I’m thrilled to announce my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Art of Songwriting will be available at bookstores everywhere as of tomorrow, August 2!

This is a new experience for me as it’s the first book I’ve co-written, working with Nashville songwriter, Casey Kelly. As you can read in his bio on Amazon, Casey is the writer of several Grammy-nominated songs, and his songwriting catalogue includes Kenny Rogers & Dottie West’s “Anyone Who Isn’t Me Tonight,” Tanya Tucker’s “Soon” and George Strait’s country music standard, “The Cowboy Rides Away.” In addition to his songwriting, Casey works as a session player and singer and performs in clubs and concerts for audiences throughout the US and Europe.  A frequent mentor, panelist and workshop contributor, Casey is a member of ASCAP, NSAI and he is currently a Songwriters
Guild of America Board of Councilors member, and Vice President.

This is also a new experience in that this book is the first of mine that’s available for Kindle and other online electronic book devices. I don’t think that was even possible for my first book, and that came out just five years ago!

Anway, there’s a lot here that hopefully you’ll like and enjoy. And, if it’s not too much to ask, should you decide to order one through Amazon, be sure to use the Guitar Noise affiliate link. And, as always, don’t hesitate to either post a note here or drop me an email directly (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) with whatever questions you might have.

Peace

Howdy,

This is my first post in this sub-forum. Honestly I’ve been lurking on GN for a long time and havent posted in a while.

Anyways. I set the guitar down for a bit while some big stuff happened (moved 2000 miles, bought my first home, changed jobs, yadda yadda you know the drill). Just picking it back up these past few weeks. I’ve been working on chords and honestly just switching between chords (following Justin Sandercoe’s lessons) is not super exciting in itself so I’m kind of strumming along and trying to find pleasant combinations of the chords I’m learning.

So I’m playing some chords and have a combination / progression that I like, Id like to write my first “song.” Problem is I need to spice it up somehow… you don’t hear many
songs that are just four chords strum strum strum strum chord change type songs (I’m
sure somebody will prove me wrong !).

Anyone have any tips for how to spruce this up a bit? I’m looking around posts here and a lot of them seem to be more tailored towards the lyrics side, which I havent even gotten to yet.

It would be cool to be able to add in some single notes etc into the song instead of just the chords, I guess I just dont even know what to try beyond hitting the notes of the chord one by one… I will keep experimenting to see what “sounds good” but wondered if anybody had any advice.
Thanks and either way, have a good one!

Hi

There are actually thousands of songs that are, as you put it, “just 4 chords strum strum strum strum chord change type songs.” Not that that’s a bad thing.

What you’re discussing here could be considered more of the arrangement of the song, rather than just the song itself, but there are also a lot of songs that are built around single note guitar riffs as well as other things such as bass lines and even just different chord voicings.

For instance, you could have a song that’s just G, Am, D and back to G. Sounds simple enough and it’s easy enough to just strum, strum, strum, but you could make it sound a lot different, even though strumming the chords the same, by changing the voicing of the chords. Playing Am with the (x 0 10 9 10 0) fingering or using Am7 (x05555) for the
“normal” open position Am and playing D as (xx0775) or even going with Dadd9
(xx0550).

One of the best ways to learn how to go about this is to hear it in other songs and to find what they’ve done to change up the expectation.  You can find a whole lot of examples like this on our song lessons here on Guitar Noise. Even without the tablatures you will get detailed explanations of how different chord voicings are used. There’s also a good article called Multiple Personality Disorder that goes into this topic as well.

As far as strumming differently, may I be so bold as to suggest giving a listen to some of our Guitar Noise Podcasts (just click on the Podcast icon at the top of any page). The whole purpose of these podcasts is to demonstrate the very thing you’re looking for – coming up with interesting ways to spice up your strumming, which will in turn make your songs (whether your own originals or covers) less boring.

A big thing to remember is that as you grow and improve as a guitarist, that is, as you learn new techniques and gain confidence in your abilities to play them, you will be constantly adding these new dimensions to your songwriting. That’s part of the natural evolution of a guitar player who also writes songs. Don’t worry about making everything different to start with. Songs have to have good melodies and strong chord progressions first and then the fancy stuff can be added as you feel comfortable doing so.  Most songwriters are constantly rewriting and rearranging their earlier material in accordance to their new and ever-growing skillset.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to email me or PM me directly if I can be of help. And I’m sure you’ll be getting lots of other good advice as well!

Looking forward to seeing you around on the boards.

