Martin Simpson Just A Closer Walk With Thee

Martin Simpson is one of the most brilliant and lyrical fingerstyle guitar soloists on worldwide acoustic guitar scene. In this masterful book, Martin captures the melodic beauty, earthy rhythms, and haunting modal temperaments found in the American gospel tradition. Nineteen guitar solos are offered. Notation and tablature.

With this collection of 26 folk hymns, author Peter Irvine brings shape-note music into the home, and provides adaptable music for a variety of instrumental ensembles. This format allows for instruments such as the mountain dulcimer, Native American or transverse flute, penny whistle, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and so forth. Anyone can play shape-note music, even when Sacred Harp gatherings or “singings” are not easily accessible. The hymns in this collection are drawn from various classic shape-note sources like Southern Harmony (1835) and The Sacred Harp (1844). Presented in lead-sheet format (melody, chords, and lyrics), and written in keys accessible to all C instruments and several D instruments such as the penny whistle and mountain dulcimer, the material offers plenty of arrangements. Hymns can be sung by a soloist, in unison by a small group with chordal accompaniment, or a mixed ensemble.

The name of this book is no exaggeration. It includes some of the most gorgeous music that the authors El McMeen and Sandy Shalk know. To make things even more interesting, none of the music was originally written for guitar! In addition to Celtic favorites, El includes his arrangements of two of the most beautiful arias in all of opera: "Che Gelida Manina" from Puccini's "La Boheme" and "My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice" (“Mon Coeur S'ouvre à ta Voix”) from "Samson and Delilah" by Camille Saint-Saëns. Sandy's contributions range from Celtic to French love songs to Stephen Foster, manifesting Sandy's gift for chordal subtleties and innovation. Each piece is in either standard tuning (EADGBE) or Drop D tuning (DADGBE). Written in standard notation and tablature with computer generated audio files of each arrangement.

Whispering Stones won the award for “Best Recording” from the Washington Area Music Association and has continued to be a favorite with fans of fingerstyle guitar music throughout the world. The book features Celtic-inspired original and traditional tunes performed on solo acoustic guitar with the occasional addition of flute, mandolin, cello, piano, or bells. The tunes appear in the same order as in the recording. Al Petteway is an award-winning fingerstyle guitarist and composer. His many “Wammie” awards from the Washington Area Music Association include “Artist of the Year” and “Musician of the Year”. Al’s playing fuses Celtic/British ideas and tunings with American themes and drive. Acoustic Guitar Magazine praised his ‘concise, clean arrangements similar to John Renbourn’s better work’. In notation and tablature.

El McMeen has authored many guitar books for Mel Bay Publications, but this book holds a special place in his heart. This cutting-edge collection includes melodic, challenging, and exuberant band marches carefully arranged for fingerstyle guitar. The book contains arrangements of seven marches (including six by John Philip Sousa), many of which are in various open tunings. These pieces are challenging and geared for intermediate-advanced and advanced guitarists. There are so many great melodies in this collection–guitarists can camp on sections of pieces that they enjoy or tackle the pieces in their entirety. The book also contains a discussion by El McMeen on his selection and arrangement process. Includes access to online audio.

This unique book presents 18 of the most popular classical compositions typically performed at weddings. Rather than being written for the classic guitar, however, each piece is arranged for solo pick-style guitar—a.k.a., plectrum or flatpicking guitar—in both standard notation and tablature. Like classical guitar arrangements, these settings utilize the full spectrum of the guitar’s capabilities with bass lines, chords and melodies happening simultaneously. Although written for intermediate to advanced plectrum guitarists, fingerstyle players will also find these arrangements rewarding. This collection would serve as a convenient resource for pros who should be able to sight read most of this material on the job. Given that these arrangements sound complete and appropriate as plectrum guitar solos, pick-style students will also enjoy and benefit from working on these familiar melodies by Baroque, Classical and Modern masters.

In A City Called Heaven, gospel announcer and music historian Robert Marovich shines a light on the humble origins of a majestic genre and its indispensable bond to the city where it found its voice: Chicago. Marovich follows gospel music from early hymns and camp meetings through the Great Migration that brought it to Chicago. In time, the music grew into the sanctified soundtrack of the city's mainline black Protestant churches. In addition to drawing on print media and ephemera, Marovich mines hours of interviews with nearly fifty artists, ministers, and historians--as well as discussions with relatives and friends of past gospel pioneers--to recover many forgotten singers, musicians, songwriters, and industry leaders. He also examines how a lack of economic opportunity bred an entrepreneurial spirit that fueled gospel music's rise to popularity and opened a gate to social mobility for a number of its practitioners. As Marovich shows, gospel music expressed a yearning for freedom from earthly pains, racial prejudice, and life's hardships. In the end, it proved to be a sound too mighty and too joyous for even church walls to hold.