Guitar Notebook by Sam Crew

CONTACT

Thank you for reading the first ever issue of Guitar Notebook. Please contact us if you are interested in advertising, making a contribution or if you just want to give us some feedback. We appreciate any comments to help us improve. Also next month we plan on introducing a classifieds section if there is enough interest, so please ring us if you want to advertise.

Tel: 07518069237 Email: contact@sam-crew.com

WELCOME

Editor’s Letter Dear Reader, First off, thanks for reading the first ever edition of Guitar Notebook. This magazine was created as a way to connect musicians in Bristol and we hope you have as much fun reading this magazine as we did producing it. We’ve crammed this magazine full of articles and tutorials, and all for free! This month we have an article from one of Bristol’s most prominent singing teachers; Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca (Turkish March) adapted for electic guitar and a review of

the Yamaha APX 500 electroacoustic. Finally, please remember that this magazine is only free because of the support of our advertisers, so please take time to read the ads and say that you found them in Guitar Notebook! Rest assured next month you will have a bigger and better magazine! Enjoy, Sam, Ben and Jacob

REVIEW The Yamaha APX 500 is an electric acoustic guitar around the £275 mark. The slim line body makes it ideal for playing in an electric style. The action on the strings is excellent. It feels like a good standard electric guitar, and by plugging it into an amp it sounds as good as one, but without you can sit back and play some rich full sounding classical music. The built in tuner works well, however you can only use the tuner for standard tuning, which can be a problem for more inexperienced players when you need to tune to drop C or anything other than standard tuning. The slim body allows for great comfort while playing, but it also means that it needs a custom guitar case to hold it. It will fit in other cases but tends to move about a bit. The Yamaha APX 500 is a great choice if you are looking for an acoustic-electric guitar with great tone and low price. The guitar’s unparalleled blend of superior acoustic

sound and response make it the instrument of choice for many guitarists around the world. Played acoustically or through the internal pickups, the APX500 delivers extraordinary tone and response and provides the expressive freedom and versatility necessary for the creative guitarist.

QUICK READ

In this month’s quick read section we’ve decided to do a feature on amp settings. Getting the right amp setting is the first step to emulating your favourite guitarist’s sound.

Take a look at our suggestions below, and feel free to send us in any of your own ideas for amp settings next month (contact details on the back cover).

Herman Li (DragonForce)

Eddie Van Halen

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Tom Morello (RATM)

Zakk Wylde

John Frusciante

Distortion: ON Gain: 10 Bass: 8 Mid: 4 Treble: 7 Reverb: 3

Distortion: ON Gain: 5 Bass: 7 Mid: 4 Treble: 6 Reverb: 3

Distortion: ON Gain: 9 Bass: 6 Mid: 7 Treble: 8 Reverb: 0

Distortion: ON Gain: 10 Bass: 5 Mid: 7 Treble: 8 Reverb: 4

FEATURE

Playing by Ear So perhaps you’ve learned a few basic chords. You’ve been working on your strumming, and it’s starting to come together. There’s a couple of songs that you like to play and they sound OK. When you tune your guitar, you’re starting to get a feel for when the strings are really in tune. What now?

Distortion: ON Gain: 7 Bass: 8 Mid: 5 Treble: 8 Reverb: 0

Distortion: ON Gain: 3 Bass: 5 Mid: 5 Treble: 5 Reverb: 2

I cannot stress enough the importance of being able to play by ear. Everything that you’ve ever heard anyone play on the guitar is at your disposal - you just have to figure it out. Learning how to play tunes or guitar parts using your ear is just like anything else you practice: the

more you do it, the easier it gets. If you do it often enough, you won’t even need your guitar to figure it out. The first step is to pick out a recording of a simple tune that you like. Listen to it very carefully. See if you can determine when the band is changing chords. If you can pick out where these chord changes occur, then you’ll know the points in time when you need to determine what the next chord is. Tune your guitar to the recording. Take the first chord in the tune. As it plays, try to pick out a note on the 5th or 6th string that best matches that chord. There should one note that resonates with the recording. Did you find it? This is the root note of that chord. If this note is a C, you know that the first chord is a C (something). It could be a major chord, a minor chord, a 7th chord, but whatever it is, it’s a C version of that chord. If you’re listening to “Hey Jude”, the root note for the first chord is a D. If you’re listening to “Wonderwall”, it’s an F#....

Now that you have your root note, the next step is determine what the quality of the chord is. Is it a major or minor chord? Is it a power chord? One surefire way to determine this is trial and error. Assume it’s a major chord. Test out this possibility by playing the major chord for your root note along with the recording. Does it sound good? Does it resonate? If so, you’ve just figured out what the first chord is. If not, try a minor chord. Play the minor chord for your root note along with the recording. Does this sound good? Does this resonate? Try a few different choices. If you get stumped, look at the tablature or a transcription of this recording. This is your answer key so to speak, but keep in mind that not all tablature is necessarily correct.

this? Well, first of all, you’re improving your ear. Secondly, you’re improving your knowledge of chords because you’re forcing yourself to play a variety of chords. If you know your root note for a particular chord is an F#, but you don’t know what the quality is, you may have to test out an F# major chord, an F# minor chord, an F#7 chord, and so on. This solidifies your knowledge of chords throughout the fingerboard. The more tunes you figure out, the easier it is to find and play these chords. The other benefit of going through this process is that you’re playing along with recordings, which is going to make you’re playing better, because you’re subconsciously absorbing all the nuances of the recording into your playing.

