We’re going to work a bit of the same sort of magic with “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” written by American Episcopalian priest Phillips Brooks (inspired by his 1865 visit to the fabled city) and his church’s organist, Lewis Redner. For the most part, we’ll use either pairs of notes of chord arpeggios to create our arrangement of this beautiful carol.

The First Two Lines

I’ve chosen to write this arrangement in the key of D to make use of both the open D and A strings for bass notes and also the open B, G and D strings as part of the G chord. You get a taste of that right in the first line:

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Even though the first set of notes is based on an open position D chord, it’s a good idea to fret the high E (first) string with your ring finger and the G string with your middle finger. In fact, you want to use your middle finger as a bit of an anchor during the most of the instances where you’re playing two notes at the same time. If you use your middle finger on the G or D string, that frees you up to use your ring finger whenever the high note is on the same fret and to use your index finger when the high note is one fret lower, as in the second pair of notes in the second full measure.

The third measure demonstrates why this use of the middle finger as anchor can be so helpful. If your first inclination is to use your index and middle fingers for the pair of notes on the second fret of the B and D strings, then you’d find it more than a little awkward making any sort of smooth transition to the two subsequent pairs. But keeping your middle finger on the D string allows you to quickly move from pair to pair.

By the bye, you definitely want to finger a “normal” open position D chord at the start of the last measure in this example!

As mentioned, playing this song in D is giving us a number of opportunities to use open strings, which in turn gives us a chance to reposition our fingers when the melody makes a bit of a leap to higher notes, as it does in the start of the second line:

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The first two measures of Example 2 are the trickiest part of our song. Use your index finger to barre the first five strings at the fifth fret and your ring finger to barre the first four strings at the seventh. This will allow you to play the first two eighth notes and the following quarter note (where the B and G strings are played at the seventh fret).

Then stand your ring finger up on its tip on the seventh fret of the D string. Use your middle finger to play the sixth fret of the A string and your pinky to get the seventh fret of the high E (first) string. Lift up your pinky and your index finger will have the two notes at the fifth fret (on the high E and G strings) that you need to close the measure.

You’re still not out of the woods, though! You next need to make a bit of a leap to place your index finger on the second fret of the D string and to put your pinky on the fifth fret of the high E. This takes a bit of practice but it’s not as hard as it sounds. You could, as an alternative, play the E note (second fret of the D) at the seventh fret of the A string and the G note (third fret of the high E) at the eighth fret of the B string. That’s a lot fewer gymnastics for your fingers but you’re still going to have to jump down the neck for the G in the bass (third fret of the low E string) at some point. I’ve tried it both ways and find myself preferring the former. You may find otherwise, though, so be sure to experiment.

The final two measures in this example are more chances to use your middle finger anchor when playing. If you thought you were getting good at it earlier, now’s your chance to find out for sure! And, like the first line, you want to finish this section off with an open position D chord.

The Last Two Lines

That D chord kicks off the third line of the song:

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It’s a good idea here to use your ring finger to get the E note (second fret of the D string) when you play the third chord (Em) and then slide it up the D string for each of the following two chords. You should end up starting the second measure with your ring finger at the fourth fret of the D string, your middle finger on the third fret of the G and your index finger at the second fret of the B string. This is an F# chord, by the way. For the second F# Lay your index finger flat across the second fret to make a barre chord out of it and get you the F# in the bass (second fret of the low E string).  You’ll revisit this F# barre in the last measure of this example.

The last line starts out the same as the first and ends a little like the second:

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Try to get the G note in the bass in the second measure with your index finger. This will make the next pair of notes (seventh fret of the high E and the fourth fret of the low E) a lot easier to manage!

As always, here, is a full version for you to work with. And (again, as always) please forgive any of the numerous performance mistakes!

Download a PDF of the complete arrangement (Right-click and “Save as”)

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this arrangement of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and that you find it a great Christmas present for both you and your family and friends.

And let me take a moment to wish all our readers, their family and friends, a wonderful holiday season. We thank you for your continued support of Guitar Noise and look forward to bringing lots of great lessons in 2012!

Until the next lesson…

O Little Town of Bethlehem was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Christmas Songs for Guitar

• Silent Night
• Silver Bells
• O Tannebaum!
• Joy to the World
• The Little Drummer Boy
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas
• O Little Town of Bethlehem

Coming up with single guitar chord melody arrangements (or close to chord melody, I suppose you could call it, too, since sometimes you don’t play full chords) can be a lot of fun, if for no other reason than sometimes you end up with something totally different than what you first set out to do.

Case in point – this lesson on the old Christmas carol Away in a Manger started out as a very simple lesson on melody movement, but, well, you’ll see!

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Away in a Manger is a beguiling, simple yet beautiful melody built on a descending major scale line, but starting on the fifth note of the scale. In the key of G, it would be like this:

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When I was working this out, I was indeed playing in G. This led me to thinking, what if I raised the melody up an octave so that I could play it mostly (almost entirely, in fact) on the high E (first) string and then use the open B, G and D strings as a drone, kind of making the guitar more into a dulcimer. That turned out like this:

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I liked this a lot, especially since it opened up some many possibilities for concentrating on the single notes of the melody. One could, for instance, use a single finger and slide from note to note. Or you could place your index finger on the B note at the seventh fret of the high E (first) string and set up the C note (eighth fret) with the middle finger and the opening D at the tenth fret with the pinky and then using pull-offs to sound the first three notes of the melody. Being able to focus on the tone of each note of the melody, how playing it even with different fingers creates a different tone, can keep me occupied for hours!

As much as I enjoyed being able to play around with the melody, I found myself missing having a low G note in the bass. But the thought of trying to have one finger on the G note at third fret of the low E (sixth) string while simultaneously playing the D note at the tenth fret of the high E (first) string, well, let’s just say that I didn’t think it being a good idea and leave it at that.

But there are all sorts of ways of getting around these kinds of challenges if you have an open mind. Since I wanted to have a low G note for my bass, why not tune my low E up to G just for this song and give myself nothing but open strings for my bass accompaniment, like this:

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Now, you might wonder why I didn’t tune my A string down to G instead, and you certainly can do that. But I was worried about the fact that, Away in a Manger being in the key of G, the song would primarily contain G, C and D chords and tuning the A down to G would make the C chord problematic, whereas changing the low E string wouldn’t change the C chord at all.

Away in a Manger, like many songs, has four lines and the melody line of the first and third lines are the same. Let’s tackle that first line with our newly tuned guitars:

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You’ll notice that I changed the accompaniment in the third measure, using the C note at the third fret of the A string as the first bass note but not changing the other two notes. Technically, this creates a Cadd9 chord instead of a regular C, but I liked the way it sounded, slightly dissonant but in an interesting way. After trying out using regular C and this one, I ended up liking the open D string much more.

Although I didn’t realize it at time, keeping the A string tuned to A made the first full measure of the second line much easier to deal with:

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This is simply a C7 chord (x32310) slid up two frets, creating a D9 chord (x54530) and the use of the F# (fourth fret of the D string) and C (fifth fret of the G string), mixing with the ringing tones of the D (third fret of the B string) and E (open high E (sixth) string) in the melody, makes this sound much more interesting than if I’d used a regular D with just the open high E string (xx0230).

The “regular” open position D chord does have its place, though, as it’s the perfect choice for the second measure. Some people might find this measure easier to play by making a partial barre at the second fret, covering the three high strings with the index finger. Doing so should allow you to play the initial D note (third fret of the B string) of the melody with the middle finger and the A note (fifth fret of the high E (first) string) with the pinky.

Using a partial barre also puts you in a position to simply stand up your index finger onto the second fret of the D string for the Cadd9 chord (x32030) in the following measure. The middle finger would get the C note in the bass (third fret of the A string) and the ring finger would play the D note at the third fret of the B string. You would then slide that finger up to the eighth fret to get the G note of the melody and hang onto it so that it could ring out while you play the B note (seventh fret of the high E) to end this phrase.

Since the melody of the third line is an exact copy of the first line, I thought it might be nice to do something different this time around. Adding a bit of additional harmony is always nice:

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These are basic double stops, and shouldn’t give you too much trouble provided you remember to keep the G note of the melody (eighth fret of the B string) the same while changing the harmony note from F (tenth fret of the G string) to E (ninth fret of the G string). And you don’t have to release the B note (fourth fret of the G string) in favor of the open G string if you prefer not to. This was something I thought was nice.

The final line has a few slightly complicated challenges to it involving a few partial barres:

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Begin the first measure here with your index finger barring the first four strings at the fifth fret. This, along with the open A string in the bass, gives you an Am7 chord for your harmony. Your pinky should be able to reach the C note of the melody (eighth fret of the high E) without difficulty and you can use either your ring finger or your middle finger to get the B note (seventh fret) that follows.

You remove the barre in the second measure but replace it, this time using your middle finger to barre, in the third measure. That frees your index finger for the F# note at the fourth fret of the D string. This chord, x04555, is D9/A by the way. Use your ring finger or pinky to get the F# note at the seventh fret of the B string and then slide that finger up a single fret to play the final G of the melody line.

Okay, let’s put this all together, shall we?

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I hope you’ve enjoyed working out this Christmas carol with me. Even though it’s fairly simple, I think we’ve managed to come up with an arrangement with some flair of its own.

As always, please feel free to post your questions and suggestions on the Guitar Noise Forum’s “Guitar Noise Lessons” page or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

Away in a Manger was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

And that’s just as well, too, for there are certainly more than enough versions of just about every single holiday song known to civilization. Today, I’d like to offer up a “fingerstyle / chord melody” take on I’ll Be Home for Christmas, a song from the 1940′s that’s been sung by almost everyone, it seems. Hopefully our Guitar Noise arrangement will become part of your holiday song repertoire.

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Before we start in, though, I have to digress slightly concerning two things. First, I’ve been playing this song for ages, but when I first started to work up an arrangement of it, I had no sheet music as a guide. Instead, I relied on memories of the various versions I’d heard. As a result, there are all sorts of ‘freedoms” taken, particularly with the time signatures in this arrangement. But I’m hoping that will make it an even more interesting lesson.

The second thing is that I incorporate the “verse” of the song, and you may not even be aware that it exists. We know many pop songs from the middle of the 1900s simply from their choruses, which actually seem to be whole songs. But quite often, these songs had a single verse that served more as what we’d think of today as an introduction. Then everyone would join in on singing the chorus. And, more often than not these days, it’s only the chorus that most of us know.

Our arrangement of I’ll Be Home is in the key of A. And though the song is written in 4/4 timing, we’re going to be approaching it in a different manner. In 4/4 timing, the two lines of the verse goes like this:

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Back when I was putting this all together, the phrase of lyric gave me a strong impression of 3 / 4 timing. More like this:

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Because I’d gotten this rhythm into my head all those many years ago, I pretty much think of the whole song in terms of threes and triplets instead of fours, as you’ll see when we get to the chorus.

For now, though, let’s take a look at those first two lines again, done up in a “fingerstyle chord melody” way:

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First things first – I’ve moved the melody up an octave to place it totally on the first two strings of guitar. This means that you’ll have a bit of work ahead, changing chords at various places on the fretboard. But even this early in the verse, we’ll be running into two important chord shapes that will recur throughout the song. The initial Dmaj7 chord is made by placing the index finger at the ninth fret of the high E (first) string, and then forming a diagonal line with your middle finger on the tenth fret of the B string and your ring finger on the eleventh fret of the G string. The open D string serves as our bass note.

