Newsletter Vol. 3 # 6 – September 15, 2005
Greetings,
Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #6 of Guitar Noise News!
In This Issue:
- News and Announcements
- Email Of The Moment
- New Lessons and Articles
- Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
- Notes From Nick
- Buried Treasure Of The Internet
- Emails? We Get Emails!
- Tutorial Tips
- Digging Through The Archives
- Reviews
- Random Thoughts
News And Announcements
Autumn is about a week or so away. Even without a calendar, it’s pretty easy to figure that out either by observing the trees out my window (there are faint and furtive patches of yellow, red and orange poking out here and there amid all the green) or by noticing the decidedly dour faces of some of my students now that school is in session.
Or, no lie, one can also tell by all the Halloween decorations filling the aisles of my local grocery stores. Yesterday one of the store’s managers was putting together a display of witches (fairly tall ones at that) that cackled whenever someone walked by.
Here at Guitar Noise, we’re not too concerned with Halloween as yet. But fall does seem to be a time to mark the calendar and settle down to work. After a summer marked by all sorts of crazy goings-on, it’s nice to get back into more of a routine.
Part of the somber mood, though, comes from the sobering events in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We’d like to take a moment and extend our best wishes to all those affected by the storm and we’d also like to encourage our readers to do whatever they can to help out. There are many, many sites where you can donate to the Red Cross or other charities that are helping folks out.
By making a financial gift to the Hurricane Katrina Relief operation, the Red Cross can provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those in need. Click here to make a donation.
In the meantime, though, we’re catching up with the backlog of lessons folks have submitted and doing our best to get them up online as fast as we can. Let’s take a look at everything that’s been posted since our last newsletter, shall we?
But first a quick email…
Email Of The Moment
Subject: New lessions?
Message: Are there any upcoming lessions?
I’m assuming you mean from me. Possibly…
New Articles And Lessons
Standard Notation
by Tom Serb
Even people who don’t read standard notation will tell you that it’s a good idea to learn to do so. And it’s easier to learn than people think. Tom’s latest piece is a great place to start to pick up this skill that will last you a lifetime.
Are You Totally Out Of Balance?
by Tom Hess
Everyone has strong points and weak points as a guitarist. Great guitarists learn how to balance those skills and, most importantly, how to not let the weak points errode the strong ones. Let Tom Hess tell you how.
Playing With Horns
by Dan Lasley
Playing with others doesn’t limit you to working with guitar players. There are musicians of all sorts out there and you never know who you might meet. GN staffer Dan Lasley details his experiences playing (as well as arranging the logistics) with a full horn section.
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
Easy Songs For Beginners Lesson #31
by David Hodge
Here’s proof that David knows some songs written in the last few years! And while it’s a very easy song to learn, he does have to go and throw some “lesson” material in such as drones and moveable chord voicings (and capos!) and such. Oh, and it’s in open C# tuning!
Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
This week Darrin gives us Part 3 of his series on Scales and Soloing:
We’re back to talking about scales to use for improvising. Here’s the sample phrase we’ve been improvising over:
||: C major, A minor, D minor, G7 :||
In previous chapters we improvised with the C major pentatonic and then the G major pentatonic. See the archives of this newsletter for details.
Now we’re going to use yet another scale to play over this phrase in C major, with the intention of hearing some Blues. Here’s the pattern we’re going to use:
|-------------------3-6----| |-----------------4--------| |-------------3-5----------| |---------3-5--------------| |-----3-6------------------| |-3-6----------------------|
Play this pattern just shown over a tape recording or midi file of the C major progression.
How did it sound? We can get it to sound even better by highlighting those bluesey dissonances like this: start out playing the G major pentatonic (described in the last issue) over the progression, and then after a few seconds play the Eb major pattern just given.
This pattern is the Eb major or C minor pentatonic. Yes, it has two names. It’s not a true blues scale, but it conveys the feeling of the blues. And that feeling comes from just two notes within the Eb major: Eb and Bb. Playing those two over chords in the C major scales produces the sweet, “incorrect” intervals we call the Blues.
We now have three different scales to play over the C major progression. Are you ready for yet another? We’ll dig in next issue.
