Ask Brendan is a monthly column where Guitar Educator, Brendan Burns, answers questions about music and the pursuit of Understanding and Mastering the guitar.

Amazing Grace - Solo Guitar

September 03

Q: I am a beginning guitarist and I like your Solo Guitar music. Is there any Solo Guitar music you can suggest for someone starting on the instrument?

B: I have an arrangement of “Amazing Grace” that I use to work through some melodic and harmonic concepts for the beginning to intermediate guitarist.

Click here to download “Amazing Grace” as a PDF

To practice this arrangement we divide the piece into melodic and harmonic components to strengthen our playing from a technical standpoint and then bring them together to focus from a creative position.

Melodic: Start playing the melody slowly and steadily. Don’t worry about the piece as a whole. Consider it a drill as you first start out. Use this opportunity to get a clear understanding of the melody and the fingers and frets you need to play it. As it becomes familiar to you play the melody rubato (without time). Use your own sense of time. Feel free to speed up or slow down, or play louder or softer as you see fit. Take this time to really get in to the spirit of the music and where the melody wants to take you (or where you want to take the melody).

Harmonic: The second part of this exercise is working on the Harmony or Chords of the piece. Play through the chords sequentially and without time. This is where we get familiar with the progression. If there are any difficult transitions, than this is the time to focus on them. Once the chord changes are comfortable to you, play through the tune in time. This piece is in 3/4, therefore 3 beats per measure. Start slow, and then bring it to a tempo you feel appropriate. If you can, sing the melody. If not, than listen for when the melody would come in.

Combination: When playing pieces as Solo Guitar arrangements we need to express the Harmony and Melody at the same time. One way to do this is to position the melody note as the highest note in the chord. Each time you play a melody note strum the appropriate chord along with it at the same time.

For the first chord we have a G chord with a”G” note. Play the G chord from Bass to Treble and stop at the G string. With the G string ringing as the top note in the chord it is perceived as the melodic or lead note. The bottom part of the chord is perceived as the harmony.

We do the same for the next note:”B.” Playing the bottom 4 strings (by pitch), leaves the open B string as the high note, or melodic note.

Continue this technique through the entire piece.