We then switch to full-barre Em7 chord shapes for the next three measures. Using this fingering of barring across all the strings with the index finger and then adding the ring finger to the A string two frets up, we create C#m7 (barre at ninth fret, ring finger on the eleventh fret of the A string), Bm7 (barre at seventh fret, ring finger on the ninth fret of the A string), and F#m7 (barre at second fret, ring finger on the fourth fret of the A string) and our free fingers to get the other melody notes. Your index finger will easily reach the tenth fret of the B string when playing the C#m and your pinky should have no problems with either the tenth fret of the B when playing Bm7 or the fourth fret of the high E (first) string when playing the F#m7.

The “diagonal line shape” of the Dmaj7 chord shows up again in first measure of the second line for the Bm7/D chord, although you may not immediately recognize it. Before you worry about playing the notes shown in the tablature, set your fingers for a typical “beginner’s Bm” chord – index finger on the second fret of the high E (first) string, middle finger on the third fret of the B string, and ring finger on the fourth fret of the G string. Once you’ve gotten those fingers in place, then put your pinky on the fifth fret of the high E (first) string to get the A note of the melody line. Once you’ve played it, you simply remove the pinky and all your other fingers are in place for the last chord of that measure.

Being able to read chord shapes as tablature is not something that many guitarists pick up easily and we’ll be spending a bit of time throughout 2010 working through this subject. Hopefully, though, this shows you why it’s an important skill to develop.

Recognizing chord shapes can often make changing from chord to chord easier as well. For instance, just looking at the chord charts and tablature for switching from this “beginner’s Bm” to the following E7 may seem daunting, all it really involves is moving two fingers. Your middle and ring finger are already where they should be, so you shift the index finger to the second fret of the D string and then drop your pinky onto the fourth fret of the high E (first) string.

If you want to add a bit more bass, you can also flatten out your index finger across the second fret of both the D and A strings, giving you the fingering of 022434, which allows you to play the chord across all six strings. You want to be careful with this, though as you need the note of the open high E (first) string as part of the melody line. You can achieve this by tilting the index finger into the middle of the fretboard, clearing the first string completely, or you could always reach the same note at the fifth fret of the B string with you pinky.

The second half of the verse starts out the same but then finishes with a group of interesting chords, not to mention a brief change of time signatures:

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Something both cool but somewhat frustrating and unnerving about is that any one specific combination of notes can turn out to be a part of many, many possible chords. If I were to give you the notes C, E and G, as an example, you could say that they are a C major chord, but they could also be part of Am7 (A, C, E and G), Fmaj9 (F, A, C, E and G) or many other chords. Most jazz players use only three or four strings in order to create chords, so there are all sorts of ways to identify them.

Since Bm, or Bm7 if you will, is the focal harmonic point of the first measure in the second line here, I’ve named each of these chords as extensions of Bm or B. Shifting from chord to chord may seem difficult at first, but using your index finger as an anchor on the lowest fret and shifting it up the neck (from the second fret to the fourth and then to the seventh) will help you make smooth transitions. Having your index finger on the seventh fret for the B13 also puts you in perfect position for the E9.

This part of the verse can be done very freely in terms of timing. You can make it incredibly melodramatic if you’d like, especially if doing so helps you buy time between the chord changes!

Part of the charm of this arrangement, of most chord melody style arrangements for that matter, are getting ringing strings and overtones wherever possible. That’s why you’ll find many times I’ll opt for a chord voicing involving open strings when I can.

With the “verse” out of the way, we can concentrate on the “chorus” part of I’ll Be Home for Christmas, which is the part you’re probably really interested in, anyway. Like the verse, the original chorus is written in 4 /4 timing. But while there is a strong pulse on each beat, and again this is to my ears and may not work for you, there is also a distinct feel for triplets in the accompaniment. It’s got the same kind of feel as The House of the Rising Sun. So I’ve worked out the chorus in 6 / 8 timing to accommodate this feel. If nothing else, it keeps me from writing out a lot of triplet notation!

I could have just as easily written this out in 12 / 8, the way many blues songs are written out, but I simply found 6 / 8 more convenient. And, as you’ll see and hear, it does make coming up with an easy, yet interesting accompaniment a breeze.

Essentially, the chorus can be broken down into four parts, each of which goes with a line of lyric:

I’ll be home for Christmas you can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me where the lovelight gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams

To make matters even easier, the first and third lines are, essentially identical in terms of melody and chords. So we’ve only three parts to learn! Here’s the first:

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The first measure involves what some people call the “classical guitarist’s A chord,” although folks like Pete Townsend use it a lot. Essentially, it’s a partial barring of the second fret, covering the four high strings with the index finger, and then adding the pinky to the fifth fret of the high E (first) string to get the A note of the melody. You then slide the pinky down to the fourth fret at the end of the measure.

For the most part, I tried to make the accompaniment be a simple “down and up” arpeggio, again much like the lesson on The House of the Rising Sun. There will be places where this will have to be changed, but if you can get used to starting with your bass note and (including that bass note) play three strings down and then three strings back up, you should be fine.

An Adim7 sets the stage for the second measure. Slide your index finger, still barring the first four strings, up to the fourth fret and add your middle finger to the fifth fret of the G string while dropping your pinky onto the seventh fret of the high E (first) string. Use your ring finger to fret the A note at the fifth fret of the high E later in the measure.

The E note of the open first string is the melody note for the word “Christmas,” so I use most of the barre chord version of the Bm chord but leave that first string open. This is actually fairly easy to do if you don’t think of it as a barre chord, but rather as an Am chord slid up two frets. Plus, then your fingers are in shape for the E chord that comes next.

If case one of the subtle subtexts of the many lessons here at Guitar Noise may be eluding you, let me make it clear: you don’t have to let chord names freak you out. There is very little about music that you can’t figure out, provided that you keep your head and don’t panic. For instance, you may look at the chord in the next measure, C#m7(b5) and have a heart attack. But there’s no reason for it. C#m is C#, E and G#. Adding the “7″ means adding the note, B, to the chord. “b5″ indicates that you lower the fifth of the chord, G# in this instance, a half-step, turning it into G. So the notes of “C#7(b5) are C#, E, G and B. That’s three open strings plus a C# thrown in somewhere. No reason whatsoever to panic that I can see.

You could make this more interesting, not to mention slightly harder to finger by going with a fingering of X42000, but since you’re fingerpicking arpeggios, make it easier on yourself by skipping the D string entirely.

Likewise, the following chord, F#7(b9) may seem unwieldy, but all you’ve got to do is to barre across the second fret again with your index finger and then add your middle finger to the third fret of the G string and your ring finger, just for a moment, to the third fret of the high E (first) string. Then you only need stand the index finger up at the second fret of the A string to put you in perfect position for the Bm7 of the last two measures.

Let’s move along to the second line of the chorus:

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Things start our relatively easy, with three simple open positions before moving up the neck for the F#m7 in the fourth measure. But even this isn’t that hard if you stop to think and prepare for a moment. The chord immediately before it, Amaj7, shares the same shape and fingering on the B, G and D strings, so if you set yourself up to play that Amaj7 without your index finger (pinky on the second fret of the B string, middle finger on the first fret of the G string and ring finger on the second fret of the D string), then you only need slide the whole shape up to the sixth and seventh frets and drop your index finger down on the fifth fret of the high E string to complete the chord.

And if you plan out your arpeggios, you don’t have to play the whole B7 barre chord, either. For all intents and purposes, you can get away with leaving the A string clear (other than the index finger needed to barre the seventh fret, of course!) and just use your middle finger on the eighth fret of the G string. Plus your ring finger for the melody note at the ninth fret of the B string when it comes along. The last two measures of this section are a repeat of the third and fourth measures of the first line.

After repeating the first line again, you’ve only one more to go:

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This brings us back to the two basic chord shapes we covered in the “verse” section. The Bm7 (based on the Em7 shape but barred at the seven fret) we remember as the third chord of the song. The “diagonal line” chord is played across the fifth, sixth and seventh frets of the high E (first), B and G strings, respectively, to create Dm. Adding the pinky to the seventh fret of the high E (first) string will give you the melody note.

Then comes our old friend C#m7(b5) and since that’s nowhere near as scary now, why not try stretching our hand a bit and using the x42000 fingering for it? Follow that up with a full F#7 (index finger barred across the second fret, middle finger on the third fret of the G and ring finger on the fourth fret of the A), another Bm7 and another diagonal Dm and you’re just about finished. We’ll close with a nice open string version of Amaj9, fingering the sixth fret of both the D and G strings.

If you want to have an ending with a little more pizzazz, try replacing the final two measures with a reprise of the first four measures of the “verse” section, only try it in 6 /8 timing to give it a little more interest. I’ve not tabbed this out, but I play it in our final version. And just in case you were wondering, I’m playing all the MP3 examples for this lesson on a classical guitar.

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

As always, I hope that you had fun with this arrangement of I’ll Be Home for Christmas. It’s one of my favorite seasonal songs and I hope you enjoy it as well. It may take you a little longer to get confident about playing it, but I’m sure you’ll manage it with just a little bit of practice, patience and perseverance.

And, again as always, please feel free to post your questions and suggestions on the Guitar Noise Forum’s “Guitar Noise Lessons” page or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

I’ll Be Home for Christmas was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Taking a person outside of the comfort zone is an excellent way to grow in skills. That’s a basic principle in teaching that often is overlooked. We tend to focus on the practice-until-proficient part. But at the same time one is becoming proficient at one skill, new skills are introduced to continue progress. Otherwise, one hits that dreaded plateau. One of the main functions of a teacher is to keep moving the student past the point of comfort by presenting new challenges.

Christmas Songs for Guitar

Check out these other holiday songs for guitar. These are fun and easy to play solo arrangements.

• Silent Night
• Silver Bells
• O Tannebaum!
• Joy to the World
• The Little Drummer Boy
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas

We have even more easy Christmas songs for guitar.

The whole concept of chord melody as a playing style has been around for ages. And, like most aspects of both music in general and the guitar in specific, there is no end to the variations you can come up with playing in this particular manner. You can have full chords, such as in our recent lesson on Christmas carol Joy to the World, you can use one extra note to accompany your melody, as in O Tannenbaum, or almost anything in between.

The variations multiply even more when you factor in the use of alternate tunings, even one as common place as Drop D. And that’s where we’ll be spending this particular lesson, on a Drop D arrangement of the perennial New Year’s Eve standard, Auld Lang Syne.