Peace

Here’s a recent email:

Hey guys,

I just want to write how much I love your site and your lessons. I’ve recently picked up my guitar again, i’ve been trying to get into it and learning to play it, but it was just so difficult finding the correct resources on the Internet. But your site, it was well set out, really appealing the first time i entered it, and I’m just loving it.

I’ve just discovered your “Absolute Beginner” series, and I’m just wondering: Do you have an article for beginners about strumming yet?

Thanks guys, and keep up the great work.

Thanks for writing and thank you as well for your kind words concerning Guitar Noise. We certainly have a number of articles and lessons when it comes to strumming.

You might want to start out with either Tom Serb’s Keeping Time or Strumming for Beginners by Matt Guitar. Additionally, be sure to check out our mini-series on “Getting Past Up and Down.” The first article, Sock Puppets, gears you up with basic techniques while the second, Turning Notes into Strokes, explains how you can figure out the strumming for any rhythm that’s been written out for you.

Strumming and rhythm are vital parts of playing but we at Guitar Noise also want to encourage players to not become dependent on the idea of “strumming patterns.” Be sure to read our lesson on The Pattern Trap to understand why.

In addition to these great articles, we also have the Guitar Noise Podcasts, which are (and I think a lot of people will back me up on this) probably one of the best strumming resources you can find online.  Each podcast is a thirty-minute audio lesson covering a specific aspect of strumming. You might want to check out the first one and see how you like it.

Finally, I’d like to add that I am right now finishing up work on a book for String Letter Publishing (the same people who produce Acoustic Guitar Magazine) that will cover the basics of strumming and rhythm. We’re hoping it will be out sometime late this year and I’ll be posting more details about it both here and at the Guitar Noise website, not to mention in the Guitar Noise News, our free twice-monthly newsletter.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to write anytime. I look forward to chatting with you again.

Peace

Today, April 3, the Monterey General Store is closing its doors. It’s been an honor (and my pleasure) to have been a part of the music scene there these past seven years since moving to the Berkshires and I’m going to miss playing there. 

Even though I performed at the Monterey General Store more times than I can count, I never played solo. The venue itself is all about the intimate sharing of music (the musicians usually within arm’s reach of the audience) and I always tried to make my gigs a celebration of music, friends and community. In many ways these shows were a bridge between my old world of Chicago to my then-new home in the Berkshires. My former student and good friend Kathy Reichert had two shows there and Mike Roberto and Anne O’Neil (two other good Chicago friends) and Helena Bouchez (who was in Chicago when I moved but has since moved out east as well) all participated in shows at one point or another.

So did new students and friends, such as Marilyn Miller, Jim Martin and Glen Polson. And I also got invited to sit in with people who’d been playing in the Berkshires for ages, such as Todd Mack, Sammy Brown, Joel Schick and many others.

There was something mischeviously cool about telling people you were playing in a general store. One of the running jokes was to tell folks to be sure to come early to avoid having to sit right next to the frozen food section. More times than not when we played it was to a crowd of people, many of whom would have to stand in the aisles among the potato chips, canned goods and ice cream bars. It was at Kenn Basler, the owner’s urging that we recorded a number of performances in 2007 to create the Songs and Sandwiches CD.

Here’s a video that Nick Torres took of a June 2008 show with Nick singing David Gray’s “Babylon,” backed by Karen Berger on piano (hiding on the far right), Glen Polson and myself on acousitic guitars and Greg Nease on electric guitar (which you might mistake for synthesizer).

Getting the opportunity to make and share music with your community is an incredibly chance and I’d like to thank everyone at the Monterey General Store for allowing me to do so these past years. And I thank them as well for all the new friendships I’ve been able to make, as well as the old ones I was able to maintain and celebrate through the music we made there.  

And we’re also hoping that some day in the near future one will hear music coming down those aisles and out the doors again.

Peace

Hi David

I want to tell you that I’m enjoying your book, a lot, and making some headway in the difficult but fun voyage of learning to play.  It sat on my bookshelf for a few months.  My first impression was that these songs would not be near as much fun as your Guitar Noise songs and, to be frank, “Tom Dooley” and “Banana Boat” reinforced that impression.

Luckily, I picked up your book and CD again, skipped around on the CD and heard many songs I liked.  I have worked my way through half of the book, skipping a few things I already knew or already could do, trying some things I cannot yet do and planning to keep going back and trying (like barre chords).  Your arrangement of songs like “Oh! Susannah,” “Wayfaring Stranger” and “The Cruel War” enable a beginner guitarist to sound good.