After you’re figured out the first chord, go to the next point in time where this changes, and figure out what the second chord is. Repeat this process until you’ve covered the entire tune. A lot of popular music is cyclical in that the same 3-4 chord pattern will often repeat throughout the tune, so you may not have to figure out more than 3-4 chords for the entire song. Yes, when bands write great songs using just “three chords and an attitude”, it makes your job a lot easier.

The main thing is to not get discouraged and to do it on a regular basis. Turn on the radio and try your hand at whatever’s playing. If you don’t like the tune, change the station. Put it on the classical station - yes, you can play along with classical ones too. Don’t be afraid. It’s all just music, and in the end, armed with just an ear and a knowledge of some basic chords for the trial-and-error process, you can figure out how to play it...

Rondo alla turca

TAB

For this month’s tab of the month, we have chosen the first part of Tapping Polyphonique an adapted for electric guitar version of Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca. Chris Broderick Start playing and I’m sure you will instantly recognise thisWords classic! & Music by Mozart

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EVENTS

Below we’ve compiled a list of music events and local gigs in and around Bristol, if you would like to list your event here please call us. (Contact info can be found at the back of the magazine).

Moles, Bath The Fleece Date: 10 - Dec - 2008 Date: 12 - Dec - 2008 Venue: Moles Music Venue Venue: The Fleece Band Name: Battle of the Bands Band Name: They Will Rock You Other Info: 01225 404445 Other Info: 0117 945 0996 Carling Academy Date: 10 - Dec - 2008 Venue: Carling Academy Band Name: The Almighty Other Info: 0870 771 2000

Colston Hall Date: 12 - Dec - 2008 Venue: Colston Hall Band Name: Tracy Chapman Other Info: 0117 922 3686

Carling Academy Moles, Bath Date: 11 - Dec - 2008 Date: 12 - Dec - 2008 Venue: Carling Academy Venue: Moles Music Venue Band Name: Black Stone Cherry Band Name: Impact of The Drop Other Info: 0870 771 2000 Other Info: 01225 404445 The Fleece The Fleece, Bristol Date: 12 - Dec - 2008 Date: 13 - Dec - 2008 Venue: The Fleece Music Venue Venue: The Fleece Band Name: Doing Time Band Name: London Calling Other Info: 0117 945 0996 Other Info: 0117 945 0996 Fiddlers Nightclub Date: 12 - Dec - 2008 Venue: Fiddlers Nightclub Band Name: The Blue Aeroplanes Other Info: 0117 987 3403

Fiddlers Nightclub Date: 13 - Dec - 2008 Venue: Fiddlers Nightclub Band Name: The Soul Destroyers Other Info: 0117 987 3403

Advertise your gig here for £15. Call 07518069237

Article By:

SINGING LESSONS

Pavel Michael Josifek

Singing lessons & voice therapy Working with recording bands, singers, musicians and actors around Bristol.

Enquire about a free introductory session by 0117 330 20 46 or 077 38 26 20 85 more on www.singeasy.eu and www.pjjosifek.com

Each human being on this planet has been given a certain amount of musical disposition, talent. However, nature, genetics or God, whichever we prefer, has not distributed this talent equally. There are individuals who only seem to have received the proverbial modicum: to all intents and purposes, they act as almost deaf, although many of them may in fact require only half an hour to sing a correct note, when I aid them by playing various diverse tones and harmonies and cheering constantly. Others may need longer. It is not inconceivable that it will take a certain number of lessons in the company of the teacher before a less talented student can sing a single clear note, and a good part of these will be spent emitting sounds not particularly pleasing to the ear. We often hear both professional music teachers and laymen saying things like: “The kid is tone-deaf”, or “Well, isn’t he completely deaf?” In the more than decade I have spent teaching music, I have never met a single person whom I could not persuade within a

single lesson that his or her “absolute deafness” is not quite as absolute as he or she kept being told, and that it is quite possible to achieve a considerable and relatively swift success in this regard. Naturally, this will never happen without good will and perseverance on the part of both the teacher and the student. This opinion of mine— and it is only fair to say that some of my colleagues obstinately disagree and apparently will never come to assent—could be justified only on the basis of my own experience, or perhaps also on the authority of Oldrich Dolansky, the author of a seminal textbook called How to Teach Voice to Less Gifted Students. I cannot help looking down on those music teachers who as much as utter the expression “tone-deafness”. I tend to suspect buck-passing on their part, possibly in conjunction with unwillingness, certain indolence or even inability to attend to less gifted students. Part 2 Next Month