GN Moderator and Contributor Graham Merry has already written a wonderful piece on this song, not to mention on the whole concept of chord melody in general, in his lesson entitled, Birth of a Chord Melody – you might want to give that one a read before we proceed. In the meantime, I’ll deal with the pesky “disclaimer” part:

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Of course, the first thing we’ll want to do is to get our guitars in Drop D tuning. As you undoubtedly know from reading an old (but timeless!) Guitar Column called On the Tuning Awry, or from any number of song lessons such as the classic Neil Young tune, Harvest Moon, all we have to do is to tune our low E (sixth) string down a full step to D. While you’re doing that, I’ll put together the melody and chords of our lesson for you:

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Since Graham’s lesson on Auld Lang Syne is heavy on the “chord” aspect of chord melody, it seems that going with a sparser, more open arrangement that relies on bass lines and chord arpeggios (at least to start with!) would be an interesting take. Plus, as you’ll see and hear later, it opens the door to some interesting chord substitutions. So let’s get going with the first two lines of our song:

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Even though we start out with a simple D chord to hold both melody and accompaniment easily, I’d like to suggest using your index finger to barre the first three strings at the second fret as this will make playing the C# note (second fret of the B string) a lot smoother for you. The E minor chord is fingered 222000 in Drop D tuning and shouldn’t give you any trouble, but if you prefer, Em7 (220000) makes a perfectly good substitute.

My main reason for using A7 instead of A is to allow me to play harmony notes on the G string for the last beat of the second measure. You can, if you like, use a double hammer-on to get the F# (second fret of the high E (first) string) and A (second fret of the G). That will sound very nice, and I’m sure you’ll agree if you try it.

The Bm that starts the third measure is more implied than played in full, as we’re only picking out the B (second fret of the A) and D (third fret of the B) notes. You could flesh this out by playing the strings in between, either as Bm (X2443X) or even as G/B (X2003X). Each has a different character, so try them both out before deciding.

I made a substitution of D7, technically a D7/F# since I’m playing the F# note on the fourth fret of the low D (sixth) string, instead of a regular D for the last chord in Measure Three for two reasons. First, I like the way it sounds. It makes the transition from D to G more interesting and intense, especially when using the F# as the bass note. And it’s an easy shape to make when adding said F# in the bass. As a further plus, it puts me in great position, finger-wise, to make the G chord with the high B note (seventh fret of the high E (first) string) in the melody.

And position can be very important when working out a chord melody arrangement. In fact, being where I am on the finger board at the end of the second line of the verse puts me in great shape for the start of the third line:

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It even allows me a chance to make a very interesting chord substitution by simply sliding my G note up a half-step to G# (sixth fret of the low D (sixth) string), which plays very nicely when I use D/A instead of just plain old D at the start of the next measure. The G to G# to A in the bass is definitely more interesting than just using root notes, and the G# diminished chord that we create in the process is one of those magical touches that make the song more alive, and only we have to know that it’s an incredibly easy chord change to pull off!

It gets better. Being up in the middle of the neck allow us to play the voicing of the D chord we’ve used in other song lessons (even Christmas song lessons, such as Silent Night) before moving back down to our “regular” open position D chord.

The bass line gets center stage again for a while, making an E to F# to G run en route to the open A string. But why stop there? Using A# (first fret of the A string) gives us an implied A# diminished chord, that carries us to the Bm at the start of the next measure much the same way the G# diminished chord did two measures earlier. You’re getting a lot of bang for your buck just by using chromatic half-steps between chords.

And you can also create more tension-and-release moments, just by lifting off a finger here and there, as at the end of the verse. Sounding the open G string, right after playing two notes of the D chord, creates Dsus4, which then gets resolved by playing the F# note at the fourth fret of the D string. You could also just go back to the A (second fret of the G string) if you’d like, although that will sound a little more ambiguous.

Since we’ve gone relatively sparse during the verses, focusing on full, vibrant chords during the chorus will make a nice contrast. We can even use some interesting extensions to jazz things up a bit:

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Even though the original melody-and-chord chart didn’t call for it, starting out the chorus with a resounding A chord makes a lot of sense, both to the head and, more importantly, to the ears. But remember that the melody note is B (seventh fret of the high E (first) string), so the melody is actually giving you the ninth. So we oblige by playing an A9 (X05657), which is best accomplished by using the index finger to barre across the first four strings at the fifth fret.

Once again, being around the fifth fret makes playing that voicing of D, now making use of all six strings (000775) a breeze.

I like what we did with the A9 so much that not only do I use it again at the end of the second measure, it inspires the use of a D9 (technically D9/F# – 400555) for the final chord of the third measure. Here I’d recommend using your pinky or the ring finger for the barre of the first three strings at the fifth fret.

We’ve created a grandiose feeling with the chorus so far, so seems reasonable to continue on through the rest of the chorus in the same manner:

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Using the A# note (first fret of the A string) against the rest of the A7 chord above, with the F# note in the melody, sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? So much so, in fact, that I can’t help but default to the “two note Bm” that starts the next measure, simply for contrast. Again, you should feel free to use a fuller chord at this point if you so desire.

And it also seems appropriate to make a slightly fancier closing statement to end the chorus. Not all that fancier, mind you, just opening up the G string again but then going for the A note at the second fret before finishing with the F# at the fourth fret of the D string. You can certainly use a hammer-on to get that penultimate A note. It will sound very cool.

So let’s put everything together and wrap up our 2008 series of holiday lessons:

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This arrangement, while not terribly difficult, will give you some challenges that should require a bit of practice (note how stiff I sound!). But the important lesson is to try out chords and ideas that you may not have had on your radar until now. Work out each line in terms of positioning and listen to how the individual notes of the chords play against and then into each other. Hopefully you’ll be mesmerized enough to try out some chord melody arrangements of your own. Doesn’t have to be this particular song – almost any song can be performed in this manner.

And I hope that you enjoyed not only this lesson, and not only our group of holiday song arrangements, but all the various lessons here at Guitar Noise this past year. It’s been fun writing them and I hope that you’ll enjoy the many lessons coming up right around the turn of the calendar page.

As always, please feel free to email me (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) with any questions you might have. You can also reach me at the Guitar Noise Forum pages, either on a thread or by dropping me a PM.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

Auld Lang Syne was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

And I had to laugh. I’m sure that some of you have read one of my old Guitar Columns called Christmas in June, or if you’ve ever heard me teach a beginners’ class on the importance of timing, you know that it takes the simplest changes to turn any descending major scale into the first line of a very, very popular Christmas carol:

Christmas Songs for Guitar

Check out these other holiday songs for guitar. These are fun and easy to play solo arrangements.

• Silent Night
• Silver Bells
• O Tannebaum!
• The Little Drummer Boy
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas
• O Little Town of Bethlehem

We have even more easy Christmas songs for guitar.

Well, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, I thought why not come up with an arrangement for Joy to the World in this tuning? After all, it would certainly give me something new to work out and it never hurts to explore a familiar tune in a new setting.

Anyway, before we get into this lesson, I do want to say that this arrangement may not be for everyone. I can’t tell you how many different ways I know to play this particular song – how many different tunings and how many different keys. I think it’s one of the reasons it’s so popular.

But I do hope you like this take on an old favorite. One advantage to it is that you can play this arrangement with a pick, and I know that appeals to quite a few of our readers here at Guitar Noise. Using just your fingers is perfectly okay, too.

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Okay, first things first! In case you don’t know about Double Drop D tuning which, by the way, you can read about in our Guitar Column called On the Tuning Awry or in the Songs for Intermediates lesson on Cinnamon Girl, we should take a moment to get you and your guitar in tune.

Assuming you’re in standard tuning to begin with, all you have to do is to tune both of your E strings – the high (first) and low (sixth) ones – down a full step from E to D. You can obviously do this with a tuner or simply match the two new D strings to the regular D (fourth) string by comparing octaves. Whichever, you will now be tuned, from lowest to highest strings, to the following notes: DADGBD.

And now that you’re set, here’s the melody and accompanying chords, written out, as all our examples for this lesson are, in Double Drop D tuning:

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That’s fairly easy, isn’t it? One thing to remember is that you can play your D notes in the melody with either your new high D (first) string or at the third fret of the B string as you do in standard tuning, whichever way seems most comfortable.

Before we add some accompanying chords to our melody, let’s remember that our basic chords are going to be different now because of our tuning. For instance, here are two ways of making a G major chord:

There are, of course, all sorts of ways to finger these chords. For starters, you might want to use your index finger on the sixth (low D) string, your middle finger on the A string and then your pinky or ring finger on the first (high D) string. Some of you might like not playing the A string at all, instead flattening your index finger slightly, which will mute the A string when you make a full strum. It’s a great way to practice that particular technique. You could, instead, use your middle and ring fingers on the sixth and fifth strings, respectively, which would mean using the pinky on the first string.

The full D chord also needs a little change of configuration:

And we’ll talk about the fingering for this one after we’ve taken a look at the first four measures of Joy to the World, written out in chord melody fashion:

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In this case, it makes sense to start out by fingering what you currently think of as a “normal” D chord (middle finger on the second fret of the first string, ring finger on the third fret of the second and index finger on the second fret of the third) and then add your pinky to the fourth fret of the first string. Doing so puts you exactly in place to play the second and third notes of the melody with the chords attached. It definitely makes things easy in the first two measures.

The third and fourth measures will require a little accuracy in your strumming (as noted earlier, you can use either a pick or your fingers in this arrangement) and some of you might prefer to not even play the F# note (fourth fret of the regular D (fourth) string) in the second chord of the third measure. That’s okay; the open D (fourth) string will sound perfectly fine as a substitute. One of the things you may be noticing is that we’re kind of going whole hog with the chord melody approach so far. Joy to the World has a kind of a majestic sound, almost like a processional you might hear at a royal event, and using full chords that employ the entire range of the guitar help bring this out.

We continue with this approach in Measures Five through Eight, but I also offer a bit of a break to mix things up when we reach the long, drawn out G in Measure Seven:

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Now, some of you may be asking, “Where did the Am7 come from? That wasn’t with the original chords!” And, you’d be right to do so. Normally, the C chord would be played there, but since Am is the relative minor of C and Am7 contains all the notes of the C chord (Am7 is A, C, E and G and C is, of course, C, E and G), it made sense to make this substitution for the sake of easier playing. If playing Am7 doesn’t work for your ears, then just don’t play the A string. You’ll have all the notes of your C chord and the only difference is that you have an E as your bass note instead of C. And that works out fine with D coming as the next chord.

Some of you may also not like all the space spent waiting between the G chord that starts Measure Seven (the word “king” when being sung) and the G note at the end of Measure Eight which, pardon the pun, heralds the start of the next line. Making use of a short arpeggio, such as the one shown in Example 3A, will certainly fit the bill. It’s totally your call.

Measures Nine and Ten (“…let every heart…” get repeated as Measures Eleven and Twelve (“…prepare Him room…”). The melody could be played totally over a G chord, but I like tossing in the C (or Am7 if you’ve come to like that chord) right before the end of each phrase:

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Now comes the fun part, the “heaven and nature sing!” line that gets repeated until the end. This is a great place to work with the dynamics of the song and switching from full chords (or as full as possible) to double stops seems to work well for the first two times through the phrase:

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Again, if you have problems with reaching both the F# (fourth fret of the regular D (fourth) string) and the A (second fret of the G), as shown in Example 5A, you can go with the open D (fourth string) note instead of the F#. But I do recommend you giving it a try. This is a stretch that you’re going to run into in a lot of songs, whether you play chords or lead lines, and it will be good practice for you. Notice the use of single bass notes to fill in the spaces.

We get back into the full chord accompaniment for the finale of our Christmas carol:

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Since you’ve been playing all these chords for a while now, you’re probably getting good at striking just the strings you need to in order to make the melody ring out.

