In The Bleak Midwinter

Hi all,

I meant to post this earlier. Here's a demo of my arrangement, which will be on my upcoming CD. I actually played the intro slightly differently from what's on the notation, but it's close...I didn't play to a click track, so I'm not sure what the tempo is either. Never the less, take a listen here.

http://www.dougsparling.com/music/mp3/guitarnoise/DougSparling-InTheBleakMidWinter-128.mp3

Mitch, thanks for the powertab. I have several arrangements and transcriptions on the burner, and I do plan on creating mp3s for all lessons I put up on Guitar Noise...

Enjoy!

Doug that is fantastic. Hammer, thanks for the tab.

Thanks Nick!

Thanks! It's great to have both those resources.

(I edited the title of the post slightly so that the thread can serve to collect all questions and tips on the lesson).

I'm excited about this too. One of my original reasons for getting into guitar (The other being songwriting) was to learn a celtic style. I am really enjoying this lesson and looking forward to the others.

As I told Doug, in an email, my guitar teacher is having a recital in December which is based around holiday music. I am going to try to learn this and perform it there. I think it would be a perfect peice to play. Something original (as in not your average Jingle Bells song) and Christmasy.

I appreciate Doug taking the time to create these lessons and being so supportive to my email questions.

Geoo

Hi Doug, that's great - thanks for posting the sound file. I look forward to more of your lessons! :)

Hey,

Thanks everybody, I'm glad you are ejoying the lesson.

BTW - I originally submitted two Christmas hymns, the other being a DADGAD arrangement of "Love Came Down at Christmas." I got it from a hymnal, but Shawn Colvin did a nice vocal version that I really like.

I know David and Paul are really busy -- and fair play to them for all their hard work -- so with any luck, you'll see another "Christmas" lesson before Christmas.

Thanks everybody, I'm glad you are ejoying the lesson.

BTW - I originally submitted two Christmas hymns, the other being a DADGAD arrangement of "Love Came Down at Christmas." I got it from a hymnal, but Shawn Colvin did a nice vocal version that I really like.

I know David and Paul are really busy -- and fair play to them for all their hard work -- so with any luck, you'll see another "Christmas" lesson before Christmas.
Should be up online sometime in the middle of October, if all goes well!

Peace

Thanks David, that's great to hear!

Just wanted to add my thanks to you for this interesting lesson. It is on my todo list now. I love chord melody style. I would really like to see more of this style of guitar on the site!

Thanks again

Jeremy,

You're quite welcome! I've got several more in the works.

Most of my arrangements are in DADGAD or standard, but I've been working on another Christmas tune in open G minor ("The Huron Carol," commonly known as "'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime" in most hymnals)...if anyone's interested, maybe I'll submit that one as my next lesson...

Well now, this is more difficult than I first imagined :D . I played with this all weekend but I am having trouble figuring out which fingers need to be on which strings. Not too far into the song I feel like my fingers are all twisted together.

I'm not giving up though. I am going to present this to my guitar teacher this week and see if he can steer me in the right direction.

I love this song, it is such a pretty song.

Geoo

Well now, this is more difficult than I first imagined :D .
Well I'm glad it's not just me. This song seems much more difficult to play than it looks! I think part of it is the drop tuning, as the fingers have to get into positions with which they are not familiar. Might take some time to build up the "muscle memory." Hopefully .... :lol:

You know, I didn't think about putting fingerings on the music. I'll see if I can revise it. Actually, the fingerings are pretty easy once you know what they are...:)

Bars 1-4 (Intro):
G - 6th string/5th fret - 3rd finger

Bar 5 (beats 1-3) (you can finger these all at once):
G - 6th string/5th fret - 3rd finger
B- 3rd string/4th fret - 2nd finger
C- 2nd string/3rd fret - 1st finger

Bar 5 (beat 4):
B- 6th string/4th fret - 3rd finger
F# - 2nd string/2nd fret - 1st finger
Note: Just slide those two finger down from where they were:
3rd finger: 6th string/5th fret -> 6th string/4th fret (G->F#)
1st finger: 2nd string/3rd fret - 2nd string/2nd fret (C->B)

Bar 6:
E - 6th string/2nd fret: 2nd finger
E - 4th string/2nd fret: 3rd finger

Bar7:
C - 5th string/3rd fret - 2nd finger
B - 2nd string/2nd fret - 1st finger
E - 5th string/2nd fret - 1st finger
Note: Keep the 2nd finger (C) down through out the measure, but lift the first finger to go from the 2nd string (B) to the 5th string (E)

Bar 8:
E - 4th string/2nd fret - 1st finger
F# - 4th string/4th fret - 3rd finger

Bar 13:
C - 5th string/3rd fret - 2nd finger
C - 2nd string/3rd fret - 3rd finger
B - 2nd string/2nd fret - 1st finger
Note: I play the open G (beats 2 and 4) with my right hand thumb

Bar 14 (beats 1-2):
C - 5th string/3rd fret - 2nd finger
C - 2nd string/3rd fret - 3rd finger
E - 1st string/2nd fret - 1st finger

Bar 14 (beats 3-4):
E - 6th string/2nd fret - 2nd finger
E - 4th string/2nd fret - 3rd finger
B - 2nd string/2nd fret - 4th finger

Bar 15 (Beat 1):
G - 6th string/5th fret - 4th finger
Bar 15 (Beat 2):
B - 2nd string/2nd fret - 1st finger (lift 4th finger at this spot)
Bar 15 (Beat 3):
C - 5th string/3rd fret - 2nd finger (lift 1st finger at this spot)
Bar 15 (Beat 4):
E - 4th string/2nd fret - 1st finger (lift 2nd finger at this spot)

Hope that helps...let me know if you see anything that doesn't make sense...I'm notorious for typos...