Newsletter Vol. 3 # 68 – June 15, 2008

Greetings,

Welcome to Volume 3, Issue #68 of Guitar Noise News!

In This Issue:

  • News and Announcements
  • New Articles and Lessons
  • Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow
  • Forum Findings
  • Email of the Moment / Podcast Postings
  • Event Horizons
  • Reviews
  • Totally Someone Else’s Q & A
  • Random Thoughts

News And Announcements

For those of you who think you missed the June first newsletter, fear not! The fault was entirely mine. My apologies to all for missing the last newsletter and my thanks to Paul for his patience with my bout of sore throat, general congestion and total lack of ability to do anything the past three weeks!

Well, not totally. We did manage to put together some new lessons and there’s a bunch of news to talk about as well! So welcome to the June 15 issue of the Guitar Noise News. Pull up a seat and let’s get caught up with things.

As I write this, I’m actually worrying about making the June 15 newsletter happen! Last Tuesday, we had a huge front of storms come through and the tower from which I get my Internet link-up took a direct lightning strike. Totally fried the system. So I’ve been without Internet for more than two days now. If worst comes to worst, I’ll go into town and send this off to Paul from a different computer. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best. Obviously, if you are reading this and it’s June 15 or maybe June 16, then I guess it all came out okay.

And since things have come out okay, let’s take a look at what’s new since our May 15 newsletter, shall we?

New Articles And Lessons

Waterfalls – A Sweet Little Finger-Style Song
by Peter Simms

Guitar Noise welcomes the long-awaited return of Peter Simms to our pages! Peter’s been very busy with performing and teaching this past year but wanted us to know he’s still thinking of the Guitar Noise readers. So much, in fact, that he wrote this song (and the accompanying lesson) just for us!

From Junky To Funky (Part 2)
My DIY Low-Budget Bass Makeover
by Mitch (“slejhamer”) Schlesinger

Having made himself a terrific fretless neck, Mitch sets himself the task of finishing his budget bass guitar with the classic “coral pink” finish. It’s truly astounding to see the results of his project. What a beautiful bass guitar!

Are You An Unhappy Musician?
10 Ways To Get Musical Pain Relief
by Tom Hess

Without a doubt, there are a lot of unhappy musicians out there. Tom Hess takes us on a two-part session geared toward giving musicians more self-awareness, which will hopefully lead to self-satisfaction. Start by learning the difference between problems and “symptoms” and then move on through his ten simple steps to get you happy again!

Help!
Easy Songs for Beginners #35
by David Hodge

Just when you thought we were done with walking bass lines, along comes another song where they play an important musical role! Plus, we’ll take a
look at getting started on barre chords (and also look at making substitutions for them to cut us some slack!) and learn a cool little guitar riff.

Exploring Music With Darrin Koltow

Tip: Inversions

In this lesson we’ll see that going up is sometimes the same as going down on the fretboard. Let’s give a concrete example. Bar, with the tip of yourfirst finger, strings 2 through 4, fret 7. Pluck or strum that a couple of times, and then remove your fingertip and play those same strings open, or fret 0. You’ve just descended seven frets.

Now, play the same first chord at fret 7 and then zoom up to fret 12. Play strings 2 through 4 there. You’ve just ascended five frets — 12 minus 7 equals five. But this second chord at fret 12 is the same as the chord at fret 0, just one octave removed. Play the two together and you’ll hear their sameness.

The point being made here is that descending seven frets gets you to the same chord as ascending five frets. Here’s some musical math to help you see this important relationship in other chord movements. If you’re trying to go up a certain number of frets to a particular chord, but you’d rather (or need to) go down to that same chord, you do this: subtract from 12 the number of frets you wanted to go up. In our example, we went up 5 frets from fret 7. Subtract that number from 12: 12 minus 5 equals 7. That’s the number of frets we can go down from 7 to hear the same chord we went up to.

If this is confusing, it might be less so if you try this out in several different places. Try going up three and down nine frets, and vice versa.

We’ll need this knowledge of inversions when we start deciphering chord charts.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

And again (and always), my thanks to Darrin for always managing to deal with the computer craziness on my end with patience and a smile!

Forum Findings

After an enthusiastic start, the Sunday Composers’ Workshop (SCW) on the Guitar Noise Forum pages suffered a bit of an identity crisis. Fortunately, GN Forum regulars Tom (“Noteboat”) and David (“Kingpatzer”) got together and worked out what turns out to be the equivalent of a course in music composition for us. Let me put it in their own words:

Course in theme and variations

Overview

Welcome to a series of planned lessons on developing a melody, and then exploring that melody through the concepts of theme and variations. This is a set of short assignments that are structured along the same lines as any college course on the subject would be. But fear not, it’s not hard! In fact, we’re working diligently to make sure that each week’s assignments will be simple to understand, come with examples, and most of all, not take long to complete.