Okay, let’s put the whole thing together! And please forgive my falling apart right at the very end on the MP3 file!

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I hope that you enjoyed this lesson and that you forgive our getting it online after the Christmas holiday! But it is pretty easy to learn, so you should still get the chance to play this lovely carol during the rest of the holiday season. There are twelve days of Christmas, no? If not, then start in on it whenever Christmas season officially starts in your neck of the woods. Some of our readers swear that’s September 1 and that seems almost around the corner!

As always, please feel free to email me (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) with any questions you might have. You can also reach me at the Guitar Noise Forum pages, either on a thread or by dropping me a PM.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

Joy To The World was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

No, I’m not trying to pull you leg here. Way too often, and for some reason it seem especially more true nowadays than when I was learning guitar way back in the primordial ooze, people learn a song without realizing that the techniques they’ve picked up in learning this one piece can easily be applied to many, many other tunes. Good musicians are constantly expanding on what they’ve learned, using those skills as the groundwork on which to build new ones.

Since we’ve covered a lot of ground in both bass lines and Travis-style finger picking in the past two years here at Guitar Noise, it makes a lot of sense to try to incorporate these ideas and techniques in our exploration of chord melody arrangements of holiday songs, no? So let’s get to it!

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Today we’ll work up an arrangement of Angels We Have Heard on High, a traditional French carol. And since we’re basically concerned about playing a chord melody version, how about we start out with the melody and chords?

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The verse of our carol is laid out in the first two lines, which are repeated. To make matters very simple, all of our melody notes are either on the open high E (first) string, or on the first or third fret of the high E (first) and B strings.

As far as the chords go, it also helps to see that we only use C or G for this section, even though we’ll be changing that in just a moment! Why? Well, the purpose of this lesson is to work on bass lines, and what better place to start? Let’s take the first two measures of the melody and add a very simple moving bass line:

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Since we’re going from a C chord in the first measure to a G chord in the second, we can use the standard descending bass line, going from our first root, C, to G. Well, we could except that if we use one note per beat, we’d end up on G at the end of the first measure. That certainly doesn’t sound bad, but instead we’re going to stop at A (the open A string) on the third beat and hold that note over the fourth beat. Part of the reason this will work is because Am is the relative minor of C major. The two chords are very similar: C being made of the notes C, E and G while Am is made of the notes A, C and E. Since there will be a G note in the melody on the fourth beat, we’re technically creating an Am7 chord (notes are A, C, E and G), which contains all the notes of the C chord we started with.

And speaking of chords, it’s time to fill the spaces between our melody and our bass line with those chords. Keeping with the spirit of giving, I’m going to offer you some choices:

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First thing I’d like to mention is that no matter how you usually finger your G chord, you’ll probably have a lot easier time of the second measure if you go with your ring finger on the low E (sixth) string, your middle finger on the A string and your pinky on the high E (first) string. This frees up your index finger to get the F note in the melody (first fret of the first string) while still hanging on to the G chord in the accompaniment. This fingering will help you with all three versions of Example 3.

That being said, Example 3A is almost standard chord melody, with the melody note lying atop the accompanying chord. The notation and tablature are arranged for finger style guitar. The optimal technique would be to play the bass notes (the ones with the down-turned stems) with your thumb and either plucking the melody and accompanying partial chords with your fingers or playing them by sweeping a finger or two in an upward movement. At this point in the arrangement, you could also certainly play full chords here, as opposed to the partial chords I’ve written out. Just be very careful of letting the melody note ring out when you strum.

But I earlier mentioned that I’d like to also do a bit of review of Travis finger picking. So Example 3B gives us an arrangement of this carol in this style. Essentially it’s all pinches of the melody and bass notes on the beat, with a strike of the open G string on the off-beat. Again, I can’t stress enough that using the fingering we discussed just a moment ago for the G chord will help you to make the stretch to the first fret of the high E (first) string when the melody calls for it.

Of course, some of you might ask, “Why can’t I do both chords and picking?” No reason that I can think of! That’s why there’s an Example 3C. In the final MP3 example of this lesson, you may even hear me reverse the two, playing some Travis style picking in the first measure and chunks of chord melody in the second. What’s life without a little variety, eh?

Since this workman’s approach has served up well for the first two measures (and remember that these two measures will be both the first and the third lines of the verse), it makes sense to do the same for the next two measures, which will be played for both the second and fourth lines of the verse:

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You might notice something interesting here. In Example 4A, I went with the same descending bass line I used in Example 2, going from C to B to A in the first measure. But somewhere in playing around with filling in the chords, I decided why not change back to the original C chord, if for no other reason than to be different the second time through the changes of the verse? So you’ll see that the bass note on the third beat of the first measure in Examples 4B, 4C and 4D is C (third fret of the A string) and not the open A string. This is purely a choice of my own. You can still use the note of the open A string if you like.

Also, the fingering we discussed twice already for the G chord that starts the second measure becomes moot here, since the first melody note of this measure is the open high E (first) string.

Okay, we’ve gotten through the verse. Now comes the fun part – all those Glor-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-orias! It is going to be a bit of a challenge, but I think you’re up to it. Here in the chorus, we’re going to go for some separation and interplay between the melody and bass lines, much as what happens when this carol is sung by a choir. It basically boils down to one part moving while the other stays still:

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I deliberately left out the chords in Example 5, but you may actually find it easier to play this part by keeping the chords intact and then strumming them as they occur in Example 5A.

Remember that we’re going to be starting out the chorus on a C chord, so start out by fingering a typical open position C chord (ring finger on the third fret of the A string, middle finger on the second fret of the D and index finger on the first fret of the B string) and add your pinky to the third fret of the high E (first) string in order to play the G note of the melody.

The bass line of C to D back to C and then to B won’t be all that difficult if you maintain the C chord, or at least the idea of it, in your head. The tricky part comes when we want to change to an A chord at the third beat. It’s even trickier because the melody note is the A located at the fifth fret of the high E (first) string. But fortunately you can deal with this by playing what I call a “classical style” A chord, which involves barring the first four strings at the second fret when playing the aforementioned A note with your pinky. This will allow you to get the G note (third fret of high E (first) string) with either your ring or middle finger, whichever feels more comfortable to you.

We could leave it at that, but going from the bass note of the open A string to C# (fourth fret of the A string) sounds too nice to pass up. But we luck out again as the melody note is F and we can easily find that note at the sixth fret of the B string. So, using our index finger on the A string and either the ring finger or pinky on the B string makes this work out very easily. The E note that finishes this measure can then be played either at the fifth fret of the B string (using either your middle or ring finger) or by simply plucking the open high E (first) string.

The second measure begins with a D minor chord, which will eventually take us to a G chord. I liked the shape of the first bass phrase, so it certainly bears repeating. This will actually give us a G/B at the third beat. “G/B,” as you probably recognize as a “slash chord” from many of our lessons here at Guitar Noise (such as Eleanor Rigby), is just a fancy way of saying play a G chord with the B note (second fret of the A string) in the bass instead of the regular G, which we use at the fourth beat of the measure anyway.

In the third measure we start out with our C chord again, but this time we run the bass notes straight down from C to F (first fret of the low E (sixth) string). You could do a full barre chord of F here, but it sounds perfectly fine if you just get the F notes on both E strings at once. There are all sorts of ways to finger this. But I’d like to recommend you try using your middle finger on the low E (sixth) string as you can then slide it up to the second fret at the fourth beat (using your ring finger and index fingers, respectively for the D and C notes on the B string) and also use it for the G note at the third fret that begins the fourth measure.

I cannot stress enough that these past four measures are tricky and will require patience on your part. Work slowly and always keep the chord shapes in your head and fingers. Those shapes will help you get your fingers where you want them to be (and when, too).

A little concentrated effort and persistence on your part is all that is required. Don’t be afraid to just work on these four measures all by themselves for an hour! You’ll be rewarded for your efforts!

Compared to what you’ve just done, the rest of Angels is going to be a piece of cake, so it’s going to be up to us to make it more or less interesting. I took the liberty of giving you four options of bass lines for the next two measures. Oh, and ignore the fact that I call “Example 6″ by the name of “Example 7″ in the MP3, will you?

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Of these four, I’m probably most taken with the fourth version, especially since it uses the low F again and does a little teensy bit of Travis finger style in the last measure. Let’s fill these out to demonstrate both the middle of the chorus (measures five and six) and the final two measures as well:

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All right, then! Here’s the whole enchilada! And, as always, please pardon the (many) mistakes!

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As I mentioned, this piece is going to pose some challenges. But it is not beyond your capabilities. Far from it! Remember that the chord shapes are your friends in that they will give your fingers an anchor as well as direction. Practice, persistence and patience are your allies.

I hope that you enjoyed this lesson and that you get the chance to play this lovely carol over the holiday season. As always, please feel free to email me (dhodgeguitar@aol.com) with any questions you might have. You can also reach me at the Guitar Noise Forum pages, either on a thread or by dropping me a PM.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

Angels We Have Heard On High was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

I’ve really missed writing for Guitar Noise, so I’ve put together a few lessons for Christmas. This first lesson is a simple DADGAD arrangement of a very well-known, traditional French Christmas Carol titled “Il Est Né,” which translates to “He Is Born” in English. David tells me this is one of his favorites.

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A few quick performance notes: You’ll notice that throughout the arrangement I’ve used a few Celtic-style ornaments, particularly the quick pull off (also known as a “cut”) on the top open D (first) string.

This is a beautiful tune and it begs to be played slowly, so I’ve suggest a BPM of a quarter note at 118, but you may want to set your metronome to 59 or 60 for the tempo on the half note.

Note the double stops in the B Section; the slow, easy tempo will make this section easier to play.

Once again, I hope you’ve enjoyed playing this tune as much as I have. I hope to get at least one more lesson out before Christmas, so stay tuned!

He Is Born (Il est né) was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Fool that I am, I’ll assume that we’re all on the same page when we’re talking about chord melody arrangements. If you’re kind of not sure about that, just pop over to the lessons on the Song Arrangements page or any of our other Christmas song lessons.

For this lesson, I want to try to keep things as relatively simple as possible. You should be able to play our arrangement of Silver Bells with either a pick or your fingers. In fact, I’m using a pick in all of the MP3 examples. Let’s see, other things you might want to know – the song is in 3 / 4 timing, and we’ll be playing this in the key of G and will pretty much be using versions of simple G, Am, C and D chords you already know. We’ll also toss in a few interesting voicings to help us out in playing the melody.

Like many songs, the chords and melody of Silver Bells involves a number of repeated patterns and phrases. That makes it a little easier to learn. Let’s begin with the very first line, actually just the first part of it:

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If you’ve never tried a chord melody before, this is as close to as easy as it gets. Silver Bells begins with two eighth notes played on beat three. This, as we’ve learned in other lessons, is called a “pickup.” So, for instance, if we were counting aloud for our bandmates, we’d call out “one, two, three, one, two” and start in on “City sidewalks…”

Here in the first half of the first line, we strum an open G chord and then remove whatever finger you usually use on the third fret of the high E (first) string and strike that now open string. We’ll then place a finger (most likely the one you took off the first string) on the third fret of the B string and strum down only to the B string. Then take that finger off the B string and strum the G chord once more, this time again only going as far as the B string, which is now an open string. So far, so good?