Notes From Nick or “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Guitars”
Two forum questions made the mental headlines for me this week.
“What guitar is the best bang for the buck?”
and
“What should be my second guitar?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve answered those questions, or seen them answered. What I can tell you is that the first question reminded me of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (if you saw the movie, please go read the book), for a couple of reasons: First, in the BBC series, Zaphod Beeblebrox wears a button that says “Best Bang since the Big One,” which I thought was amazingly clever, and secondly, I have the answer for you.
The Ultimate Answer to which guitar is the best bang for the buck is…
(You’re not going to like it…)
Is…
Forty-two!
I told you, you wouldn’t like it. But just like in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, (Really, you must go read the book), the trick is to understand the question. Fortunately we won’t need a supercomputer to do it.
Could you really be asking:
- How do I not look like a dork buying a guitar? What if I pick the wrong one and all the sales staff at GuiTarget laugh at me as I walk out the door?
- Which guitars suck? In other words, which guitars are the least bang for the buck? I don’t want to buy a lemon.
- How do I buy a great guitar for little or no cash?
- There are so many guitars to choose from, could you narrow down the field a bit?
- What is a great guitar for $150/$300/$500/$1000?
Sadly the answers are almost a cliché.
- Go play them, or get someone to come with you who can play, or ask the salesman to play while you listen. Trust your ears.
- Do some research and comparison-shop. Froogle is good if you are buying a recent and commonly available guitar. Harmony-central is a good place to weed out guitars with common problems. www.gbase.com let’s you look at a lot of dealer’s inventory to compare prices.
- Know what you want. I may be able to get a great deal on a sitar, but since I’m not looking for one what kind of deal would that be. What do you want? Acoustic? Electric? Cutaway? Spruce? Cedar? If you don’t know what you want, you probably won’t get it.
- You aren’t going to get a $5000 guitar for $500. Well okay I did once, but that was a fluke. You are most likely going to end up with a $500 guitar for $500.
- Check out my article on How to buy a used guitar. (Keep in mind I changed my mind on Ovations).
I know what you are thinking, “What a cop-out non-answer.”
Yes, you are right. So let me add this little tidbit of wisdom:
Once when I was playing golf, my golfing buddy offered me his new driver and said:
“Try this one, you’ll be able to hit the ball 20 yards farther.” To which I replied:
“Why would I want to hit the ball 20 yards deeper into the woods?”
It really doesn’t matter how much you paid. If you have a guitar that makes you wish you were playing it right now, that guitar has the most bang for the buck.
And remember – don’t be caught with a $3000 guitar and $300 fingers.
Buried Treasure Of The Internet
Let’s add some to the list of artist specific sites from last week:
Here is a great site with some Leo Kottke tabs:
http://www.tabpigs.org/pigs.htm
and a lot of Patty Griffin chords/lyrics can be found here:
If you have a site you want to recommend to me email me.
Emails? We Get Emails!
I have to admit that things have gotten so that it’s hard to keep up with all the email – but I sincerely hope to get my schedule together enough so that I can be thanking everyone in person once again.
David, Got to say a big THANK YOU! I’ve been attempting to play the guitar for years but got discouraged and put it away for months and years at a time. With your approach, you took the stress away from trying to perfect the songs. I’ve had so much fun and learned so much in the past few days since I started taking your lessons on Guitar Noise on Beginner and Intermediate songs. I really feel I have accomplished something in such a short time and now I can’t put the guitar down and really look forward to learning more songs each day. I also wanted to ask if you have the tabs or where I can get them for “Things Goin’ On” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I love the song but never could find the music? Again, Thanks you so much and keep up the good work!
David,
Earlier this afternoon I bought an acoustic/electric guitar. Tonight I am playing a song that my wife recognizes!! “Horse With No Name”. Not some ‘public domain’ song, but one we both know and like! AMAZING.
And very, very encouraging!! I really believe I can do it. I picked up a book/DVD set when I bought the guitar–I’ve taken a look at it and compared it to what I’ve found on guitarnoise.com and the book is going back tomorrow!
I’m sure I’ll be up late tonight reading your stuff on guitarnoise.com. All I can say is if you publish a product along the lines of what you’ve done on Guitar Noise, I’ll most definitely buy it…hopefully an entire series.
