Newsletter Vol. 3 # 49 – August 15, 2007

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #49 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

• News and Announcements
• New Articles and Lessons
• Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
• Forum Findings
• Tutorial Tip / Digging Through The Archives
• Emails? Get Emails!
• Event Horizon
• Random Thoughts

News And Announcements

Just in case you didn’t know, one of the reasons the Guitar Noise website even exists is to help people to get out and play music and to share that love of music with others. And, without boring you with the redundant “In my opinion” (after all, I’m writing this. Who else’s opinion could it possibly be?), nothing is more thrilling than to use our newsletter to highlight some of the music that Guitar Noise members are creating and sharing with the world.

A year ago, GN Forum member Bish’s band, Hap Hazard, played at the big to-do at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, performing at the “beer tent.” The first Sunday of August, Bish moved over to the main stage, drumming with his new band mates in the Dani Lynn Howe (DLH) Band, who opened for up and coming Nashville star Chris Cagle. You can read all about it and also view some of Bish’s videos of the event here.

We wish Bish continued success with the DLH Band and hope that, first and foremost, making music continues to be a joy for him. And we look forward to reading more reports on his upcoming shows.

And while Bish was wowing the crowds along the banks of the Mississippi River, I was honored to play host to the Riverside Jam here in western Massachusetts. The event took place over the course of five days and included a singer / songwriter jam night at the Uncommon Grounds Coffee House, a five hour free concert at the Great Barrington Town Hall Gazebo and a laid back acoustic song circle / picnic at one of the venerable Berkshire mansions in Great Barrington.

A good number of Guitar Noise moderators and members managed to bop by over the course of the Riverside Jam. Uber-Moderator Nick Torres, Dan and Laura Lasley, Wes Inman, John “the Celt” Roche, Kathy Reichert, “gnease” and “Pearl the Kat” were in attendance, along with many other musicians from all over the country (and one from Canada!).

John’s wife, Karen, shot some video of the Thursday night event at the Uncommon Grounds Coffee House and you can link to those videos here and also read more about the event on the “Gigs and Jams” page of the Forums.

One of the goals of this year’s Riverside Jam was to raise funds for the PR Kellerman Foundation, a Berkshire-based non-profit organization that provides tuition for music lessons to needy students in the area. When all the events were over, we had managed to raise over $1,350 to donate to this fine charity. I can’t express enough thanks and gratitude and admiration to all the time and energy and talent given by this year’s participants of the Riverside Jam.

So now I’m getting used to having a relatively empty home again and this would probably be a great time to see what’s new at Guitar Noise since the first of the month.

New Articles And Lessons

How To Develop Your Own Style – Part 2
(Always simple – not always easy)
by Tom Hess

Merely asking yourself, “What do I want to hear next?” can be key to creating your own style, one that is in harmony with your own originality. Tom Hess walks us through this fascinating procedure.

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

We’re continuing the series of lessons that gets us started playing guitar by ear. Last time, we started talking about why the guitar is not the best instrument to begin learning to play by ear with. And the point of illustrating that is to help you understand that, when you’re struggling to play guitar by ear, you’re not struggling because you can’t do it, but because you’re fighting the instrument.

What’s wrong with the guitar? Understand that it’s designed to be a *portable* music maker. When you think of something that is portable, that thing is probably more difficult to use than a stationary version that achieves the same thing. Laptops are harder to use than desktop PCs, cell phones are harder to use than regular phones, and “portable” homes like Winnebagos are generally not as comfortable as stationary homes.

Don’t get me wrong. If you try to replace my guitar by moving a baby grand into my living room, with Norah Jones to give me lessons, I will hurt you the second you put your hands on my frets. And I’m *against* violence and would hate to see Ms. Jones leave. But think about it: when you look at the guitar as you’re playing it, you can’t even see the notes you’re playing because you’re not viewing the fretboard head on, but at an angle. That would be like a painter trying to paint by turning his easel so he was looking along its edge instead of its face.

Everything you learn about playing by ear from spending just a bit of time at the piano will be info you can translate to playing the guitar. In fact, I can almost guarantee you’ll have new insights in your guitar playing from learning a bit of piano playing.

If you are just learning to pick out melodies and play them on a musical instrument, and *if those melodies are confined just to C major,* you will begin playing melodies on the piano so quickly it will make your head spin. Do you know why? Count out the number of different notes there are in C major (or any major key), within one octave. There are only seven different notes! How far off can you possibly be when trying out a note?

Forget teachers, forget books, forget theory. Just listen to one simple tune, say, a Christmas tune that you *know* for a fact is in C major. Sing along with it a few times. Then, get yourself a freebie piano keyboard program for your computer “” you don’t even need a real keyboard. Then, listen to the tune a few times, sing it a few times, and then get busy finding those notes on the keyboard.

Don’t worry about following these tips now, though. We’re going to expand on this brief procedure in upcoming issues of this newsletter.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2007 Darrin Koltow

Forum Findings

A while back, and it seems a long while back but it has to have been within the last three years, we tried to have a Guitar Noise chat room. There was initially a lot of contact and e-conversations going on but then it kind of dwindled off and then we were back to a lot of “shouldn’t we have a chat room?” questions being thrown about the forums. Well, this past week, Guitar Noise Forum Member SGinCYQX (I hope I spelled that correctly!) put together a new Guitar Noise chat room.