Okay, then. We’re good to move to the rest of this line (the “…dressed in holiday style…” part):

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The melody note at this point moves way up to the B note found on the seventh fret of the high E (first) string, so that means we’re not going to find an open position chord that allows us to easily reach that note. So we’ve got to make an adjustment. Fortunately, the accompanying chord with this part of the melody is G7, so this adjustment turns out to be a very simple one that uses just two fingers.

In case you’re interested in such things, or if you’re someone who might like to learn something that you can use later on in your musical and guitar life, what we’re going to do is use a different voicing of G7 that is derived from our open position D7 chord. Basically we’re moving the D7 chord five frets further up the neck, where it becomes a G7 chord. We can simplify this even further by opening up the G string since G is, after all, part of the G7 chord.

But since the A note that is located at the fifth fret of the high E (sixth) string is the next note in the melody, it makes sense to try to finger this part of the song in a way that will allow you to get all the needed notes. I suggest getting your middle finger onto the sixth fret of the B string and also having your index finger in place on the fifth fret of the high E (sixth) string. Now use either your ring finger or pinky to get the B note at the seventh fret of that same string.

If you do want to read up a bit of the use of open shapes up the neck, then mosey on over to the Guitar Column titled Moving On Up and hopefully this will make a bit more sense.

The first full measure of this section starts out with a slightly different voicing of our normal open position C chord. Just use your pinky to get the G note at the third fret of the high E (sixth) string and you’ll be fine. You can strum the full E7 chord, but I like the sound of the descending bass line, going from C to B and finally to A for the Am chord. Another option would be a different voicing for E7/B (x22130) that brings the D note out on the B string. Try both out and see which you prefer. Then be sure to try them out at tempo to see if you can make the changes from chord to chord!

Example 3 deals with the line “…in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas…”

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Once again our melody note, the A at the fifth fret of the high E (sixth) string, is a little out of the stretch of our open position chords, but simply laying your finger of choice across the first four strings at the fifth fret gives you an Am7 chord. You might want to use your ring finger for this as that will give you time to shift to the G note (third fret of the first string) with your index finger. The rest of this phrase consists of careful strumming of the D, Dmaj7 and D7 chords. Take your time practicing this. Listen to yourself play and bring out the melody note with your strumming, especially if you’re using a pick. With fingers, it’s somewhat easier in that you can strum down with your thumb until just before the string with the melody note and then pick that string on the upstroke with a finger. Either way, though, let the melody be your guide. If you can’t hear the melody as you play, then you need to concentrate on being accurate with your picking.

At this point, Silver Bells repeats the opening phrase that we covered in Examples 1 and 2. The last line of the verse (“…and on every street corner you hear…”) is almost an exact copy of Example 3, but it does have a slightly different melodic ending:

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As you can see and hear, this final phrase mirrors our last example up until we get to the D9/A chord. This isn’t all that different from the Am7 used to start the phrase. Use your ring finger to cover the first three strings at the fifth fret and your index finger to play the F# note at the fourth fret of the D string. The open A string serves as your bass note. This is a particularly cool sounding, jazzy sort of chord that you’ll need again in this song. But that shouldn’t stop you from using it in other songs as well. It can serve as a wonderful chord substitution for D7, so be sure to try it out.

I also throw in a little ending for the verse in the final two measures, just to fill in some space. If you’re going strictly with your fingers, try pinching the D and B strings and leave the G string alone. You might find it more to your liking.

Shall we move on to the chorus? One of the inherent challenges here is that there is a lot of time between the first singing of “Silver Bells” and the second. So I’ve taken the liberty of throwing in a simple little fill:

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Now, there are a lot of different ways we could have gone with this. Many arrangements simply repeat the melodic phrase of “silver bells” twice, but I wanted to try something a little different. Plus, I wanted you to have something that was somewhat challenging for a beginner but certainly not, pardon the pun, out of his or her reach.

The trick here is to fret your G chord at the start of the chorus differently than many of you probably do. Use your ring finger for the low E (sixth) string and your middle finger on the A string. This frees up your index finger for the C note at the first fret of the B string and also keeps your pinky ready for the D note at the third fret of the B string. Then your index finger is ready to get all the non-open string notes in both fills. You’ll be able to pick this up faster than you think.

If this sounds a little weird, it’s because I made a chord substitution in the second half. Normally you’d want a C chord there, but I’m using Am7 in order to maintain relatively easy fingering for the melody notes along the high E (first) string. The notes of a C chord, as you know (or can find out by reading any of our easy theory articles here at Guitar Noise are C, E and G. The notes of Am7 are A, C, E and G. That’s pretty close. You could even argue that it’s a C6 chord with the A note in the bass.

But the main reason I choose to make this substitution was, as I mentioned, to keep the fingering of the melody simple. Try using a C chord and see which way you like best.

As with the second and fourth phrases of the verse, the second and fourth phrases of the chorus are almost identical. So let’s tackle them together:

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I told you we’d run into that D9/A chord again. Both these phrases are relatively simply. You just want to be careful with the timing differences in the second measure.

In Example 6 we end with a single-note walking bass line, starting from the D note of the open D string down through C, B and A on the A string to G on the low E (sixth) string. For Example 7 we end with a repeat of the closing phrase from the verse.

All right, then, let’s try out putting the verse and the chorus together:

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I guess we can officially declare the holiday season open, as we’ve now got two song lessons online already. And, as always, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little exercise in chord melody arrangement and that you get a chance to play it for your family and friends during the upcoming holidays.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

Silver Bells was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

I now have quite a few students who play finger-style, and some who use a guitar pick. So, I decide to write an easy arrangement that either one can play. It’s a short little arrangement of “The First Noel.”

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If you master this quick, you could add more and build upon it. Each one of the chords is played as a chord with the melody note being the highest pitch. Whenever you play a chord, the highest pitch is the most distinct. So keep this in mind when you start to try and put melody and chords together.

The D6 and F#m chords should have an independent finger per string. The Bm7, Bm, Gmaj7, Dmaj7, D (except for the ending chord), and A7 chords require a barred finger somewhere.

This is more of a Christmas Song Arrangement present for you guys other than an actual lesson. Please take a listen to the audio that is available here:

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I do have a quick video that matches the audio. E-mail me at petersimms.guitarman@gmail.com and ask for it. I will be happy to send it to you. If have questions about this song, please e-mail me and ask. I would also be happy to help you. Enjoy!

The First Noel was written by Peter Simms for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Case in point: this particular arrangement of Blue Christmas, the holiday classic penned by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson. While most people will forever identify this song with Elvis (whose 1957 rendition is perhaps the best known cover), Blue Christmas was already a country holiday staple, thanks to Ernest Tubb, who made it a hit almost ten years earlier. Since then, it’s been recorded by more artists than you can shake a candy cane at – from the Beach Boys to Billy Idol, from Jon Bon Jovi to Brian Setzer, from Sheryl Crow to the Partridge Family, from Lawrence Welk to Collective Soul, from Fats Domino to the Ventures to Anne and Nancy Wilson of Heart. I guess it’s time to add your name to the list!

As we’ve discussed in other chord melody articles, there are many, many ways of coming up with arrangements. You (obviously) need chords and a melody, plus the occasional hit of inspiration. The arrangement for this lesson grew out of a gig I played last Christmas, where I was given the task of soloing over half a verse of Blue Christmas. After trying out a few ideas, I found myself coming back over and over again to the melody itself, mostly because it’s so wonderfully expressive, it doesn’t need a lot of frills. To give it a little more body, I used pairs of notes, much in the style of our lessons on Bookends or, to keep in the holiday spirit, O Tannenbaum. The simple addition of a few bass notes made the arrangement a little more complete.

The other aspect of this song arrangement that I enjoy is the use of sliding pairs of notes to fill in space. There’s a lot of space in this song and it’s silly to fill every lull with as many sixteenth and thirty-second notes that you can squeeze out. Especially when an elegantly placed slide will say things a lot more gracefully.

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

We’ll be playing Blue Christmas in the key of C. I honestly don’t know what key it was originally written in! C seems to work well for what we want to do today. Structurally, the song is eight lines long, with the melody and chords of the first two lines repeated in Lines Five and Six. Line Seven follows most of Line Three (the last few notes and last chord are different). So it shouldn’t take us all that long to work all this out.

And right in the very first line, we’ll see how using slides as an option can make the melody a little more expressive:

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In Example 1 (A), we play the first line straight, with no frills and sticking with open chords. Most people find it easiest to use their ring finger and pinky to fret the third pair of notes, but since you’re going for the open high E and G in the next pair, almost any fingering will do. The tricky part here is the G7 at the very end where you need to finger the F note at the third fret of the D string. But if you use that ring finger and pinky combo just mentioned (ring finger on the third fret of the D string and pinky on the third fret of the B), you should find yourself playing it cleanly and with no problems.

Now, though, let’s take those fingers of the third pair of notes and slide them up from the third fret of the B and D strings to the fifth frets, as shown in Example 1 (B). You want to hit this pair of notes on the third pickup beat and then hit them once again, at the first beat of the first full measure (the word “Blue”), before making the slide. Your index finger is now free to play the C note in the bass (third fret of the A string) in that measure. Repeat the slide at the first beat of the second full measure (on the first syllable of “Christmas”) if you’d like. Some of you might even find you like sliding back to the D and F notes on the second syllable. Be my guest! The object is to experiment with expressiveness, so have some fun!

One thing to note is that as the embellishments, the sliding notes in this particular case, get more involved, I try to take out a few things in order to keep the arrangement fairly simple. So instead of the three bass notes in the first full measure of Example 1 (A), there are only two in Example 1 (B). This gives you a little more breathing room to pull off the slides without getting your fingers all in a tangle!

We drop down to a single added bass note (the open G string) in Example 1 (C). Here, the timing is a little tricky, using a quarter note triplet at the end of that first full measure. You want those last three slides to be played evenly over the third and fourth beats of that measure. It takes a little practice, and it also sounds fine if you cheat a little here and there. At the end of the line, I tack on a final triplet of sliding pairs of notes (and they are slides, not hammer-ons and pull-offs, as mentioned in the MP3 – sorry about that), just to embellish things a little more. Overkill? Possibly. But then again, you can certainly just leave it out…

One of the main reasons behind these embellishments is that the song will repeat this line later on. Line One and Line Five are the same, so I’ll play Example 1 (B) for Line One and then use Example 1 (C) for Line Five when it comes around. You’ll hear this in the final MP3 example.

Moving on to the second line, let’s throw in some hammer-ons and pull-offs create our embellishments:

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Here, I need to apologize a bit for the notation. The first bass note (G at the third fret of the low E (sixth) string) should come on the second beat. It’s not the easiest thing to read and again, I apologize that the software wouldn’t do what I wanted it to…

But getting beyond that, there’s not all that much here to give you any anxiety. Double hammer-ons (or single hammer-ons, for that matter) are not easy if you’ve not tried them before, so please don’t get discouraged! Many people find that exaggerating the hammer aspect of the hammer-on truly helps them get a good ringing note and it does help you get used to the amount of finger strength you’ll need (pardon the pun) to pull it off. Another thing to remember is that you really want to land the tips of your fingers on the strings and let them stay there. Some folks will make a fine initial hammer and then slack off on the notes for some reason. Don’t! Keeping your fingers in place for the full duration of the notes will help you to achieve full sounding hammer-ons.