Whether your interest lies in learning to compose instrumental pieces, or improving your melody writing skills for songs, learning the Theme and Variations form gives you insight into how to improve your melodies in general – a basic skill that all composers and songwriters need.

We’ll be taking this project in three sections: the first several weeks will explore how melodies are created… and you’ll create your own original theme. Then we’ll spend some time looking at ways composers create changes (variations) based on an original theme; by week 20 you’ll have constructed a complete original theme and variations of your own. We’ll wrap up by exploring the role of harmony, and doing a number of exercises to harmonize your work in different ways.

Our goal is to provide not only a set of fun projects to work on in terms of compositions, but also to develop each other as composers. Even the simplest of exercises here will contain important concepts that are used by every composer our there, from someone writing their first tune, to Mozart.

Feel free to apply these tools to both your own melodies and those contributed by others. Many famous compositions were actually created by applying these tools to someone else’s starting point!

And this all starts up today, Sunday, June 15, so come on over to the SCW and settle in to have some fun!

Looking forward to hearing your compositions on the boards!

Email Of The Moment / Podcast Postings

I actually got a couple of these, not to mention some notes about it directly written to the Guitar Noise Blog:

Hello David

I haven’t received any blogs or newsletters and I missed out on the link to download Podcast 9. Could you help me out by sending me a link and put me back on your listing.

Thanks for writing.

Hopefully, you’ve read enough in this newsletter to know that you didn’t get a June 1, 2008 newsletter, and (again, hopefully) you’ve gotten this one! Not sure why you didn’t get a Blog update, but we’ll look into that.

Somehow, when making some recent upgrades to the Guitar Noise Blog, the “download” icon for the old podcasts got misplaced! Totally disappeared on us!

But Paul worked some extra hours this week and it all seems to be working fine now. If you look at any of the old podcasts (and you can find all the Guitar Noise Podcasts up online), you’ll see that they all have the word “download” just below and to the far right of the “play” icon.

There are two new Guitar Noise Podcasts since our last newsletter:

Guitar Noise Podcast #9 – Adding Fills

Here, we take ideas from many of our past GN Podcasts and use them to create fills that will make our basic strumming sound even better. We use one of our earliest strumming patterns, not to mention one of our earliest chord progressions (G to D to Am, G to D to C) and then work out a couple of interesting fills to spice things up a bit.

While we will work with some specific fills, the object is ultimately going to be coming up with your own fills. So you might want to read up on ideas with an old Guitar Noise Guitar Column, called Tricks of the Trade. You might find some very helpful tips there.

Guitar Noise Podcast #10 – Adding Palm Muting

The tenth Guitar Noise Podcast serves as an introduction to palm muting, how it’s done and, more importantly, how it can become a vital part of your strumming bag of tricks.

After some initial exercises, we use the Am chord a lot, first doing an Am to G to F (or Fmaj7) to E chord progression where using palm muting allows us to create an interesting walking descending bass line.

Then we focus again on the Am chord (along with the F or Fmaj7) in order to add hammer-ons and little fills to our basic palm muting strum. You’ll sound like a Seventies singer/songwriter in no time!

Paul and I try to post a new Guitar Noise Podcast every other Monday, so look for the next one on Monday, June 23, 2008.

And, as always, feel free to give us your feedback. You can post your thoughts here, at the Blog, or even PM or write me directly.

Event Horizon

If you happen to be in my neck of the woods, you’re in for a big treat! The incomparable Nick Torres will be ushering in Summer of 2008 here in the Berkshires when he plays the Monterey General Store on Saturday, June 21, from 7 to 9 PM. Joining our GN Head-Moderator and all-around fun guy will be myself, Karen Berger on keyboards and Greg (gnease) Nease on guitar. Plus, we’re thrilled that Glen Polson, who’s a veteran of a number of Guitar Noise mini-camps, will be rounding out the band!

The Monterey General Store is located in thriving downtown Monterey, Massachusetts, right at the junction of Route 23 and Tyringham Road. Hope to see you there!

Reviews

The Rosetta Stone of Guitar by Fred Pool
Tutorial DVD/Book Review by Nick Torres

Have you ever wanted to just be able to land anywhere on the fretboard and play? The Rosetta Stone of Guitar is an instructional DVD/book that teaches a really easy set of patterns. It isn’t about learning to solo, it’s about learning to see.

And I’d like to add that Fred has got some very loyal customers! When word got out that Nick’s review of “The Rosetta Stone of Guitar” was online, many folks who have used this tutorial came by Guitar Noise and joined up just to give a testimonial to this tutorial. Read some of them here.

Say what you will, it speaks well of any product when folks come out to tell you how much they like it. And speaking of which:

Totally Someone Else’s Q & A:

GN Forum Moderator, Graham (“greybeard”) Merry, recently found this exchange while surfing the Internet. Question and Answer courtesy of Yahoo’s “Answer Page:”

Resolved Question
Teaching myself Electric Guitar but where do I start?