 I’m struggling with playing both “The Gallows Pole” and “Midnight Special” at anywhere near correct tempo.  I’m wondering if this is typical, at my stage of development.  I’ve been working hard at learning the guitar for about eighteen months.  I find fingerpicking style easier (I can do your earlier Guitar Noise version of “Scarborough Fair”) but I do like the sound of the pick, too.  Perhaps, I should concentrate on learning just the fingerpicking style because I do not have the luxury of limitless time.  Any thoughts, David? 

Thank you for writing and thank you as well for your kind words concerning The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar. Thank you, too, for giving it a chance! I know that “Tom Dooley” and “The Banana Boat” song are reasonably easy, but it’s hard to come up with something that a total beginning can play easily and still sound like a cool song. I did try to get my publishers on the “Horse with No Name” bandwagon, but they were totally set on using only Public Domain material (or my own songs, which is how I snuck in “Julia and John” at the very end).

With “Gallows Pole” and “Midnight Special” you’ve chosen two of the hardest pieces. Not because of the speed but because of the thought behind it. When I recorded both of these songs for the book, my intent was to do something very spontaneous, just as one would when playing a song on the fly. Then came the wonderful task of transcribing it all afterwards!

Of the two, “Gallows Pole” is a little easier because pretty much everything is a variation of the pattern given at the top of page 111. And that’s really the key to playing it at speed - work on just the first two measures at as slow a tempo you need to get the rhythm and the feel comfortably in your fingers. The first measure is totally based on the Am chord, so try to keep that in place – keeping your index and ring fingers very close to the strings after performing the pull-offs. Your middle finger should be at the second fret of the D string even though you don’t play it during the first measure.

Once you’ve played the first measure, then use your ring finger to get the third fret of the A string. Because you’ve not moved your middle finger, you should see that you’ve got two-thirds of a C chord. Pick the A, D and G strings and then slide your fingers up two frets to get the last three notes.

First try doing this without worry at all about the timing. Your object is to get your fingers to perform their assigned task. Once your good with that, then start very slowly and gradually increase your speed. You should find that, with surprisingly less repetition than you’d think, you’re getting faster than you’d imagine.

The strategy with “Midnight Special” is pretty much the same, only you want to work one phrase at a time. For what it’s worth, I’m going to be doing a Guitar Noise step-by-step piece on this arrangement of”Midnight Special,” much in the same manner as the “Oh! Susannah” lesson, sometime this spring. Hopefully that will be of help, too.

I should mention, too, that you can play either of these with just your fingers. I do it all the time. The percussive hits don’t sound quite the same but it still works. If you were to put twenty minutes a day into it I think you’d probably get it all fairly quickly.

I hope this helps and I look forward to chatting with you again.

Peace

Here’s another recent email of interest:

Dear David

I want to learn to play the guitar.   But I play left-handed.  Any comments about a “lefty” learning to play guitar.

Do you play left-handed?   Your pictures show you playing left-handed.  Does any of your books have instructions for playing left-handed.  And I prefer rock/electric.  Should I buy the guide book pertaining to rock first?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks! 

Hello and thanks for writing!

I play left handed, that’s how I learned from the start.

I’m assuming you have a left handed guitar. Left handed guitars are not upside down or backward as far as the strings go, so you can learn from any book. Going for books that are “learn left handed” are mostly gimmicks, The guitar is still the same and the directions are going to be the same as long as you keep in mind the only thing to remember is that when a book says to use the right hand (or strumming hand) that’s your left hand and vice versa.

Left handed books can actually be harmful, especially if they draw out the chord charts backwards. They are easy enough to learn and when you see them in other books or online they’re always going to be made in the same direction (thickest string on the left, thinnest on the right).

By the bye, if you’re going to get one of my books and you’re more interested in the electric guitar, I’d go with the Rock Guitar book. Both books teach the fundamentals but the rock guitar book really focuses on the electric and on the touch required to play one well.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to email me anytime with more questions. I look forward to hearing how things are going with you.

Peace

It may not seem like it at the moment, but spring’s a-coming! and for some of us, that means tending to the garden. Ian from the Canadian province of Alberta has decided it’s also a good time to read up on playing his electric guitar:

And what better way to wish him even more success with playing than to send Ian an autographed copy of my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar?