Likewise with the pull-off in the second full measure of this example (the second syllable of “thinking”). Don’t be afraid to exaggerate the technique in order to get comfortable performing it. Once you can do it, then you can work on finesse. Ideally (and once you get more adept at these techniques), hammer-ons and pull-offs are subtle embellishments, but it’s kind of hard to concentrate on being subtle when you can’t hear yourself! So first things first – get the technique down and then fine tune it.

At the very end of this line, I toss in the first of a couple of walking bass lines that are there to simply fill in a little space. You’ll hear, again in the final MP3 example of this lesson, that instead of playing what’s written, I use Example 1 (C), which I play as Line Five, as a template for Line Six. That’s just one of many possible things you can do, so please give yourself some freedom and kick around as many ideas as you can handle.

It’s a good thing that we’ve done a bit of embellishment so far, because the chords of the third and fourth lines dictate a return to simplicity:

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Some versions of Blue Christmas use a C7 chord throughout the first two full measures of this section. Since there’s not all that much difference, note wise, between Gm (G, Bb and D) and C7 (C, E, G and Bb), and even less between Gm and C9 (C, E, G, Bb and D), I use that knowledge to create a relatively simple game plan for my chord melody arrangement. Laying my ring finger across the third fret of the first three strings gives me the notes I need for melody and harmony line (I could even pluck the B string to fill it out a little more – try it for a really nice touch) and I can get the bass note with my index finger or even my thumb if I’m so inclined.

The D note (third fret of the B string) in the melody (on “green”) technically makes our F chord an “F6″ if you want to be a stickler for details. You can also just think of it as a passing note. Notice again that using the ring and pinky method on “green” frees up your index finger for the F note in the bass (first fret of the low E (sixth) string). Some of you might find it easier to have your thumb play that note. Either way, it’s good to have options. In the measure of “tree,” you can use a descending chromatic walking bass line to go from F to the D root of the D7 chord that starts the next measure.

Speaking of that D7 chord, I’m going to borrow a trick we used way back in the Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, that being to make a C7 chord and slide it up two frets. In the “full song” MP3 file at the end of this lesson you’ll hear the slide of the bass note from C (third fret of the A string) to D (fifth fret of the A string) quite clearly. This fingering of the D7 (which is technically a D9 chord for those of you interested in such things) allows for a lot of ringing strings in these two measures (“…won’t be the same dear…”) that provides a bit of a contrast to the sliding around we’ve done on the first two lines.

We wrap all this up with an ascending chromatic walking bass line (“…if you’re not here with me…”), very similar to those we’ve looked at in our last lesson on walking bass lines, Connecting The Dots, Part 3. We’ve taken the typical G to C bass line and stuck in an additional step (A# and C#) between the A and B notes.

As we noted earlier, the last two lines start out exactly like Lines Three and Four:

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The main difference here is the F#dim7 chord that is used on the word “white.” Fortunately, this chord can be played very easily up on the fourth and fifth frets (XX4545), which it great since the melody note is the A at the fifth fret of the high E (first) string. Because that note is held a bit in the melody line (the symbol that looks like a raised eyebrow (complete with eyeball) is called a “fermata” and it means to “hold” at your discretion), you can give this chord a bit of a slow strum for a nice, effective change of pace in your arrangement.

We’ll follow this up with a series of slides to echo our Line One and (especially) Line Five and then end with a short walking bass line that finishes up at a Cmaj9 chord. When you put it all together, you should have something like this:

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As always, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little exercise in chord melody arrangement and that you feel free to play it for the upcoming holidays. More importantly, I hope that the main idea of this lesson, embellishing a simple melody with occasional slides, proves to be a technique you use in other songs in your ever-expanding repertoire of songs and/or bag of tricks.

Until our next lesson…

Peace.

Blue Christmas was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

As you know from reading any of my lessons here at Guitar Noise, I’m a big supporter of using songs to teach both the basics of music and guitar techniques in general. The logic being that you’re going to be playing songs (at least one supposes so) for your own enjoyment if nothing else and it’s great to make music that sounds like music and not just noodling around.

One of the things I love about this time of year is that holiday songs and Christmas carols fill the air once again. I know that many groan about hearing these songs over and over again (something easily remedied by simply turning a radio off) but I find the melodies of many holiday songs quite captivating. And many of these songs can make great exercises for the beginning or early intermediate guitarist.

Case in point: Today’s carol, O Come All Ye Faithful (also known as Adeste Fideles), offers a host of chord changes that may pose a challenge to the beginner without being beyond his or her abilities. Better yet, these are chords that any guitarist is going to have to come to terms with at some point, so why not now?

These files are the author’s own work and represent his interpretation of this song. They are intended solely for private study, scholarship or research.

Let’s take this apart piece by piece, shall we?

O Come…

We’ll be playing this hymn in the key of C (for “Christmas”) major, if for no other reason than to make this lesson both challenging and pertinent. Many, many songs are in the key of C and the three main chords of this key, C, F and G, are going to be seen time and time and time again in your guitar lives. Getting used to making these particular chord changes cleanly and in time can only help you become a better guitarist.

This is also a great key to play this song because it will involve two versions of the open G chord:

The first is your standard G, while the second is often misnamed “G5,” because of the substitution of the D note at the third fret of the B string for the open B string. This is simply a different voicing of the G chord. If it helps, think of your guitar as a small choir with six singers (your six strings). Normally, singer #2 would be singing a B note and you’ve simply instructed him (or her) to sing D instead. They’re both notes in the G chord, and you still have all three notes (G, B and D) being sung, so you haven’t created a new chord. Nor have you created an inversion (where the bass note of the chord is not the root note). All you’ve done is alter the voicing of the chord. We’ll be doing this with both the G and C chords at some point in this lesson.

In the music notation software that I use, this G chord may be labeled “G2” and you can ignore that as well. Computers can be so stupid sometimes…

To make matters more interesting, we’re using this new voicing of the open G chord voicing in order to get that D note into the melody line. So, in this song arrangement anyway, we’ll not be playing the high E (first) string anytime we play the “G (high D)” chord.

This decision will also make fingering this “G (high D)” chord a little smoother when played with the other chords in the songs. Most of the time, you’ll want to use your pinky on the D note (third fret of the B string), your middle finger on the B note (second fret of the A string) and your ring finger for the G in the bass (third fret of the low E (sixth) string). Playing the “G (high D)” chord with this fingering will leave your index finger free, and that will be very helpful in a couple of places in the song.

Okay, if you’re square with this new chord voicing, then let’s get going and look at the first line:

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You’ll hear, in the MP3 files accompanying this lesson, that mostly I’m playing this carol with my fingers, actually just strumming down with the thumb to get a kind of “shimmery” effect. Later, in the full MP3, I’ll also use my thumb for the bass note and my fingers (ring, middle and index) to pinch the other notes of the chord and melody. You can certainly play this song with a pick as well. I tried to make this arrangement so that it could be played in any number of ways.

We’ll start out nice and easy, using half notes (two beats each) for the accompanying chords. In the second measure we immediately find the “G (high D)” chord and it should be an easy transition from the C chord in the first measure. Starting with the C chord, simply shift your ring finger from the third fret of the A string (C) to the third fret of the low E (sixth) string (G). At the same time, move your middle finger from the second fret of the D string to the second fret of the A. Now you place your pinky on the third fret of the B string and there you have it!

Measures 3 and 4 (“…joyful and triumphant…”) give you a chance to really work on these chord changes, throwing in an F on the fourth beat of Measure 3 just to make things interesting. Here I like to use F/C, simply to pound out that C note in the bass and make the song a little more driving. Also, it’s easier for most folks than going with a fully barred F chord. The full F is fine, as is a “beginners’ F” (XX3211). You need to have that F note at the first fret of the high E (first) string in the melody, so Fmaj7 (XX3210) wouldn’t work here.

And, just to drive the point home, you should find that it’s easy to get the C note (first fret of the B string) at the end of Measure 4 if your index finger is free. That’s one reason why we discussed how to finger the “G (high D)” chord in the first place!

Moving on to the second line (Measures 5 through 8):

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Here we add a smidgen of a walking bass line (can’t get away from those, can we?) by going from the A (open A string) of the Am chord that kicks of Measure 5 and then playing the G (third fret of the low E) en route to the F# at the second fret of the low E (sixth) string. Since the B note is the melody at this point, we technically have a D6 chord (okay, D6/F# since the F# is in the bass), but most folks would just say it’s a D chord with the B in the melody being a “passing tone.” Whatever makes you happy…

To get the F# in the bass, many people would wrap their thumbs over the top of the neck of the guitar. When doing so, remember that you just need as much (read “as little”) of your thumb to get the note cleanly. But because this D chord has one other fretted note (the A at the second fret of the G string), it’s also feasible to use your middle finger to fret the F# in the bass, especially since you can then simply slide that finger up a fret to get the G note of the G chord.

In Measure 6, there’s also a walking bass line, a la You Are My Sunshine, although we stack chords on top of it each step of the way. The “G (high D)” at the third beat should technically be labeled “G (high D) / B” but my feeling at this point is that I shouldn’t turn the chord charts into an encyclopedia!

And here are two quick note concerning Measures 5 and 6: Sometimes I find myself playing the D6 chord along with the melody on both the third and fourth beats of Measure 5, simply strumming it all the way down to the B string on the third beat (“ye”) and only down to the G string (“O”) on the fourth. In Measure 6, Am is a perfectly acceptable substitute for the D7/A, which is played on the second beat. Totally up to you…

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The third line, Measures 9 through 12 (“…come and behold him / born the king of angels…”), begin with quick C to F to C chord changes. Again, I’m thinking that using the F/C is a good way to deal with this. As mentioned earlier, you can certainly go for either the full barre F or the “beginners’ F” if you prefer.

In Measure 10, I stick in a single B note (second fret of the A string) in the bass to give the song another tiniest bit of a walking bass line.

Measure 11 has the trickiest chord progression thus far in the Christmas carol, but when you look at it from chord to chord, it’s not all that hard. If you’re using the fingering for the “G (high D)” chord that we agreed upon earlier, then your middle finger gets to sit tight when you change from that “G (high D)” to E7. All you have to do is to pick up your pinky while placing your index finger on the G# at the first fret of the G string.

Going from the Am to the D/F# is probably the most complicated switch and there are many ways to go about it. I find myself playing using either my thumb or first finger or middle finger on the F# in the bass (second fret of the low E (sixth) string) while my ring finger gets the second fret of the G string and the pinky frets the third fret of the B string. Taking a very informal survey while working on this lesson, the middle finger seemed to require less thinking. As they say, “your mileage may vary…”

Regardless of which way I finger the D/F#, I want to make a big effort to use the same fingering I use for the G chord of Measure 12 that I use to play the “G (high D)” throughout the song. Why? This fingering frees up my index finger to easily play both the A (second fret of the G) and C (first fret of the B) that pop up in this measure.

Okay, ready for the big finish?

