we do here is being helpful to people looking to learn about playing the guitar, to those trying to improve upon their existing skills, to those who are honing and expanding their songwriting abilities and even those who are simply looking for a friendly place to visit and chat about their shared passion of music.

Heading into this time of year when people traditionally take stock of the things they are thankful for, I’d like to share some of that with you:

Dear Mr. Hodge,

I just want to thank you so deeply for providing a hugely rich resource of easy to follow tutorials for the budding guitarist. As someone whose guitar playing “career” consisted of holding it and wishing I was Stevie Ray Vaughan in my youth, I never imagined I could ever find something that would teach me everything from the basics (my knowledge stops at guitars having six strings) to how to implement those into a recognizable (and therefore far easier to gain confidence from) song.

As somebody who suffers from a long-term illness and is financially unable to justify lessons just for personal pleasure, to find something so in-depth, so comprehensive and yet so easy to follow for free is joy unconfined.

Amazing.

Hi and thanks for writing!

“Amazing” is certainly a good word for it. And I’d like to take the time to make certain credit goes to the proper place. While I am indeed responsible for a lot of the lessons, whether by writing them myself or by serving as the managing editor of the contributed material, Guitar Noise exists because of the genius and generosity of Paul Hackett, who created and continues to run the site. It is he who does all the work behind the scene, which keeps Guitar Noise up and going on the Internet. And he certainly puts in even more time than I do!

So let’s be sure to remember Paul whenever we come here to visit. After all, if it wasn’t for him, I’d never have gotten to know some of you!

Forum News

Almost exactly two years ago (officially, I think we’ve somehow gotten a bit off!), the Sunday Songwriters Group (known as the “SSG” to most of its participants) was launched. This weekly songwriting assignment class was the brainchild of Ryan Spencer and Nick Torres and I think it’s safe to say that the SSG has surpassed even their loftiest expectations.

Bob took over the moderating and assignment chores at the start of the SSG’s second year and I’m pleased as punch to announce that Bob has agreed to continue on as we begin the SSG’s third year, starting next week.

Bob and I have also managed to work out a much saner schedule for the SSG, essentially lining up three months’ worth of assignments ahead of time. This should eliminate any occasional lapses that might occur owing to any number of things, and, much more importantly, it also allows for Bob to have a life outside of the SSG! To help matters out, I’m going to go back to including the weekly SSG assignment as part of the Guitar Noise News.

But while all of this is certainly newsworthy, it’s vital for me to point out that the thing that truly makes the Sunday Songwriters group work is the participation of all the folks that consider themselves part of this group. And while this is a “songwriters” group, it’s the time and thoughtfulness and the incredible positive energy that each member puts into critiquing other member’s submissions that makes the SSG such a terrific learning experience. So I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who’s contributed over the past two year for making this group such an astounding success.

And, here’s a note from Bob as well!

Hi Everyone

As we draw the second year of the Sunday Songwriter’s Group to a close and I’d like to personally thank everyone for their involvement in the board over the last 12 months, particularly David and Nick for behind the scenes assistance and chat. I’d also like to thank all those members, both long standing and more recent, who contributed to the board with lyrics and critiques and in doing so created a real sense of “˜community.’ Critiques are as important on this board as the lyrics themselves as they help to develop our songs and “˜fix’ the glaring mistakes we’ve missed ourselves. Even if this board does nothing else but make you think that one word in one of your songs could be better placed then it’s done some good.

I have had the pleasure and delight of moderating this board and have had very, very little to do in the real sense of the word. Mostly I have set an assignment, sat back and watched a large amount of fantastic contributions come our way week after week.

If you’ve just recently come across this board and want to give song writing a try then jump in, we don’t bite (much). We value your contribution and we’ll do our best to tell you honestly, without causing offence, how we believe it could be improved. We value your opinion on our lyrics even if you haven’t written a song yourself. After all if you listen to songs you know what you like and what works for you and you may be surprised to find how much that will help other people develop their songs.

So as we enter the third year of the Sunday Songwriter’s Group please feel free to join us – what else were you going to do with that guitar, copy somebody else forever?

It’s good to write, so get writing!

Bob

Sunday Songwriters Group

Week 52

Ironically this week I’m not setting a definitive assignment. However, I would like you to look back to an early song you wrote and see for yourself where you think it can be improved. Post both the original and the revised version.