I am about to get my first electric guitar because I have always dreamt of being able to play but haven’t touched a guitar in my life.

I have played piano for around three-and-a-half years, so I can read piano sheet music (don’t know if it helps) and my fingers are quite long and all…

I guess you need good finger control is what I am trying to say… but yeah, I have decided to take the more punk rock route to guitar so have chosen electric instead of acoustic to start on.

So when my guitar actually comes (very soon) what do I start by doing? Scales? Chords? Or straight at the songs? I’m just not sure. I have been reading about guitars for a while now so I know a little about them even though I don’t have one yet.

Thank you

Best Answer – Chosen by Asker

Well, there are lots of things you can do. And you should do as many of them as possible – you don’t learn it all at once.

The first thing to keep in mind is that, until you build up your “muscle memory”, your strength (particular in your chording hand, the left if you play right handed), etc. you’re not going to be terribly satisfied with playing. So it’s important to find something, ANYTHING to practice, and then practice. At first, it really doesn’t matter what.

Try to go for playing a half-hour a day, then an hour as your fingertip build up to it. And do it every day, make it part of your daily routine (I usually play between 10PM and 1AM, every day).

As for material, there are three basic approaches: standard chords, scales, and tabs. I think it’s best to start off with standard chords, simply because that’s just simply easier for most people to do, until you build up to it. Find some easy songs you like with the basic chords… places like chordie.com are good for this. Chord playing is basically this: you read the chord (A, C, Em, etc) for each measure, you have to know the basic rhythm pattern, and you strum to that. It can start out as simple as you like… works well particularly if you’ve got a good sense of rhythm. Of course, if you read sheet music, you’ll find that most music published with guitar in mind will include the chords where chord changes go, and you can read the music to work a good strumming rhythm out of it. Here are some chord links:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/lessons/absolute-beginner-part-1/
https://www.guitarnoise.com/lessons/changing-chords/

It’s easy enough to find some rock songs with only a few chords in them. As you learn them, find some with an extra chord or two. By the time you’re good at F and Gm and a few others, you’ll probably be getting the whole chord-changing part down, too. And you’d be surprised about punk, too… some punk rock is surprisingly tricky to play, lots of chords, fast chord changes, etc. So try a variety of stuff…many of the guitar players I know keep a book of songs… me too.

If you’re going particularly for punk or other hard electric sounds, you probably want to learn some simple 5th chords along with the basics. I wouldn’t recommend those as the only chords to learn, though. 5th chords (also called power chords) are played on only a couple strings, so they can be easier. The main point, though, isn’t being easy, but rather, you can play through all kinds of FX without losing the tonic, while more complex “full” chords tend to get muddy when you lay on too much distortion.

Tabs are another approach. Basically, this is a notation that shows you a simple fretboard, and which strings to play. You still need a sense of the rhythm, but you don’t really need to memorize much. This is how most of the intricate riffs are written out. Even though they often start as arpeggios though standard chords, you don’t need to know how they derives those sequences to play them. Another place to start is to find some simple tabs to learn.. you can find various famous riffs on the net… there’s a small collection of them here:

Easy Riffs of the Nineties

Easy Guitar Riffs

Just be careful with tabs and riffs… some kids learn the start of every cool song you can think of, but never get past the intro. I’m also a singer, so I have to play the whole song.

Scales are a bit more advanced, particularly if you’re playing “full” chords. What you’ll find is that the basic chords you play on frets 1,2,3 and 4 are the basis of shapes you can play anywhere on the guitar. When you move down to higher notes, you have to finger all strings… as if you were using a capo. These are called “Barre Chords”, where your first finger generally covers all strings (again, some punk/hard rock chords make this simpler by only playing some of the strings, but it’s better to learn the whole guitar as you go along), and these take more strength and practice to play well. So that’s not where you want to start, but it’s something to keep in mind.

There are tons of resources on the net, I just includes a few I’ve found useful over the years. You don’t have to choose just one thing; when I started, I had a very introductory book on guitar playing, designed to teach basic chords. I got some tabs for simple riffs like “Smoke on the Water” and “Seven Nation Army”, and I found some easier versions of songs I liked, and a few challenging ones, and started keeping a notebook.

As I mentioned, it’s a testimony when someone goes out of his or her way to cite the praises of your website. But this is even cooler to me, “Guitar Noise” isn’t even mentioned, but it’s our articles (written by four different authors) that are used as primary learning examples. Not too bad!

Random Thoughts

Okay, I’ve not a whole lot else to add here – especially as it’s starting to thunder again and I’m (understandably) a little edgy about getting this to Paul in time!

So, until our next newsletter, play well. Play often. Stay safe.

And, as always…

Peace