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The first two lines of our “Finale” section, Measures 13 through 16, have a lot of chord changes, but nothing that should pose any kind of problem for you at this point. At least, not with a little bit of concentrated practicing! It’s mostly a matter of strumming down to the correct melody string. You’ll notice that I use the B note (second fret of the A string) as the bass note for the “G (high D)” chord at the fourth beat of Measure 13 and the second beat of Measure 15. Also the F/C comes into play on the fourth beat of Measure 15.

In Measure 17, though, I’m opting for the full barre F chord in order to make the bass line climb from F to F# (in the D9/F#) to G. This is probably the most complex chord change of the entire song and you’ll want to take your time to work it out. One big thing in your favor is that this is the big climax of the song and you can take a little dramatic liberty by slowing the pace and making the whole passage very “triumphant” sounding.

And, not to leave well enough alone, I can’t resist throwing in one last little moving bass line, using G# (fourth fret of the low E (sixth) string) to climb from G to Am. Don’t be afraid to discard it if it’s not to your liking.

Remember, too, that you can have a lot of fun with the dynamics on this tune, especially during the “finale” section. Start out very softly and get progressively louder with each “O come let us adore him…” Have fun spicing up your arrangement of this arrangement!

And here, warts and all, is a finished version for you to work with:

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I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little chord melody arrangement of O Come All Ye Faithful and that you feel free to play it for the upcoming holidays. And I hope that all these lessons inspire you to try out making chord melody arrangements of your own. It’s not all that hard to do and there’s no end of satisfaction to coming up with a song arrangement all your own.

And let me take a moment to wish all our readers, their family and friends, a wonderful holiday season. We thank you for your continued support of Guitar Noise and look forward to bringing you even more lessons very, very soon.

Until the next lesson…

Peace

O Come All Ye Faithful was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Christmas Songs for Guitar

• Silent Night
• Silver Bells
• O Tannebaum!
• Joy to the World
• The Little Drummer Boy
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas

One tune I play nearly every Christmas is The Christ Child’s Lullaby, a traditional song from the Outer Hebrides (known as Taladh Chriosta in Scots Gaelic). I’ve heard many versions of this song over the years, but I first learned it from an early 20th collection titled Songs of the Hebrides, which was collected and arranged by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser and Kenneth Macleod. Apparently this song is still sung on Christmas Eve for Midnight Mass in some churches in the Hebrides.

The verse and chorus are quite similar melodically, so I’ve created a composite melody for this lesson.

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This is a stark and simple arrangement, and I’ve provided only a single-line melody and the chords. There is a lot a room to add your own ornamentation, variations, and expressive nuances, but a tune like this still sounds wonderful played simply and unadorned.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tune as much as I have. Have a Merry Christmas and a glorious holiday!

The Christ Child’s Lullaby was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Fortunately, there was a great revival of the British carols in the Victorian era (in the first part of the 19th century), including the publication of new collections of the old songs and carols. And so, this is where our brief history lesson ends, and our guitar lesson begins.

One carol that has always caught my ear is The Sussex Carol (also known as On Christmas Night All Christians Sing). The words were originally published in 1684 by Irish bishop Luke Wadding in a collection titled Small Garland of Pious and Godly Songs. The words and melody sung today were collected in the early 20th century (1919) by Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heard it sung by Harriet Verrall at Monk’s Gate in Sussex.

My arrangement is in standard tuning and offers few technical challenges. This tune is normally notated in 6/4, but I found 6/8 a little more readable when writing it out for guitar. The thumb plays the bass notes on the downbeats (beats one and four in each measure). I bar two I play the F# on beat six with my thumb, but you could also play it with your index finger. In bar nine, there’s a quick switch to 9/8, which moves back to 6/8 in the following measure.

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I hope to post a few more lessons in the coming weeks featuring Victorian carols, so I hope you have enjoyed this tune as much as I have.

The Sussex Carol was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

One Christmas hymn that I’ve loved ever since I first heard it is Love Came Down At Christmas. I first heard it in church – it’s in many hymnals including the Methodist and Lutheran hymnals – but Shawn Colvin also did a wonderful job of covering this song on her Holiday Songs and Lullabies CD.

The melody used for Love Came Down is a traditional Irish tune titled Gartan, which can be found in The Complete Petrie Collection of Ancient Irish Music, Part II (1902). The words were written by poet Christina G. Rosetti (1830-94). Several of her poems were used for hymns, including In the Bleak Mid-Winter, which I covered in a lesson last year.

I did this arrangement in DADGAD, a tuning I often use when arranging Irish tunes.I used a capo on the third fret to put the melody in the key of Bb (I’m fingering the tune in G instead of D).

This arrangement starts with a descending bass line to contrast the upward moving melody. I didn’t notate it, but you’ll hear it on the recording – I like to add a quick little half step hammer-on and pull-off starting on the second fret on the first string on beat four. The tricky part of the arrangement comes in measure three, where I finger the C on the third fret of the fifth string with my first finger and the G on the fifth fret of the fourth string with my fourth finger, moving you quickly to third position. I put both fingers down at the same down even though they are played on separate beats. You do the same thing in measure four, playing in second position for the first two beats, and third position on the last two beats.

In measure five, I use an ascending bass line (suggesting E minor instead of G major) for a little variation. Measure seven has the quick jump to third position, just like measure three.

On my recording, I added a second guitar part on the third time through tune. The second part adds the melody played as harmonics using a slightly different tuning, DADGAB, to accomodate the melody.

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This is a beautiful Christmas hymn, and a fun one to play in DADGAD. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning this tune as much as I have.

Love Came Down At Christmas – A Christmas Hymn was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

The lyrics are based on a poem written in 1849 by Dr Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876), a Unitarian minister who lived in Massachusetts. Sears, a champion of the disadvantaged and downtrodden, wrote the poem while preparing for a Christmas sermon. The poem was published shortly thereafter in the “Christian Register” in December of 1849.

Several melodies have been associated with this carol, including the tune Noel by Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900), who is perhaps better known as one half of the popular musical writing team of Gilbert and Sullivan. However, the melody now associated with Midnight Clear is Carol, which was written by Richard Storrs Willis (1819-1900). Willis, also from Massachusetts, studied composition in Germany and was a friend of composer Felix Mendelssohn. Willis returned to American in 1848 and later served as a music critic for the New York Tribune and The Musical Times (where he also worked as an editor). Willis somehow came across the Sears’ poem (probably in the Christian Register) and discovered that one of his melodies fit the poem perfectly.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear was sung during the holidays in World War I by American soldiers in the trenches of France. Midnight Clear was also a holiday favorite at the U.S.O shows of World War II, Bing Crosby being one notable entertainer who sang it for the troops. The song’s message of “Peace on Earth” was one of great poignancy.

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Most of this arrangement is in first position and uses familiar chord shapes in the key of C. I use my left hand thumb in a few spots to fret the bass notes on the low E string. In measures three and four, I use my thumb to fret the bass note F, my second finger for the F#, and my thumb again for the G. In measure 11, I use my thumb for the bass note G, and then my second finger for the F# and the subsequent G in measure 12. I also use my thumb for the bass note F in measure seven. In measure nine, I play the second fret E on the fourth string with my third finger. I slide from the E to the F# on the fourth string with my third finger and then stretch with my first finger to play the G# on the third string. In measure 11 I create a harp effect by letting the melody notes ring into one another, which is why I chose to play the C on the fifth fret of the third string instead of on the first fret of the second string.

I hope you’ve had as much fun learning this beautiful Christmas carol as I have. Have a very merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

One technique that I’ve used in my DADGAD arrangements is a “harp-like” effect that is produced by allowing two or more notes to ring together. This effect can also be used in standard tuning, and I’ve used it in a few spots in this arrangement.

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In most cases this shouldn”t cause you any trouble – just let the adjacent notes ring together. Spots where you can do this are in measure one (F# and G), measure three (B and A), measure five (G and F#), measure seven (B and A), and measure 10 (B to A).

But there are two spots that may prove to be a little more difficult due to the fact that the higher note is played on the lower string, contrary to what we”re used to doing. In measure six, instead of playing the melody note ‘A’ on the second fret of the third string, I’m using the ‘A’ on the seventh fret of the fourth string so I can let it sustain while playing the adjacent open G string. In measure eight I play the ‘C’ on the fifth fret of the third string instead of using the first fret of the second string. Here I allow the ‘C’ on the third string to ring while I play the adjacent open B string. These are awkward maneuvers, but well worth the effort for the sound it provides. If you find this difficult, feel free to play those two notes in their first position locations.

I hope you enjoy playing this arrangement as much as I do. Until next time, happy holidays!

Infant Holy Infant Lowly was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

One that really struck me was The Huron Carol, a Christmas hymn written by Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649) in Quebec in 1643. This carol is based on a 16th century traditional French melody Une Jeune Pucelle (A Young Maid). Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie, wrote the lyrics in the Huron language so he could tell the story of the birth of Jesus to the Huron people. Originally titled Jesous Ahatonhia, the carol was later translated to French (Jesus est ne) by another Jesuit priest. In 1926 the lyrics were translated to English by poet Jesse Edgar Middleton (1872-1960), where it became known as ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime.

The Huron Carol was recorded by Bruce Cockburn on his 1993 Christmas CD, and is still commonly sung in churches across Canada. ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime is included in many hymnals, including the Methodist hymnal, which is where I first remember seeing it.

The hymn is in the key of G minor, and I immediately tuned my guitar to open G minor to see how well the tune would fit in that tuning. I was quite pleased to find that the melody fit perfectly, and my arrangement fell into place quickly. Though I had never used open G minor before, I knew that English guitarist John Renbourn had used it, and might be a good tuning for a 16th century melody.

Open G minor (DGDGBbD) is similar to the open G tuning you may already be familiar with (DGDGBD), except that the B is lowered a half step to Bb. To get into open G minor, lower your first and sixth strings down a full step from E to D, lower your fifth string down a step from A to G, and lower your second string down a half step from B to Bb.

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Like playing in DADGAD, this piece is best played by letting notes ring together when possible. The arrangement is pretty straight forward, but there are a few spots they might trip you up. In bars five and six, the melody is repeated but the bass notes have changed, and so has the fingering for the melody. On beat two of bar five, play the Bb on the open second string and play the C on the third string. This may feel a little awkward at first, as typically you play lower pitches when moving to a lower string. In this case the melody note is a step higher. However, this makes it easier to play the new bass notes. I finger bar five using the index finger on the Eb in the bass, the third finger on the A, second finger for the C on the fifth fret of the fifth string, and the third finger for the C on the fifth fret of the third string. If you like, you can play bars five and six using the same bass notes from bars one and two. The new bass provides a nice variation, though.

In bar 13, slide up to C and G with your second and third fingers. You can leave the open third string (G) ringing instead of picking it again. Slide from F to Eb with your first finger in bar 14. I move my right hand index finger back to the third fret for the F note in bar 15. In bar 16, play the C on the fifth fret of the fifth string so you can play the G on the fourth string with your little finger.

I hope you’ve enjoyed learning this new tuning as much as I have.

The Huron Carol was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

My favorite hymns have always been those that use traditional Celtic melodies for the hymn tune. In some cases, the melody may be an original composition, but based on a traditional tune or folk song. That’s the case with In The Bleak Mid-Winter, a well-known hymn from the British Christmas tradition.

