April 25, 2009...11:33 pm

Acoustic Guitar Fingerstyle Arrangement Part 1

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Acoustic Guitar Fingerstyle Arrangement – Gypsy Rover TAB and Notation

What a lot of beginner guitarists don’t realise is many of the better guitar players have done is work on arrangements of tunes to help develop their playing and ear.  It’s not just about learning a few solos, playing a few blues or pentatonic scales or wearing the right outfit.  Being able to sit down and play a couple of dozen solo  guitar pieces is a great way to practice and get a musical response from your practice. There’s always a lot of room for variation and improvisation once you get the basic idea of a song .  And if you’re travelling around the world it’s really nice to sit in a boat in a lake a few hundred miles from Kathmandu, look up at the Himalayas and bliss out playing guitar (something I have done).

I’ve decided to write a half a dozen reasonably simple fingerstyle guitar arrangements, this is the first one.  These sort of of arrangements are also very useful for singer / songwriter acoustic guitar players who are wanting to strengthen their playing, they will help create a lot more options to accompany vocal parts and once you can play this sort of guitar it will help you to play a solo gig and play guitar breaks which consist of more that a single note solo.

What I’ve done is taken the old Irish Tune Gypsy Rover and written a basic part and a slight variation.  You might find that the melody is a fraction different to the original tune, I’ve called it up from memory and that’s roughly what I’ve heard in my head ( poet license).

Gypsy Rover Acoustic Guitar

Gypsy Rover Acoustic Guitar

Here is the Printable PDF, which no doubt you will need it Gypsy Rover Acoustic Guitar Arrangement

Here is a midi file of the tune to give you an idea how the tune goes Gypsy Rover Midi

NOTE: Midi files are not real audio recordings, they are data files, so it will lack the tone of a guitar and the human element so essential to music.  But the file size is tiny.

Take the idea and develop it.  I often work on other peoples arrangements, then I close the manuscript once I have an idea where the tune is going and I have an understanding of the underlying chord pattern and melody and other main parts.  By playing other people’s arrangements will give you new fingerings and options which you might not ever have come up with.

Next week I will write another Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar Solo Arrangement

The botom line KEEP IT MUSICAL

Tony Hogan - Acoustic Guitar Blogger

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