As you hopefully know by now, Guitar Noise is giving away two autographed copies of my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar each month throughout the rest of 2011. To enter this giveaway, just get yourself a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar and simply take a picture of yourself, with the book, someplace relatively picturesque. You don’t have to have the Eiffel Tower or Mount Rushmore in the background, but try to be creative. As the saying goes, and as Paul literally did, you don’t have to go any further than your own back yard! Paul Hackett and I will be selecting two photos a month and will send an autographed copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar” to those whose pictures are chosen.

Just send your photos to me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and be sure to include an email address where you can be reached, as well as a mailing address. And please put “Picture Book” in the subject line of the email.

What you may not know, since it just started this month, is that we’re expanding the rules of our contest a bit. If you’ve got one of my books already, say this latest one, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar or even The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar and you’d like to win a different one of my books, then just take a photo of yourself with the book you’ve got! And when you’re notified about winning, you can let me know which of the three books you’d like.

Our next lucky winner will be announced right here on March 15. We’re looking forward to hearing from you and, as always, we wish the best of luck to everyone who enters!

And if you’d simply like to buy a copy, feel free to click on the link right here on my blog. If you’d like an autographed copy, just write me directly (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) for details.

And my thanks, by the way, to all those who have already bought a copy as well as to those who have taken the time to write and post reviews. I truly appreciate your making the time to do so.

Peace

Here’s a question from a recent email:

Hi.

I am curious if you can answer this question with a reasonable degree of certainty or if not direct me to someone who can. I tuned one guitar to drop D and one to open G. I have gotten a 50/ 50 mix of friends telling me I can leave it tuned that way on the one hand and on the other hand I get told I need to retune them to standard every time I finish playing. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 A belated Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

And a hearty to congratulations to Mitch of South Carolina, our February 15 winner of an autographed copy of my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar! 

As you hopefully know by now, Guitar Noise is giving away two autographed copies of my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar each month throughout the rest of 2011. To enter this giveaway, just get yourself a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar and simply take a picture of yourself, with the book, someplace relatively picturesque. You don’t have to have the Eiffel Tower or Mount Rushmore in the background, but try to be creative. As the saying goes, and as Paul literally did, you don’t have to go any further than your own back yard! Paul Hackett and I will be selecting two photos a month and will send an autographed copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar” to those whose pictures are chosen.

Just send your photos to me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and be sure to include an email address where you can be reached, as well as a mailing address. And please put “Picture Book” in the subject line of the email.

What you may not know, since it just started this month, is that we’re expanding the rules of our contest a bit. If you’ve got one of my books already, say this latest one, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar or even The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar and you’d like to win a different one of my books, then just take a photo of yourself with the book you’ve got! And when you’re notified about winning, you can let me know which of the three books you’d like. 

Our next lucky winner will be announced right here on the first of March. We’re looking forward to hearing from you and, as always, we wish the best of luck to everyone who enters!

And if you’d simply like to buy a copy, feel free to click on the link right here on my blog. If you’d like an autographed copy, just write me directly (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) for details.

And my thanks, by the way, to all those who have already bought a copy as well as to those who have taken the time to write and post reviews. I truly appreciate your making the time to do so.

Peace

As you know Guitar Noise  is giving away two autographed copies of my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar each month throughout the rest of 2011.

To enter this giveaway, just get yourself a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar and simply take a picture of yourself, with the book, someplace relatively picturesque. You don’t have to have the Eiffel Tower or Mount Rushmore in the background, but try to be creative. As the saying goes, and as Paul literally did, you don’t have to go any further than your own back yard! Paul Hackett and I will be selecting two photos a month and will send an autographed copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar” to those whose pictures are chosen.

Just send your photos to me at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and be sure to include an email address where you can be reached, as well as a mailing address. And please put “Picture Book” in the subject line of the email.

Okay, that’s the old news. So what do I do when I get a picture like this, from Denny of California:

Well, my first thought is that, does he want a second copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar? He’s obviously already got one! But he’s definitely got the spirit of the contest at heart, so after some discussion, we’re sending an autographed copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar out to Denny and he should be receiving it sometime in the upcoming week or so.

So, I guess I’m saying that if you’ve got one book and want another, take a photo of yourself with the book you’ve got! We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

And our next lucky winner will be announced right here in on Febrary 15. And, as always, we wish the best of luck to everyone who enters!

And if you’d simply like to buy a copy, feel free to click on the link right here on my blog. If you’d like an autographed copy, just write me directly (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) for details.

And my thanks, by the way, to all those who have already bought a copy as well as to those who have taken the time to write and post reviews. I truly appreciate your making the time to do so.

Peace