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Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar
Barnes and Noble
Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar
Current price: $21.95
Barnes and Noble
Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar
Current price: $21.95
Size: OS
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This book grew out of a need. Recently, I was asked to play during several funerals, with the request being to "just play some hymns." When I began looking for material, I found a wealth of wonderful arrangements for fingerstyle guitar, but none of them were going to work for me in this situation. Naturally, I had only a few days' notice, so I wasn't going to learn and memorize complex arrangements, no matter how beautiful they were. Even the simplest arrangements I found were many pages long, and I didn't want to be turning pages during a funeral service, the way I would if I tried to read the music rather than memorize it. I also realized that in this setting, the focus wasn't on me, or how clever or complex the music was. I just needed to play appropriate music for the occasion that helped set the mood and that didn't detract from the service. Uncomplicated, melodic arrangements would be a plus.
My solution forms the basis of this book - my own arrangements that are simple, almost "sketches" of an arrangement. What I decided I needed was a type of book known as a "fake book" in jazz circles - but for hymns - and designed for solo fingerstyle guitar. Jazz fake books are typically limited to just chord names and perhaps melody. I wanted a bit more than that - basically easily-playable arrangements with no complicated parts, and designed to be extended on the fly.