I’m even hoping to be able to make semi-regular appearances as soon as my new computer and Internet connection get up and running. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Tutorial Tip / Digging Through The Archives

Here’s a question that pops up every so often:

David,

I have been going through your guitar instruction online. I now can play a few songs and even sing along to a couple. I haven gotten to the point where my practice is not just work it is entertaining for me to listen to myself. That has made a huge breakthrough for my. You’ll be happy to know that Horse With No Name was the second song that I learned to play. There She Goes was the first. Both of which are now banned by my friends and family. I still love playing both. :-)

Anyway, I would like to first say that I appreciate your work on the Guitar Noise site. You are a great instructor and I love your lessons. You have taught me so much I feel like I know you. Thanks!

Second, I would like to ask you what I should warm up with and practice each day. Currently I tune my guitar and start with some of the songs I am learning. Then I rest my hands and browse the internet for songs I want to play and give them a try. Lastly, I send a few minutes playing songs I know and can easily play to entertain myself. I play about 20 to 60 minutes every other day. I have never done a scale or any kind of warm-up routine. What would you recommend to me for daily practice that could take my playing to the next level.

Any advice you may have would be really appreciated. BTW, did I mention how much I appreciate your work?

Thanks!

Thanks for writing and thank you as well for your exceptionally kind words concerning my work here at Guitar Noise.

There are almost as many theories and ideas concerning practicing as there are guitarists and teachers. The first thing I’d recommend is to get an idea of where you want to go next. Having a specific and measurable goal (or goals) in mind will help you to determine how to put together a practice plan that will work for you.

We’ve a whole collection of articles dedicated to exploring the art of practicing. Putting together a personal practice plan is discussed in A Question of Balance and should help you to understand the need for you to look at your personal goals in a impartial manner.

The main things I would tell you, as I would to any beginning guitarist, are to be patient and to be flexible. Right now, your main concerns are probably going to be learning chords, changing between chords smoothly (and on a timely basis) and, speaking of timing, keeping rhythm well. Your practice plan should reflect this.

But as you improve, as your desires-as-guitarist evolve, your practice plan will also change. You might find yourself practicing scales and consequently starting your practices with finger warm-up exercises just for this purpose. Everyone has favorites, and there are many to choose from.

I would also like to stress the need for both variety and review. Ideally, practice should be as much fun as playing or performing. Making practice fun will ensure that you look forward to practice instead of dreading it.

I hope this helps get you started.

Peace

Emails? We Get Emails

Last month, I posted an email from a reader asking about having complete TAB transcriptions of the songs in our lessons here at Guitar Noise. I answered by stating why I’ve chosen not to, but decided to leave it open to debate. Reading the various responses has been very enlightening, if for no other reason than I’m finding great responses on both sides of the debate. Also, and just as important, people are willing to see both sides of the issue and to suggest compromises. Here are a few of the emails I’ve received on the subject since our last newsletter:

Others have made good points about pasting it together one’s self in a word processor. In fact I use good old scissors and tape. Personally though, I would prefer to have all the tab in one place at the end and in proper order. Thanks

Hi David,

I’m in the keep the fragments camp. I see the lessons as showing interesting points/techniques in the music and as such don’t feel the need for a full score.

Cruel suggestion: How about doubling your workload and having two areas on the site, lessons & tabs. You could possibly link the tabs with lessons. Those who want the score & nothing but the score could go to the tabs page and those who want the lesson…. Some might choose to visit both.

I feel “very wrong” suggesting this as you do so much already.

Thanks

PLEASE, Please- add the full song/tab on one page .I just love the lessons but have a simple mind therefore really need the full song at the end of the lessons to refer to. This has been my biggest obstacle with trying to bring closure to the lessons and THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO DO THIS !!! I have 3 tons of paper and no songs to refer/add to repertoire for practice. To be honest with you I have stopped doing the lessons recently because of this. Please help-Thx David

David

Thanks for all of the work that you put into the Guitar Noise lessons and articles.

For me, the answer to the lesson tab debate is simple: Guitar Noise is the best guitar site in the Internet so why change it? There’s plenty of tab sites out there so no need to include full tabs in the lessons. Include a link if you like – but as Internet search engines are so easy to use, even that seems superfluous.

I’ve been using the Guitar Noise site since I started playing guitar about 5 years ago and I’ve found no better site for information and lessons. The range of information is terrific – far more than anyone could ever exhaust in a lifetime of playing.

It’s simply brilliant – and its free! (By the way, when will the next version of the Guitar Noise CD be released?)

You and the rest of the team deserve all the plaudits that come your way.

Cheers

If you’d like to join in on this discussion, please feel free to send me an email and try to remember to put “lesson tab question” in the header. A “thank you” to all of you who’ve written up to this point. It’s been great hearing your opinions on this.

Event Horizon

As mentioned at the top of the newsletter, the Dani Lynn Howe Band, with GN Forum member Bish manning the drum kit, is playing out like crazy this summer. Check out their schedule fir the rest of the month of August:

18th – 11th Street Bar & Grill – 8p to 12a
2108 E 11th Street, in the Village of East Davenport, IA

24th – Bureau County Fair – 8p to 10p
at the fairgrounds, Princeton, IL

25th – Hollars Bar & Grill – 8p to 12a
4050 27th Street, Moline, IL

31st – Isle of Capri – 7p & 9p
100 Monopoly, Marquette, IA

So if you’re out in the Quad Cities area of Iowa / Illinois, do yourself a favor and go listen to some great music. And tell Bish I said “hi!”

Random Thoughts

If things go according to plan, I should be up and connected to the Internet again sometime this week. And, keeping my hopes up, this may be the start of some much more interesting things taking place at Guitar Noise this fall.

Now, with your permission, I’ll get started on dismantling the system I have currently in place and we’ll chat more in depth next time out.

So, until then, play well. Play often. Stay safe.

And, as always,

Peace