Some solo guitar arrangements

[jpfeifer]

1696

1697

Hi Everyone,

In the spirit of Christmas, I've uploaded a couple of solo guitar arrangements for any other fretters who want to learn some classics.

The first one is "The Christmas Song". My first guitar teacher, Pat McCauley, taught me this arrangement and it has been one of my all time favorite songs to learn on guitar. He was a great teacher and a master of solo Jazz guitar. (he was friends with Johnny Smith and played in a similar style) I only added one small part to this arrangement, the Jingle Bells reference at the end of the tune. The rest of the arrangement was all his. (Have fun with this one. I've been working on it for years trying to understand all of the harmony that was used and perfect my technique on it.) You can find a recording of this arrangement on my soundclick.com page.

The second tune is a solo arrangement that I came up with for "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". The thing that I love about Christmas tunes is that there is really no wrong way to arrange a tune. So long as you keep the melody you can go whatever you want with the harmony to come up with new ways to make them sound fresh. Every year I try to make a new arrangement or two just for the practice of doing it.

I'll try to post a few more arrangements in the next few days if I can.
Merry Christmas everyone!

-- Jim

[tot_Ou_tard]

Very cool. Thanks Jim & Merry Christmas.

Izzat your Hamer Newport on the Christmas Song clip?

I just took a look at The Christmas Song. Dang! That's a sleighload of chords.

[Algonquin]

Dang! That's a sleighload of chords.
You've got that right Tot!... definitely a couple of ambitious tunes to learn, but as they say 'The longest of journeys starts with a single step'

Thanks Jim, The Christmas Song is one of my favourites on your Soundclick page.

Merry Christmas,
David

[jpfeifer]

Thanks guys!!

Yes, that was my Hamer Newport that I used on "The Christmas Song" clip.
I was surprised that it sounded o.k. for solo guitar stuff (I just used the neck pickup and rolled the tone control back to about 3 or 4). I'd bet that a 335 style guitar would also sound pretty good too.


Yes, I know that this arrangement has a boatload of chords. It took me a while to get it under my fingers and I still have to re-practice it every year to get my hands back in shape to play it. That's why I love songs like this. It's kind of like a musical workout.

I'd love to learn some more arrangements like this if I can find them.

-- Jim

[sunvalleylaw]

Very cool! My former instructor and I started trying to put together a guitar "choir" for Christmas carols, and got it off the ground this year, but look to starting earlier next year and doing some more with it. I will put these in the hamper so that we can see if we can use them.

I like learning Christmas carols on guitar as the carols seem to teach me a bunch about chords, and correspondingly, that teaches me a bunch about the fretboard. Thanks!

[tot_Ou_tard]

You've got that right Tot!... definitely a couple of ambitious tunes to learn, but as they say 'The longest of journeys starts with a single step'

Yes & the better part of wisdom is to know which step to take next. This'un looks to be on schedule for taking that first step next year.