Perhaps best known for his orchestral masterpiece The Planets, Gustav Holst (1874-1934) also left his mark on hymnody by composing the melody to the hymn In The Bleak Mid-Winter. Holst’s melody, Cranham (named after the town in which it was written), was set to a poem written by English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), which had been previously published in her posthumous collection Poetic Works. In The Bleak Mid-Winter was first published in The English Hymnal in 1906, and has always been one of Holst’s most popular compositions.

The melody Cranham was based on a folk tune, which is not surprising as Holst’s music was influenced by English folk song (to which he was introduced by lifelong friend Ralph Vaughan Williams). The beauty and simplicity of folk song struck a chord with Holst, inspiring him greatly.

This simple arrangement uses DADGAD tuning and should be played in a harp-like manner, that is, allowing notes to ring together where possible. This ringing of notes and open strings is a common technique used with DADGAD and is part of the tuning’s great appeal. The four-bar introduction, which is a simple repeated arpeggiated chord, and the ascending lines in measure eight and sixteen should be played in a harp-like fashion, allowing the notes to sustain and ring together. Another spot where the notes should ring freely is in measure five, where I’ve placed the first three notes of the melody on three adjacent strings. The first note of measure five (B) could have easily been played on the second string, but playing it on the third string allows you to sustain that note as you play the C on the second string and D on the open first string.

This is a simple, beautiful melody, so I’ve left the arrangement quite sparse. Allowing the melody notes to ring together is what brings this arrangement to life.

In The Bleak Midwinter was written by Doug Sparling for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Is there any particular reason for choosing this song over the thousands of other holiday pieces that would like our attention? No, there truly isn’t. I was thinking about this carol the other day because I was remembering playing at a Christmas party last year when, totally off the cuff, we came up with a terrific version of this. Since that version involved Anne’s amazing conga playing, we won’t be doing that. But we should have a very fun time with this.

Just about every copy of We Three Kings I’ve seen places the song in E minor and I think that will work out well for us, particularly since we’re going to try to make use of a lot of open strings for our bass notes. And we’ll also get a chance to put into practice some of the things we learned about chord shapes in the Moving On Up column I wrote ages ago. If you’d like to take a moment to go over that piece, please feel free to do so and we’ll start in when you get back.

All right then, let’s first take a look at our melody and the accompanying chords, at least according to most of the arrangements I’ve read:

There isn’t anything here that should frighten us off. Perhaps a quick review of some our chords (and the notes that make them up) would be in order:

My reason for doing this will become apparent in a moment because what I’d like to do now is to move the entire melody of We Three Kings up an octave. So now it will look and sound like this:

And now that the melody is up there, what are we going to do to accompany the melody? The first thing that comes to mind is to use barre chords but you all should now by now that I’d like to find a different solution. After all, the guitar is a pretty versatile instrument and there are a lot of possible ways to tackle this. Also, the key of E minor is very guitar friendly, offering lots of opportunities for open strings and easily made chords that can be played up the neck.

So, let’s think. The first two lines involve Em and B7 chords. An Em chord consists of E, G and B. We’ve got the B note in our melody. The E note could always be played by striking the open sixth (low E) string. All we need is a G. We have an open G string or we could also play it on the eighth fret of the B string. Let’s try both:

These both will certainly work. And, as you can see, I’ve even come up with a third idea! Using the top three strings will give us some more harmony and it’s easy enough to do.

All of these ideas sound fine. The second and third choice seem a little more interesting to me so I’m thinking why not see how they work out in the first two measures? I’ll use the low E (sixth) string as our bass note on the first beat of each measure and see how it works:

In Version One, I use my index finger for the notes on the first (high E) string. Usually I’ll use my middle finger for the G note (eighth fret of the B string) and my ring finger for the F# and E notes which follow. Some people prefer to use the ring finger for all the notes on the B string. Obviously you remove your fingers, whichever ones you decided to use, to get the last pair of notes in measure two.

Version Two is a great example of the chord shapes we explore in the Guitar Column Moving On Up, where you’ll find both of these chord shapes I’m using to make the accompaniment. The first set of notes is our A minor shape (or B minor, if you prefer) and I use my index finger on the first (high E) string, my middle finger on the B string and my ring finger on the G. The second and third sets of notes use the D minor configuration. For this shape, I shift my fingers slightly, keeping the index finger on the high E (first) string, placing my pinky on the B string and moving my middle finger to the G.

That second set of notes, by the way, is an F#m chord, which becomes F#m7 when we stick the E note in the bass. You could also just call it F#m/E. I think it sounds good so I’ll keep it in my pocket so I can pull it out to play when I’d like.

Now let’s add the B7 chord in measure three and finish off this line. As usual, we’ve a few choices open to us:

I don’t know about you but I find this very interesting. The “full chord voicing” is made by taking your open position B7 chord and then shifting your pinky up to the G note (third fret of the first (high E) string) and then back down to the F# again. Shade of The Little Drummer Boy! Personally, I find the “implied chord voicing” easier to finger; it’s actually a Bm7 chord with the ring finger on the second fret of the high E (first) string, the middle finger on the second fret of the G string and the index finger on the second fret of the A string. This leaves the pinky free to get the G note in the melody line.

Now that we’ve gone over all this, and since we know that the first four measures repeat themselves in measures five through eight, let’s do the first two lines of the song. I’m going to even write out the notation for both versions so that you can hear how it sounds. Do note that I’m also using the “implied chord voicing” of B7 in both cases. You, of course, can choose to use the “full chord voicing” if you wish:

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Now let’s tackle the rest of the verse of the song. Here it is:

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This looks like another exercise on chord shapes, doesn’t it? We start out with a standard open position G and then shift to a D chord (in the A major shape) at the fifth fret. We’ve used this chord before in many lessons. Last year’s version of Silent Night, for obvious seasonal reasons, springs immediately to mind. Then it’s back to the E minor (in the A minor shape) that we used in “Version Two” of the first measure of this song.

The next measure is simply three pairs of notes played on the first two strings. You could, if you wished, very easily add the open low E (sixth) string to this in order to fill out the sound a bit, but I think it works pretty well without it.

In the original chord accompaniment the next measure had A minor. We’re going to modify that slightly and play an Am7. The reason for this is that it’s very easy to do! Just barre your index finger across the first four strings, making certain to leave the A string open for your bass note. The ring finger or pinky can then get the B note of the melody that follows and removing that finger gets you back to the A note (fifth fret of the first (high E) string) that is still covered by the index finger.

Strangely enough, as much as I like playing the “implied chord voicing” of B7 in measure three, I prefer to do a full chord voicing here in this section of We Three Kings. A long, slightly slower strum allows me plenty of time to get my fingers set, especially the G note of the melody, which is fretted by the pinky.

Right before the chorus, there’s a measure of D7. Lyrically, this is the “…oh…..oh….” part. In order to make this slightly less dramatic (if you can believe that!), I like to use an easy implied harmony. Just start out by forming a D chord, but don’t play the note on the B string. Then slide the whole thing up to the fifth fret, like this:

When people sing this part of the song, the timing tends to get pretty screwy. So have fun with it! I came up with this second way of playing it by accident when working on the MP3 recordings, and I liked it enough to throw it into my “fun” arrangement, which you’ll hear at the end of the lesson. All you need do is slide up chromatically, one fret at a time, instead of going directly from the second fret to the fifth. It’s like taking the local train instead of the express…

Meanwhile the rest of us will start in on the chorus. Like the verse, the first four measures get repeated. Also, the last line of the chorus is the same as these two, so it makes a lot less work for us. Now that’s an added bonus, isn’t it?

In the original chord notation, the chorus starts out with two measures accompanied by the G chord, the third measure has C and G returns again for the fourth measure. Since the melody note is the G on the third fret of the high E (first) string, I figure why not have a little more motion and make the accompanying chord of the second measure Em? Because it’s the relative minor of G major, this isn’t a terribly dramatic change and you always have the option of just playing two measures of G. Anyway, here goes:

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This should pose few problems for you. Remember that we’re using versions of the Em and C chords that have the G note on the high E (first) string). This will probably involve using your pinky for most of you! The only tricky part is getting the D note (on the second fret of the B string) in the second measure. Simply take whatever finger you’re using to play the G note in the melody (third fret of the high E (first) string) and shift it down to the B string. Feel free to use big sweeping downstrokes on the first beats because this is certainly a joyful part of the song.

I know several ways of playing We Three Kings and, in the interest of giving you the chance to quickly learn this song I’m opting for an easy way of playing the third line of the chorus. Let’s take a look and a listen:

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Yes, it’s back to our chord shapes! And they are all ones we’ve already used so you should have no trouble putting them into play here. Using the Am7 instead of the C in the original notation allows us to play through this with relative ease. Barring the fifth fret, again with your index finger, you use your pinky to get the C note (eighth fret on the high E (first) string) in the melody and then slide that down to the seventh fret for the B note.

It’s also good to note that, here in the third line of the chorus, you’ll want to finger the two measures of the D chord in such a way to leave your pinky free to get the B note of the melody.

And now that we’ve got all the pieces together, how about we try to play the whole thing?

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I hope that you have enjoyed this season’s presentation of Christmas song lessons. And I also hope you haven’t minded, at least too much, my attempts at teaching you some things about music, music theory and guitar technique along the way.

I know that I’ve said this about a million times, not only in these lessons but throughout the entire Guitar Noise website, but sometimes the most important thing about learning any one song is learning how you can use a technique, a riff, a strumming pattern or any little thing, in another song. Once you have a handle on a song’s basics, it doesn’t take a lot to get into making your own arrangements. With your permission, here’s an example of that, using today’s song. How’s that for an incredible coincidence?

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A Happy Christmas to all of you and my wishes for a wonderful 2005.

Until our next lesson…

Peace

We Three Kings of Orient Are was written by David Hodge for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise

Here’s a short excerpt from my arrangement of Silent Night, a tune you will no doubt be familiar with and hear countless times over the next month or so.

First note, the arrangement calls for the guitar to be tuned to an open chord, I prefer D (DAD F#AD) given it’s so close to standard but any will do as long as from low to high you have (6)Root- (5)5 th -(4)Root 8ve – (3) 3 rd / 10th- (2) 5 th /12 th – (1) Root 2 8ve.

Play the melody very espressivo, the dynamic contour should move in waves, avoid playing at a fixed tempo as this will make the performance sound a bit starchy and uninspired. The powertab software is a bit limited when it comes to dynamic indications and specifics of standard notation (for example, the F# in bar two should be a dotted half note) so much of which would otherwise be included has been left out; just use your best musical judgment. Be sure to let all the notes ring together like a piano with the pedal depressed.

The melody, of course, should be the most prominent voice with the arpeggiations and counterpoint being played just a degree or two lower in volume.

I hope you have a great time playing through the tune. I plan on having a full book of holiday tune arrangements available for next year, if you’d like to know when it’s all ready to go feel free to contact me at myodice@excite.com and I’ll send you a notification letter specifically for that project.

Be well and happy.

Silent Night composed by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber. Arrangement copyright 2004 Mark Yodice

Silent Night in Open D Tuning was written by Mark Yodice for Guitar Noise. A good guitar player you will be if you visit the above site. © 2012 Guitar Noise