Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

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Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby Doug Working » Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:52 pm

This time of year (perhaps I'm running a tad behind!) I really focus on playing and arranging Christmas tunes. I bet a lot of us here do!

Probably the best time to do it is during the warmer months, so when this time finally rolls around, we can be polished and ready!

Be that as it may, I've been working on a multiplicity of them.

I'm pretty good at it. (Arranging, that is.) if I know the tune, I can easily figure out the chords and come up with a decent (hopefully pretty,) arrangement.

But there are just a couple that beat me. One for me that I can never seem to nail is "Sleigh Ride" Man, that song is crazy! I just can't figure it out! Chet could nail ANY Christmas tune, and I'm pretty good, but Mr., I sure ain't no Chet Atkins!

I just wondered how you guys are doing with your Christmas arrangements? Any particular tune that gives you trouble? Any favorites that you just love and play frequently?

Doug
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby kwarren » Sun Dec 24, 2017 4:02 pm

Doug,

"Sleigh Ride" is a tough one. I played around with it many years without success.
Then something wonderful happened. I attended the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society convention the year Chet passed. My first day there, I parked my car and as I was walking up to the hotel entrances I had this intense urge to play. So, I sat down on one of the benches outside, took out my guitar and an arrangement of "Sleigh Ride" flowed from my fingers as if by magic. It sounded so much like something Chet would have done, I felt Chet's spirit was there and gave me the arrangement. I get goosebumps thinking about it.

Currently, I've been working on a medley of "Winter Wonderland/Marshmallow World." Getting the phrasing just right with "Marshmallow World" was a bit tricky but I was finally able to get it worked out to complete the arrangement.
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby DagerRande » Tue Dec 26, 2017 1:31 pm

I have an arrangement of "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts....) that I've performed for a number of years about this time of year. I relate to Jerry's statement when he says that he's more of "guitar thinker than a guitar player". I have no problem figuring out pretty much anything I hear but to physically execute it smoothly is the real challenge. Sleigh Ride is a tough one. I got a lot of ideas during my friendship with Tommy Jones when he was alive. I was always blown away by how easily he would pick up something brand new (for him) that I would show him, such as "Huntin Boots". I showed him very slowly how to play that middle part and he did it very carefully to start with and within minutes he was playing it at the normal tempo. I think "my calling" would have been as a transcriber, but only tab because I don't have the formal background. When I lived in Southern California I even spent a period of time with a guy who made his living playing in restaurants, etc., around L.A. and he would drive 45 min. to my place and pay me to teach him another song. He would then put it down on paper in a way that made the most sense to him and then go back home and learn it and would be performing it within a week or two. For about a year he would come and learn one new song every week. I'm not saying the my playing is horrible but it will never be as flawless as for some of the people who I've taught things to. It's sort of depressing in a way....lol. My skill is non-demonstrable. Nobody can really display what's in their head when they can't perform it or write it down. I always have to depend upon someone more physically skilled. Another Christmas song I arranged was "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" with a lot of walking bass lines. This is the main reason that I haven't started a YouTube channel, much to the dismay of those who've tried to encouraged it.
Rande Dager

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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby kwarren » Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:04 am

Rande, I fully relate to the “Jerry Reed syndrome” (as I call it). I too consider myself a guitar thinker more than a player. I love the creative process of working through a new arrangement or composition. My biggest problem is, once I’ve completed a tune, I notate it and it is quickly forgotten as I move on to chasing the next piece to work on. They only tunes I am able to play are the ones that are on my work bench…so to speak. If a month passes without playing a particular piece, I can’t remember it. :-/

As I mentioned in another post, I plan to start scheduling practice time in each day starting in the new year. Once my playing improves, I want to start doing some recording (both audio and video).

