Christmas Songs – Good King Wenceslas

Since I will be away over December, I thought now would be a good time to start sharing this years Christmas Songs with you. All the songs and carols will be arranged with lyrics, chords and even a guitar tab for playing along with the melody. First up, we have a famous carol called Good King Wenceslas, a story about a king and a page going for a long walk on an icy cold winter night. My arrangement has some quick chord changes so you might want to take your time carefully studying these if you have chosen to play accompaniment as opposed to melody. The melody itself is in the key of F Major; the first key in the cycle of forths containing one Bb. If you celebrate Christmas, start practising your Christmas Songs now and they will be ready to perform on Christmas Day, preferably with enough printed sheet music for all of the family to join in with the singing.

Good King Wenceslas

 

Accompaniment – Roses In Chelsea Gardens

This morning I wrote a song to help one of my grade 2 students prepare for the accompaniment section of her grade exam this coming Sunday. Occasionally I compose a song especially for a particular student to help with their studies - Roses In Chelsea Gardens is a song that I imagine might fit well into a Dickensian based musical. All of the posts on this blog are inspired by and often tested on my students in the real world.

Accompanyment – Roses In Chelsea Gardens

Picture Taken by Dan Sandman

Rhythm Playing – Two Threes in an Ab Bar

This morning I woke up playing through the Ab Natural Minor Scale in my head and came up with the following rhythm playing study to help my grade five guitar students to pass their fastly approaching RGT grade exams. It would be cruel if a grade five student was given a chord chart in Abm as it’s an unusual key which contains five flat notes – Ab, Bb, Db, Eb, Gb – indeed, the scale itself only has seven notes. However, it is important that guitar players are able to easily shift into less comfortable keys without having to spend too much time ‘figuring it out’. Playing in Abm or its relative major scale B Major need not be any more challenging than playing in Am or its relative major scale C Major. Simply move the well practised shapes, sounds and ideas into a different fretboard position. As a further challenge you might like to have a go at changing the key of this one to C Major or any other key that you feel drawn towards. Have fun and remember to count – 1,2,3 2,2,3 – next post Monday 21st.

Rhythm Playing – Two Threes in an Ab Bar

Rhythm Playing – Dampened Barre Chords

Using the left hand to dampen barre chords helps to create interesting rhythmic pattern within the music. The easiest way to dampen the strings is simply to release pressure from the fretting hand whilst still touching the strings. In the following exercises, it is important to ‘feel’ the rests with your dampening hand almost like the release off pressure from the strings is a rhythmic strum in itself. Have fun with the three exercises, I’ve kept the chords the same but changed the time signature in each example so make sure your counting – 1, 2, 3, 4 (for exercise one); 1, 2, 3 (for exercise two); 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3 (for exercise three) – see you tomorrow!

Rhythm Playing – Dampened Barre Chords

Rhythm Playing – Swinging 6th Chords

I have some cool, jazzy sounding sixth chords this morning to jam along with in a Jamtastic manner. Use left hand dampening by releasing fretting hand pressure in between strums – this will make the piece swing and sound really danceable. Play around with the ideas, enjoy and I’ll see you tomorrow for another guitar tuition post.

Rhythm Playing – Swinging 6th Chords

Renaissance Guitar – Greensleves Warm Up

Now follows a warm up routine to practice before playing my arrangement of Greensleves which I posted last month and will help with all of the renaissance guitar pieces on this site. The exercise simply separates the bass line from the melody which helps you study the technique and timing of the piece before inserting the melody. Have fun and enjoy the piece.

Renaissance Guitar – Greensleves Warm Up

Rhythm Playing – Sus Chord Workout in D

A great acoustic workout today which will be a continuation from my post on intermediate guitar chords a while ago. For most of the piece you will be using a plectrum until the music modulate to F major when a fingerstyle or hybrid picking approach would be more appropriate. Have fun strumming this one out and enjoy how the chords flow into one another.

Rhythm Playing – Sus Chord Workout

Rhythm Playing – Shuffle Rhythm in Bb

Chord chart reading is a very useful skill to have indeed. The ability to be able to quickly play through a set of unseen chords makes new songs easier to learn and will make you a better musician. In the following exercise, you will be playing a series of barre chords using a shuffle rhythm in three four. You will in addition be asked to follow a series of musical directions that guide you to repeat certain sections of the music and skip out other sections.

Explanation of Directions for Rhythm Playing – Shuffle Rhythm in Bb

• Play all the way up to the end of bar 20 where you will see the direction D.S al coda.
• Follow the direction D.S al coda back to the beginning of barre 9 where you will see a sign.
• Play from the sign at the beginning of bar 9 to the direction Da Coda at the end of bar 12.
• Follow the direction Da coda to the coda sign at the beginning of bar 21 and finish the piece.

Whiskey In The Jar – Acoustic Guitar Chords

Here is a good old drinking song to rouse your spirits on a cold night. Whiskey In The Jar has been sung, played and enjoyed by many people over the years including The Dubliners, Thin Lizzy and Metallica (click on the links to hear the different versions). My arrangement is for beginners, it’s easy to play as soon as a few basic chords have been learnt. There are many lyrical variations of the song but I tend to sing the Thin Lizzy version because (as much I enjoy a tasteful traditional version of a song) I grew up listening to rock music.

Whiskey In The Jar

As I was going’ over the Cork and Kerry mountains
I saw Captain Farrell and his money he was counting
I first produced my pistol and I then produced my rapier
I said stand or deliver or the devil he may take ya

Musha ring dum a do dum a da.
Whack for my daddy-o,
Whack for my daddy-o
There’s whiskey in the jar-o

I took all of his money and it was a pretty penny.
I took all of his money and I brought it home to Molly
She swore that she loved me never would she leave me
But the devil take that woman for you know she tricked me easy

Chorus

Being drunk and weary I went to Molly’s chamber takin’ my Molly with me
And I never knew the danger for about six or maybe seven, in walked Captain Farrell.
I jumped up, fired off my pistols and I shot him with both barrels.

Chorus

Now some men like the fishin’ and some men like the fowlin’,
And some men like ta hear, the cannon ball a roarin’.
Me? I like sleepin’ especially in my Molly’s chamber.
But here I am in prison, here I am with ball and chain, yeah.

Blues Turnarounds

A while ago I posted a 12 Bar Blues Lesson which linked to seven ways to play the twelve bar blues. Carrying on from my explorations of blues chord structure, fun and jamability: here are two examples of blues turnarounds I created this morning for your enjoyment. A turnaround is a sort of blues ‘special move’ occurring in the last two bars that brings the music back to the beginning. They are often chromatic with no key centre and move down towards the head of the guitar in descending fashion. So, here are two quick examples blues turnarounds that I find work well in the key of E. Enjoy reading the tab and listen carefully to make sure you have nailed the triplet feel shuffle rhythm at the beginning of each exercise.

Blues Turnarounds (i)