Thank you for everything…
Hi David,
Just discovered your lessons on Guitar Noise and wanted to let you know they are wonderful! After only one day, I can PLAY an entire song! Can’t wait to get to the rest of them.
I really appreciate the instructions on strumming – up ’til now I could figure out chords, but couldn’t quite get the knack of strumming – you make it easy to learn. This site is a wonderful resource.
Thank you.
Thank you all for writing and also for your kind words concerning Guitar Noise. Getting people to play the guitar is what we’re all about so it’s terrific to hear that each of you has gotten off to such a great start.
As for Things Goin’ On by Lynyrd Skynyrd, I have to say I’m not sure where you can get the music for that. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t. There are a lot of books out there on the band and a lot of the TAB books that were written about them have gone out of print.
Be that as it may, you might want to try your hand at figuring out the song yourself. Don’t laugh, it can be done! My first recommendation would be to learn whatever Lynyrd Skynyrd songs you can. Bands often use similar riffs and styles in their different songs (which makes a lot of sense given that it’s the same musicians). Then work simply on figuring out the basic chords (read Happy New Ear here at Guitar Noise to get you started in on using your ears to figure out a song) and once you have the basic chords down, then listen for the little signature licks that the guitarists use.
Most importantly, don’t forget that Lynyrd Skynyrd is a band with many guitarists – don’t think that you have to play each part at once. Go for an overall sound and start from there. It’s work, a lot more work than simply reading some TAB, but in the long run it will make you a lot better guitarist.
Tutorial Tips
This week’s tutorial question conveniently concerns alternate tuning. Must be something in the air…
I’m not in a band or anything but I do write songs. And as of now I’m in love with the Mars Volta. So, unfortunately, a lot of my stuff comes out sounding like that. But anyways, I’m writing a new song and I’ve already almost all of it done. But I’d like to know some alternate tunings that I could use that you allow me not to move any of my fingers in the chords, but make it sound different, if not better. So, pretty much any alternate tunings, (not Drop D or anything simple), something creative. I’ve tried many and some seem promising, but I’d like to see if you all could come up with something else as well and I could use that instead.
Thanks for writing.
In order to truly be of help to you, I’d need a lot more information, namely the chord progression that you’re using. That is, assuming that you have one already. Even if it’s not specific (like C, Fmaj9, G6, etc.), having some idea of what you want to do would be helpful. Otherwise all I’d be doing is listing out alternate tunings and you can get a big list of those almost anywhere (even here at Guitar Noise! Check out the Guitar Column, On The Tuning Awry…).
The reason that I’d want more information is because I like to be focused in my work. For instance, if your song is in the key of E because your voice works well there, then you’d have all sorts of options from the simple (just raising the G string to G#) to the slightly more complicated (low to high – E, B, E, F#, B, E) to the very complicated (E, B, C#, F#, B, D#). We wouldn’t be limited to E flavored tunings either. For instance, we could use any number of C alternate tunings, such as C, G, D, G, B, E and put a capo on the fourth fret and voila! We’re in E.
Knowing the tone of the music would help a lot as well. Some alternate and open tunings are great for fingerstyle but not so wonderful for straight strumming. And vice versa. If you’re using an electric guitar with a lot of distortion, you can create some very interesting overtones but you can also create some mind-blowing dissonance.
So check out the various lists of tunings, here at Guitar Noise and all over the Internet, for starters. Or write me back with more information and I’ll do my best to help.
Digging Through The Archives
With all the talk about alternate and open tunings, don’t forget that we not only have Guitar Columns about them. We mentioned one in the above Tutorial Tips but there are many more which you can find . We also have a few song lessons that employ them. Happy on our Easy Songs for Beginners Page is in open G while over on the Songs for Intermediates Page there is Simple Twist of Fate in open E (actually open D with the capo on the second fret). We even have a whole section of the Guitar Noise Forum dedicated to open and alternate tuning, so feel free to ask questions and take part in the discussion.