Kirk
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby DagerRande » Thu Dec 28, 2017 3:08 pm

Kirk, I hope you can get back into it and decide to put your performances online. I have to depend upon my memory and I usually retain the new things I come up with. I'm unable to write anything down. My problem is that I'm a perfectionist and I feel that I will never accurately display to the world what I picture in my mind. I know that this is the wrong attitude. I've seen many online performances that aren't that great and I ask myself why I ever hesitated? I may eventually just go ahead and do it anyway. I'm sure you've experienced being complimented on something that you aren't proud of. I should know by now that not everyone's perception is the same. I've sat in concerts where Chet would make a mistake every now and then and the people with me said they never even noticed. After a difficult song, Chet would say something like ''I don't know why I come up with things that are so hard to play?" I think this sort of "let him off the hook" for making mistakes because he publicly admitted that he wasn't perfect. I would like for 2018 to be my year of at least putting something online even if it isn't a great performance. I will be 69 in early March and I know for a fact that some YouTube videos will remain online long after the one who creates them is gone. It could be my digital diary/legacy.
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby kwarren » Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:00 am

Rande, I too am a perfectionist which is the very same reason why I’ve posted no YouTube videos.
I plan to change that in 2018…and there will be mistakes included. :-)

As far as remembering tunes, as long as I play them every few days, they will stick in my mind. If I let weeks go by without playing a piece, I have to refer to the written music. Luckily, I taught myself guitar notation many years ago. I’ve gotten pretty good at rhythmical accuracy in my notation. The way I play it live is how it sounds on the midi playback in TablEdit (the music notation program I use).

Back in the 80’s, I believe, Chet performed two shows in Wheeling, WV. During the first show, Chet was playing “Mr. Bojangles” and really messed up half way through. This was the first time I had ever heard Chet make a mistake. I actually felt relieved because it not only let me know Chet was human, but I felt it was ok for me to make a mistake here and there and not be “perfect.”
Chet played the same tune during the second show but before he started playing, he told the audience that he didn’t make it through the piece during the 1st show and hoped to perform it better the 2nd time around.
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby Doug Working » Sun Dec 31, 2017 1:02 pm

With snow and all this bad weather I'm rarely able to get out and get internet access (free WIIFI) but am hoping to be able to get free soon and read all comments and put my two cents in.
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby DagerRande » Sun Dec 31, 2017 8:38 pm

Doug, maybe instead of putting in your 2 cents, you could use bitcoin or some other form of cryptocurrency!
Rande Dager

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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby Doug Working » Mon Jan 01, 2018 8:21 pm

To be honest, I worry about that bit coin stuff. Because I'm also a magician and a lot of my repertoire involves effects with borrowed paper currency. I have dozens of sleight of hand effects with bills. (And real coins, too) I've been perfecting them for years. I work on my magic show nearly as hard as I work on guitar. (Think Rick Allred, here.) If digital currency ever takes away paper money, half of my act / my close -up set goes down the crapper. That's years of hard work down the tubes. I guarantee I will not be a cappy hamper.
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Re: Difficult Christmas Tunes To Arrange And Play

Postby Doug Working » Mon Jan 01, 2018 8:37 pm

But as for Chet messing up., still he was the greatest of all time. I have just about everything he recorded, and rarely, rarely, RARELY did he make a little flub on those recordings. Mostly a tiny miscalculation on a harmonic. That's about it all I have ever caught.

But I know the brain cancer really messed him up. It would anybody, because we can't play without our brain. Which goes without saying, of course. We are all so fragily (sp?) human, even our hero.

I read an anecdote that made me cry, once. That after his major surgery Chet pretty much had to re-teach himself, and someone said he did a concert where they said he pretty much sounded like a beginner. But what would they expect from a man who had underwent brain surgery????

Maybe they didn't mean it in a mean way. I'm sure they didn't, but it nevertheless hurt to read that, and it made me cry.

The Bojangle mess-up, was that after his surgery? I know for a fact he knew Bojangles forwards and back, and I recall the first time I heard him play the arrangement on the Mike Douglas show in the 70's. I was young, and my jaw dropped. If Chet messed up on that one, having known the arrangement in his sleep, I wonder if it was due to the brain surgery. Or perhaps it was BEFORE the surgery, but the cancer was messing with his playing skill.
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