Guitar Noise

David gives us another interesting and beautiful sounding chord melody arrangement. This time we are working with the old Christmas carol Away in a Manger.

This is our fingerstyle / chord melody take on I'll Be Home for Christmas, a song from the 1940's that's been sung by almost everyone.

Brandon Carrasco takes us step by step through his first chord melody arrangement, turning this timeless lullaby into a wonderful single guitar piece.

Here is Hank's second Guitar Noise lesson, an accompaniment to "What a Wonderful World" as performed by Louis Armstrong.

Hank Stupi shares a step by step lesson of his very first arrangement, a finger style chord melody of the beautiful Charlie Chaplin tune Smile.

In this video lesson Jamie Andreas takes us step by step through the bridge section of While My Guitar Gently Weeps with clear and detailed instructions.

Here’s a chance to work on your hammer-ons and pull-offs while playing a Celtic soul arrangement of this lovely song. Plus, you get to learn a lot about chord choices and voicing and even get to play around in Drop D tuning.

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas is a wonderfully easy introduction to creating a chord melody arrangement and the first of a series of holiday song lessons for our readers. MP3 files are included.

Next in our series of Christmas lessons we are going to work on The Little Drummer Boy. Way too often, guitarists tend to under-use or, worse, ignore the little finger when playing. Many beginners don’t start working with it until they absolutely have to and at that point it’s almost like learning to play all over again. Includes MP3 files.

Our arrangement of this traditional German Christmas carol may only use two notes at a time, but we will learn a lot about how two notes can imply a rich textured harmony. This lesson features MP3 files to help you get the sound just right.

David’s arrangement of this much-loved Christmas carol focuses on the use of chord arpeggios rather than using straight chords for an accompaniment. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you will pick it up!

Let’s wrap up (no pun intended) this season’s selection of Christmas carol arrangements with a lesson that uses a little of everything that we’ve been working on. Also it will give us a chance to start exploring putting the melody further up the neck while still coming up with an easily playable chord accompaniment.

Here’s an original song from Peter Simms – Key West – a perfect song for lounging on a lazy summer afternoon. Peter wrote this specifically for those of you who want to play chord melodies with a pick, so enjoy!

Here is a beautiful Christmas hymn, wonderfully arranged in DADGAD tuning for us by Doug Sparling. What a great way to kick off the holiday season!

Doug brings us another beautiful Christmas carol, arranged in standard tuning. This one is quite catchy and Doug also gives us a fascinating bit of history concerning the history of Christmas carols in Britain.