Reviews
The L’il Nipper
Product Review by A-J Charron
The L’il Nipper is a convenient stringing tool, a combination string cutter and pin puller. It’s small (fits in the palm of your hand) and, more important, when winding or unwinding your strings, the movement you make is up and down rather than circular so it puts less stress on your wrist.
Threshold: Critical Energy
DVD Review by A-J Charron
Finally, North Americans get a glimpse of what Threshold look like and sound like live. Critical Energy was filmed following the Critical Mass tour. Their were technical problems that kept them from filming this during the tour, so the held a performance later on just for the purpose of filming the DVD.
Curtis: Blue Electric Cool
CD Review by A-J Charron
Curtis Fornadley’s latest album is simply very cool jazz, with Curtis on guitar and keyboards, Rob Chismar on drums, and Dave Hill playing bass. He’s got some guest musicians, including Homer Simpson!
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Inside The Music Series 1970-1995
DVD Review by A-J Charron
This DVD includes a lot of bits of various live performances by ELP, critiques of each album, of the band, of the shows. Of course it’s mostly positive considering the musicians involved in the band and the great success they had.
Iommi: Fused
CD Review by A-J Charron
Tony Iommi teams up with former Deep Purple frontman Glenn Hughes, drummer Kenny Aronoff and Bob Marlette on keyboards and bass and the result is one great hard rocking album!
Steve Adelson: The New Sticktet
CD Review by A-J Charron
Throughout this very jazzy album, Steve is accompanied by various musicians playing drums, percussion, vibraphone, steel pans and piano. The main focus, though, is Steve playing the stick. You even get to hear Steve and Tony Levin play together on the delightful Woodstick Suite.
Random Thoughts
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen. – Dr. Wayne Dyer
I received this inspirational little quote from one of my former students in Chicago. And I think that it talks about a very simple truth that I find myself thinking about a lot these days.
It’s strange to me that so many people spend so much of their lives doing things that they don’t like, this whole “making a living thing.” Not all that long ago, although close to ten years ago now, I worked in personnel. I was a “headhunter,” finding jobs for people in the secretarial and administrative office support areas. The irony was never lost on me that my job totally depended on the fact that so many people were unhappy with their own.
I’ve truly been extremely lucky in that I’ve enjoyed almost every job that I’ve had during my life. I was in restaurant management for a number of years, then a headhunter and then in the ad agency. And I never woke up not wanting to go to work.
Needless to say that these are only my opinions, but I think that the reason so many people are unhappy at work is because we often use our jobs to “define” ourselves. “Hi, I’m David, I’m an analyst at the XYZ agency over on Randolph Street.” “Hi, I’m David, I’m run the little restaurant over at the Orrington Hotel.” “Hi, I’m David, I own and run my own personnel agency downtown.”
“Hi, I’m David, I teach guitar.”
But even though our jobs, if we’re lucky, take up one third of our lives, they are not all of who we are. This “making a living” has been handed us as a given – I don’t know anyone who is one hundred percent “off the grid,” as they say. We have to support ourselves somehow and, for most of us, our jobs are what do it.
I don’t want to turn my little section of the newsletter into a “thoughts for better living” kind of thing. I’m smart enough to know that I don’t hold the secret to universal happiness. But I do hold the key to my own happiness, as does each of you. And that’s where things start.
For the longest time I resisted “making a living” at music, mostly because I wanted to keep my love of teaching, playing and writing separate from the “making a living.” Strange as it may seem, I wanted to keep “living” and “making a living” two distinct parts of my life. And that, when it came down to things, was because of fear. And not fear of failure. But that’s a discussion for next time…
For now, for me anyway, learning what was most important to me started everything off. And “most important” can cover a lot of ground or a little. Music, making it, playing it, teaching it, writing about it, has always been a big part of who I am. I simply decided that it was time for it to be the defining part.
I guess what I want to say is don’t get trapped into thinking you’re not happy if you are. As I said, I was happy at each of my jobs. Am I much happier now? Yes, but truly not owing to the job scenario. Rather because I’m not at all worried about defining myself by my job. Being a person is more than enough of a place to start for me. “Hi, I’m David, I teach guitar,” is okay but “Hi, I’m David, how are you?” is even better.
Until we chat again on October 1, stay safe and play well. Be yourself.
And, as always,
Peace
David