This collection presents 22 lyrical American tunes including traditional 19th century songs, melodies from the WWII era, and modern-day pieces by William Bay, president of Mel Bay Publications. Whether it’s a Civil War ballad or a jazz inspired tone poem, Raymond Gonzalez has a gift for creating unique settings that occasionally blend harmonics with normally fretted notes and open strings. The end result is a flowing melody/chord/bass arrangement that is challenging but accessible to the intermediate guitarist. All of the notation and tab settings in this book appear in standard or dropped-D tuning and are suitable for both steel and nylon-string guitar performance. To keep page clutter to a minimum, the reader is referred to the tablature for string, fret, and harmonic locations. Includes access to online audio of every tune recorded by the author.

The name of this book is no exaggeration. It includes some of the most gorgeous music that the authors El McMeen and Sandy Shalk know. To make things even more interesting, none of the music was originally written for guitar! In addition to Celtic favorites, El includes his arrangements of two of the most beautiful arias in all of opera: "Che Gelida Manina" from Puccini's "La Boheme" and "My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice" (“Mon Coeur S'ouvre à ta Voix”) from "Samson and Delilah" by Camille Saint-Saëns. Sandy's contributions range from Celtic to French love songs to Stephen Foster, manifesting Sandy's gift for chordal subtleties and innovation. Each piece is in either standard tuning (EADGBE) or Drop D tuning (DADGBE). Written in standard notation and tablature with computer generated audio files of each arrangement.

This book presents easy to intermediate fingerstyle guitar arrangements of 19 familiar folk and gospel favorites. Some of these creative settings reflect the influence of Chet Atkins’ alternating bass lines, while a few present mildly challenging syncopated rhythms. All lies well on the fretboard, the result of the author’s years of arranging experience and dedication to the guitar. Every tune is set in a guitar-friendly key and shown in both standard notation and tablature. For ease of learning, this book includes access to online audio, expertly played by the author.

Christmas Carols in the British Isles presents 20 songs from the Renaissance through early 20th century. It includes familiar compositions such as the “Coventry Carol”, “Away in a Manger”, and the “Wexford Carol”, and incorporates some lovely pieces that may be new to the listener. The melodies for these lyrical pieces appear in their most easily recognized form before any variation is presented. Raymond Gonzalez has a gift for combining traditional harmonies with occasional harmonic and rhythmic twists, providing freshness, color, and new life to familiar tunes. All arrangements are in standard or dropped-D tuning, suitable for both steel and nylon-string guitar performance and should be comfortably accessible to the intermediate guitarist. The reader is referred to the tablature for string, fret, and harmonic locations. The book includes access to online audio of every tune recorded by the author.

This collection presents 22 lyrical American tunes including traditional 19th century songs, melodies from the WWII era, and modern-day pieces by William Bay, president of Mel Bay Publications.Whether it's a Civil War ballad or a jazz inspired tone poem, Raymond Gonzalez has a gift for creating unique settings that occasionally blend harmonics with normally fretted notes and open strings. The end result is a flowing melody/chord/bass arrangement that is challenging but accessible to the intermediate guitarist.All of the notation and tab settings in this book appear in standard or dropped-D tuning and are suitable for both steel and nylon-string guitar performance. To keep page clutter to a minimum, the reader is referred to the tablature for string, fret, and harmonic locations. Includes access to online audio of every tune recorded by the author.

The ancient Celtic repertoire offers the fingerstyle guitarist a tantalizingly wide range of moods and emotions from sad laments to lyrical ballads to vibrant dance rhythms. This collection presents a vast array of fingerpicking guitar solos settings on timeless airs, hornpipes, reels, planxties, set dances, jigs, slip jigs, marches, songs and compositions by the renowned 17th century blind Irish bard, Turlough O'Carolan. the solos are in varied guitar tunings and are presented in notation and tablature. Performance notes and suggested listening guides are also included. 27 songs from this book are on the CD.

A collection of 21 intermediate arrangements for the classical or fingerstyle guitar in notation and tablature. The pieces are from the categories of Stephen Foster Songs; Folk Songs; Parlour Songs and arrangements of classical themes. The pieces included are My Old Kentucky Home; Beautiful Dreamer; Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair; Hard Times Come Again No More; Gentle Annie; Allan Water; The Lark In The Clear Air; David Of The White Rock; Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms; The Skye Boat Song; Annie Laurie; Deep River; At Dawning; I Love You Truly; Kiss Me Again; My Wild Irish Rose; Love's Old Sweet Song; Chanson De Matin; I Vow To Thee My Country (Jupiter/ The Planets); Waltz From Coppelia; Waltz From Swan Lake. Notes about all of the songs are included in a detailed introduction.

This collection of 146 fingerstyle transcriptions and arrangements covers a wide variety of styles including dozens of popular and jazz standards as well as blues and country songs, sea chanteys, folk ballads, sacred, gospel and Christmas melodies, Celtic and patriotic tunes, children's songs, classical and wedding music, and select Piburn originals. the book is designed as a resource for guitarists in virtually any solo performance situation. the result of years of experience as an arranger/composer and performing guitarist, this book provides a goldmine of tunes for the fingerstyle player. from Greensleeves and the Girl I left Behind Me to 'Round Midnight and the Girl from Ipanema, this comprehensive anthology has it all. You'll be able to compile your set lists for a broad array of venues from this single source! Intermediate to advanced in difficulty with all tunes appearing in standard notation and tablature.

This comprehensive text covers the spectrum of fingerpicking technique and styles. Performance and stylistic notes, fingerstyle guitar solos and a listening guide are presented for each section of the book. Sections include: Folk Songs; Gospel Songs; Country Blues; RagtimeBlues; Rags and Dances; Appalachian Fiddle Tunes; Celtic Airs; Jigs and Reels; Classic Rags; Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar & Fingerstyle Guitar Duets. All solos are in notation and tablature and are written by noted fingerpicking guitarists Stefan Grossman, Elizabeth Cotten, DeanSires, Ton VanBergeyk, David Laibman, Rev. Gary Davis, Duck Baker, Seth Austen, Steve Tilston, John Morris, Sid Percy, Tom O'Farrell, JimMcLennan, Leo Wijnkamp Jr., Lasse Johansson and Claes Palmqvist.

This book presents 37 pieces of Renaissance guitar music transcribed for solo fingerstyle ukulele together with the author’s recordings of every transcription. Moreover, a generous introduction provides a brief history of the Renaissance guitar, tips on period ornamentation and musicianship, recommended recordings, and invaluable resources for further research of your own. Throughout Europe, the Renaissance guitar was a popular instrument in the middle of the sixteenth century. Its composers left us a treasure-trove of music, from rustic dances to chansons and elaborate fantasias. Five-hundred years later, this music fits beautifully on the Renaissance guitar’s musical descendant, the ukulele. The Renaissance guitar and the ukulele share an almost identical tuning. As the transcriptions in this book are written in standard notation and tablature, any type of ukulele, from soprano to baritone—as well as the top four strings of the guitar— can be used to play them. Most of the pieces are in standard gCEA or GCEA tuning; the seven pieces in the second section of the book, however, require low-G tuning to render the counterpoint as written. It’s also possible for guitar and baritone uke players to read the tablature provided. The music will sound a perfect 4th lower than the notation, but as there was no standard pitch in the time of the Renaissance guitar, modern players should feel no obligation to play this music at fixed pitch. If you wish to read from the tablature and sound in the same key as the notation for ensemble purposes, guitar and baritone uke players merely need to place a capo at the fifth fret. With a certain sense of historical irony, the music of the Renaissance guitar is here reborn on modern fretted instruments.