Bob

Reviews

The Holmes Brothers at Club Helsinki, October 22, 2004
A certain Guitar Noise editor managed to catch a terrific show in an intimate setting. This magnificent trio put on a stellar performance and we’d like to share the wonder of that evening with you. If nothing else, it may give you the uncontrollable urge to catch them when they come to your part of the world!

Thoughts & Feedback

I recently got an email from someone I’d corresponded with before. To make a long story short, he was starting in on having his daughter take guitar lessons, not to mention continuing with his own education on the instrument.

Naturally, he had a good number of questions and, since these are questions that come up time and time (and time) again, I thought this might be a good place to go over a few of them. Consider it a “mini-interview,” if you will. We’ll look at the first one today:

How much time should I devote each day to practicing chords, fingering and picking?

Whenever someone asks “how much time,” a teacher is going to respond “as much time as you can.” That’s almost a pure reaction.

The reality, however, relies on two separate things: the amount of free time you truly have and the physical condition of your hands. Let’s tackle the second one first.

If you’re a pure beginner at the guitar, at some point your hands are going to start to hurt. It doesn’t matter what type of guitar you have, electric, acoustic or classical. Everyone who picks up this instrument has to go through this. If you’re practicing the guitar and your fingers start to truly hurt, then stop. Take a half hour off and then go beck to it. See if you can go another ten minutes before they start hurting again. Your first few months of practice may consist of grabbing ten minutes whenever you can.

Now I’m also assuming that whomever is reading this for advice also has a bit of a brain and can tell the difference between when one’s fingers are merely sore and when they are, indeed, in pain. To put it bluntly, don’t be stupid when it comes to knowing what hurts and what doesn’t. Learning the guitar is not a race unless you make one of it. Most of us already know that, regardless of how quickly or slowly we started out, we have the rest of our lives ahead in which to continue learning. I have yet to meet a guitarist (or any musician, for that matter) who believes that he or she has learned everything there is to know about his or her instrument.

The thing is, for most of us anyway, the only time we get to do anything even remotely like playing the guitar is when we play the guitar. So while taking five or ten minutes here and there may not seem like much, there is indeed a “cumulative” effect that will happen. If there’s a wait of five to ten minutes until supper is ready (and if there’s nothing you can do to help out…), then spending that time switching between the C and the G chord or do a few dozen runs of the major scale.

And this takes us back to the first part of the question – how much free time do we truly have? It’s important to link this question with another: what do I mean by “practice?” This is an important question, one that is essential to understanding how we improve as players. When we’re first starting out, everything can be thought of as practice. But as we look for more and more out of our playing, it is important for us to have focus. Goals are what Darrin Koltow calls it in his great article, A Musician’s Most Important Skill. A goal can be anything from “changing from the G to D chord without missing a beat” to “being able to play all of Classical Gas.”

I think it’s safe to say that most of us simply want to get better. Our imagined audiences consist of ourselves and friends and family, not a stadium full of frenzied fans. If this is the case, then more than likely you have to find your practice time in the busy-ness of everyday life. But it is there. Many people I chat with find the best time to practice at either the beginning of the day or at the end. It’s not that hard to get in a half-hour to an hour if you’re willing to do so.

But making the time for practicing, setting aside a part of the day for yourself, also has its own rewards. It becomes an appointment that you look forward to, a time when you can unwind and get away from the hectic pace of life.

When you know you’re going to have a block of time, as opposed to five or ten minutes snatched from somewhere, then it indeed becomes important to have a goal or a schedule, a plan for your practice. On the Guitar Noise page devoted to “Practice” (click on the icon in the left hand column on the home page), you’ll find all sorts of articles devoted to this subject. I don’t even mind recommending one of my own, A Question of Balance.

Understand, too, that your practicing is going to be very fluid, meaning that what you need to practice will change as you grow as a guitarist. The chord changes you work diligently on as a beginner will yield to scales and bass runs and all sorts of interesting things. It’s important that you have an honest and realistic approach to what you hope to accomplish. Keeping a journal of your practices, again making certain it is an honest account of them, can help immensely. And it will also give you some satisfaction during one of the many moments of “plateau malaise” that you’ll encounter to see that you indeed have been making improvement.

Next week we’ll talk about how beginners should start out. Chords or single notes?

I wish you all a wonderful week. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace

David