During the holiday season, it is not uncommon for guitar players to be
asked by family and friends if they would play a few seasonal tunes.
Unfortunately, most guitar players do not spend a lot of time
practicing and learning these tunes. For a flatpicker, picking up the
guitar and playing a Christmas melody without the accompaniment of
other musicians is something that is typically outside of their comfort
zone. But that doesn’t have to be the case!
Italian flatpicking master Roberto Dalla Vecchia has now presented
arrangements of 10 holiday favorites arranged for solo flatpicking
guitar in his new book, Flatpicking Guitar Christmas. With this
book you will be able to learn how to play and full and rich solo
guitar arrangement of ten of the all-time most popular Christmas tunes.
Additionally, a study of Roberto’s solo flatpicking technique will
allow you to then learn how to develop your own approach to solo
flatpicking.
Solo flatpicking is a skill
that relatively few flatpickers have mastered because most of their
time is spent playing with other musicians providing accompaniment
behind their lead lines. It is no easy task to present a full and rich
solo guitar arrangement that provides melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic
content when using a plectrum. Roberto Dalla Vecchia is one of the
world’s best at solo flatpicking and through study of these tunes you
will learn how it is done.
For our free email
newsletter lesson this month, we are providing you with Roberto’s
arrangement of “Jingle Bells” from his new book. We hope that you
enjoy working with this tune, and if you like it, that you will
consider purchasing the book from www.flatpickingmercantile.com in the
hard copy form, or from www.flatpickdigital.com for the digital
download edition.
