Neil's Favorite Christmas Arrangements

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Hark The Herald Angels Sing - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  This is one of the first songs that drew me to ragtime arrangements of Christmas Carols. John Fahey’s album, The New Possibility had a great medley including Hark The Herald Angels Sing and it really opened up a lot of new possibilities to me.
  
  This lesson goes through the steps of creating an arrangement, rather than just teaching the song. This involves understanding the chord progression, the melody, the bass notes, syncopation, and adding filler notes to help you create your own version.

• Lesson 2: Up On The Housetop - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  This is a basic arrangement of the Christmas Classic.

• Lesson 3: Silver Bells - Solo Guitar Arrangement

  Silver Bells was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for a movie, The Lemon Drop Kid starring Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell. Bing Crosby and Carol Richards recorded and released it before the movie came out in 1951. The song went on to be a much bigger hit than the movie.

  This arrangement is not too difficult but does have a different feel than many other Holiday lessons here. It is in 3/4 time and played with a swing feel. It also includes an extended intro and outro to help set the mood.

• Lesson 4: Carol Of The Bells - Solo Guitar Arrangement

  This is a fairly basic arrangement of Carol of The Bells, really just combining the main melodic parts with a bass line, a bit of a counter melody at times. There are some tricky fingerings, as well as right hand choices that may need to be practiced a bit.

• Lesson 5: Christmas Time Is Here - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  Christmas Time Is Here is a popular Christmas standard that was written by Vince Guaraldi and Lee Mendelson for the 1965 television special “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. 
  This lesson presents a fingerstyle solo guitar arrangement of the song that features the melody and all of the accompanying jazz chords.  It covers beautiful voicings for chords like Eb9#11, Db9#5 and Bm7b5 in a way that should be approachable for players of various levels.

• Lesson 6: Deck The Halls - Solo Guitar Arrangement

  This arrangement of Deck The Halls, an old Welsh melody, started out to be a fairly basic fingerpicking tune. The first verse should be very playable for students who have with some alternate bass style skills.

  There is also a variation, Verse 2, that will be a bit more challenging. But you should be able to find a middle point somewhere in your own comfort zone. You might also enjoy taking the extra challenge of 'The Hard Part', which includes some very fast changes.

• Lesson 7: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is every child’s favorite Christmas song. After playing this for many years with children I thought it was about time to put together a simple fingerpicking arrangement.

  Once I fell into the key of A for it, there was a good way to incorporate a challenging skill for most guitar players. There are just a few chord shapes in this version so the left hand is pretty basic.

  The right hand becomes the issue as I brought in a Chet Atkins style bass pattern (3 strings alternating) with a harp like style of melody notes crossing strings, meaning many times the highest note of a melodic sequence is not on the highest string.

  This can amount to a bit of confusion for the right hand.

• Lesson 8: The Little Drummer Boy - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  The Little Drummer Boy is another Christmas classic, based on an old Czech melody. This lesson is a solo guitar version done in Dropped D tuning, keeping a repetitive mono bass pattern going while playing the melody with a harmony line.

• Lesson 9: Frosty The Snowman - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  The instrumental arrangement of Frosty incorporates the melody into an alternating bass accompaniment to create a bouncy, upbeat toe-tapper. It is also in the key of A Major, like the strumming version, which makes this a good compliment to that one that can be brought in as a solo break when you are singing the campfire version.

• Lesson 10: Angels We Have Heard On High - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  This is a ragtime arrangement of a Christmas classic that uses a Travis-style (alternating bass) accompaniment to the syncopated melody, done in a style similar to the way John Fahey played it as part of his Christmas series of albums, in the key of C Major.

• Lesson 11: Jingle Bells - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  This lesson on a fingerstyle version of Jingle Bells walks the student through some of the steps you need to take to create an instrumental arrangement.
  
  It is important to have a clear idea of the progression and the melody, then to start with a skeleton version, putting the bass notes and melody together as simply as possible, before adding some syncopation and harmony/filler notes.

• Lesson 12: Jingle Bell Rock - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  Jingle Bell Rock was a novelty hit in 1957 for Bobby Helms. The bouncy tune follows the common form A-A-B-A like many songs from the Tin Pan Alley era songwriters.

  This lesson is mostly a straightforward alternate bass fingerpicking style with a bit of a ragtime feel in swing time. It also touches on syncopating some bass notes, meaning playing them an eighth note early rather than on the beat.

• Lesson 13: Winter Wonderland - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  This is another John Fahey- inspired arrangement with ragtime leanings using the Travis-style accompaniment to create a fun instrumental. Like the campfire version, it is in the key of C Major and can be used as a solo break in the middle of the vocal version.

• Lesson 14: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen is a traditional English carol that goes back a few, if not many centuries. It has a modal melody (Aeolian) that lends itself very well to a bluesy-ragtime interpretation. This version is another of many that I have to give credit to John Fahey for taking it in this direction. It is played with a steady alternating bass (Travis style), although we take the bass notes off the beats for some catchy syncopation as well.

• Lesson 15: Here Comes Santa Claus - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  Here Comes Santa Claus was written and first recorded by American singing cowboy Gene Autry in the 1940s. This solo guitar arrangement treats it in a ragtime style, inspired by John Fahey's take on some Christmas tunes from his early album The New Possibility. It is done with a steady alternating bass in swing time and has some challenging techniques for both hands.

• Lesson 16: Let It Snow - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  Let It Snow is another Christmas classic from the American Songbook of Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. This solo guitar lesson is done in a manner similar to Here Comes Santa Claus and Winter Wonderland, and makes a great medley with those as they are all in the key of C.

• Lesson 17: O Come All Ye Faithful – Fingerpicking Solo

  This is another Christmas Carol that is fun to play in ragtime. It includes some quick chord changes. We run through two verses, each of which uses an important fingerpicking technique.
  
  The first uses many filler notes on the ‘and’ of beat 4 to create a pick-up feel into the next measure. The second verse makes great use of syncopated bass notes, meaning bass notes hit on the ‘ands’ rather than on the beats.

• Lesson 18: The Twelve Days Of Christmas - Solo Guitar Arrangement

  This may not be something you will want to play all the way through but as is one of our tendencies at Totally Guitars we bring you a fingerstyle version of The Twelve Days Of Christmas. It is done in the key of E major and has some tricky changes and passages.

• Lesson 19: I'll Be Home For Christmas - Solo Guitar Arrangement

  I'll Be Home For Christmas has been recorded by hundreds of artists. This solo guitar arrangement is presented in a do-it-yourself style where Neil goes over the melody and chords with different ways of looking at each measure or phrase.

• Lesson 20: Sleigh Ride - Solo Fingerstyle Arrangement

  Sleigh Ride was written in the late 1940s by Leroy Anderson as a light orchestra piece. A couple years later Mitchell Parish added lyrics to it and it became an American Classic.

  This arrangement covers all three main parts of the piece and has a few fairly challenging passages. The last segment includes a slow play through (with one or two unplanned events), which could give the student an idea of what to shoot for before trying to speed it up.