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November 2012
Free Flatpicking Lesson
from
Flatpicking
Guitar Magazine
"Christmas Eve"
Arranged for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine by Mickey Abraham
Hello
and welcome back to FGM’s free lesson portion of our monthly
newsletter. I hope you all have had a wonderful year filled with eight
hours a day of guitar practice. But seriously, I’d like to wish you and
your family a very merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, and a happy new
year! I hope your holidays are once again filled with family, food, and
fiddle tunes!
With so many Christmas tunes to choose
from and countless guitar arrangements of them all, I opted to go in a
different direction. Instead of presenting a classic Christmas melody, I
though it might be interesting to teach a tune that is not a Christmas
standard, but rather a cool tune that somehow began to be associated
with Christmas. “Christmas Eve” is from the Irish fiddling tradition
and was taught to me by fiddler Aisha Ivey. The melody is not a take
off on any Christmas tune, rather it just evokes an overall joyous
quality and, over the years it began to be called “Christmas Eve.”
Other names of the tune include The Christmas Eve, The Christmas, Oíche Nollaig, Oiche Nollag, Oiche Nollaig, and Tommy Coen's.
The tune is made up of three parts all
of which are repeated. This means that the from is AABBCC. There are
many chord options for a tune like this but here are the ones that I
have included on the lesson mp3. I use the same chord progression for
all three parts!
//// //// //// // // G G G Am D //// //// // // // // G G G C D G
Then, on the repeat of each section, I
use this cool descending chord progression that often works over tunes
in the key of G major. I like the way the descending chords add
movement to the melody before going into the next section.
////
//// ////
// // G G G Am D // // // // //// // // G G/F# Em D C D G
When
picking the melody, I tend to go between first, second, and third
positions. Sometime I like to play the first fret with my index and
other times with my middle. In some cases, you will have to play in
second position (to reach the fifth fret). When these fiddle tunes were
written on the fiddle, the composer did not take into account guitar
fingerings! What is the seventh fret to us is actually still first
position and home base to a fiddle player.
To
me, this tune really demonstrates the magic of these old Irish tunes. I
love how the melody comes directly from the G major scale and mostly
from the G major pentatonic scale (only five notes). One could
realistically play back-up to this melody with only one chord, G, with perhaps a
D thrown in at the end of a line. It’s easy to get blown away by a
bunch of hot licks and complex chords, but every now and then it’s great
to explore a new melody, get it under your fingers, and expand your
tune base beyond Blackberry Blossom and Salt Creek.
I
hope you enjoy working on “Christmas Eve” on Christmas Eve! If you
find yourself with any questions, comments, or concerns, just drop me a
line at [email protected] .
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