Fingerpicking Christmas – Solo Guitar Songbook | 20 Classic Carols in Notes and Tablature | Includes Silent Night, Jingle Bells, The First Noel and More | Hal Leonard Sheet Music

I agree with other reviewers who have said that the arrangements in this book are easy, and are more for the beginner than the intermediate finger-picking guitarist. They do sound nice, though, so I gave the book 5 stars. These songs are very accessible for someone who has just a little experience with finger picking. It's a very good book for someone who is just getting going, or who has developed a bit of skill with finger-picking. Here is what I mean when I say the songs are fairly easy. You almost never pluck more than 2 strings at a time. The underlying chords are all open chords (except for a few F chords, but you don't have to be able to play an F chord to play these arrangements). No barring is required. You pretty much just finger the underlying open chord and play that chord arpeggiated while playing the melody with your 3rd or 4th finger. The vast majority of the playing is done in the first 3 frets so there isn't much hand movement up and down the neck, although in a couple of songs you do go up to the 7th or 8th fret on the first string (so you play a high B or C on that string a couple of times). There are no exotic chords and no strange or challenging fingerings. If you are more experienced and are looking for a challenge, or arrangements with more sophisticated harmonies, then this book probably isn't for you. Having said that, the book is cheap, so you aren't risking much by picking it up. And I can think of a couple of reasons why an intermediate to advanced guitarist might want this book. First, if you get asked to play some songs at a family Christmas gathering (or something like that), you could probably just grab this book and sight read everything in it. (Because, let's face it--how much time are you really going to spend practicing Christmas songs?) The result would be a nice performance, because even though the harmonies are simple, they do sound nice. The other reason why an intermediate or better guitarist might want this book is that it would serve as a starting point for making your own arrangements. You could take the notes in these songs and add 1 or 2 others to the chords to get sus, add, or slash chords, or you could change some of the chords to major 7th or minor 7th (or any other jazz chords that sound good to you) to get richer, more interesting harmonies (and more challenging pieces to play). So the bottom line is that I have really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for some fairly easy but still nice sounding arrangements of traditional Christmas songs. I will probably spice them up a bit at some point, but in the mean time, I have enjoyed playing the songs in this book as they are written.

I'm really enthused about this book, containing 20 traditional, favorite Christmas carols. It gives clear tabs for each song, in most all cases staying at or below the third fret, so it's appropriate even for beginners. The songs are all the traditional ones 100+ years old. If you want one for more contemporary songs like "Rudolph," "Silver Bells," "Here Comes Santa Claus," then get the companion book, FINGERPICKING YULETIDE, with 16 songs. Apparently written by the same author, its songs a little more often have notes above the 3rd fret, but still most of the renditions are quite simple. It's equally excellent. The lyrics are included in both books. The great thing about using these books is that everyone knows these songs, so you instantly get auditory feedback if you make a mistake. So they're excellent instructional tools. There is no text in either of these books, except for one introductory page. I only wish Hal Leonard had identified the author. He/she did a fine job and deserves credit.

Quite a nice little book. Most of the classic Christmas tunes are here, though I missed O Holy Night, which is absent. Like the other Hal Leonard books, the typography is clear and very legible and the format makes it easy to put the whole book on a music stand. The arrangements are musically pleasing, and quite easy. I would rate this collection as advanced-beginner level, an intermediate player should be able to sight-read most of them. A newer player will find them to be very useful, at that level it's always good to work on familiar tunes, and few are more familiar than some of these. If anything, a few of them are a little too easy, but a more advanced player should be able to add a few notes here and there to spice them up. A very good value, this book would appeal to many guitarists.

I've been playing guitar for about 50 years, but taking fingerpicking lessons only about 50 days. The songs we learn in our class are more difficult and challenging than anything in this book. But that doesn't mean this is a walk in the park, either. I bought this so that I'd have some extra practicing material over the summer, and I'm quite happy with it! I chose this particular book because it's at the right level for where I am currently, and the song selection had a lot of my Christmas Favorites though (notably missing is "Mary , Did You Know?) I like the transcriptions in this book. You get the melody notes along with some well-placed harmony notes, and a few 'fill' notes and drones to keep the rhythm going smoothly. I'm not yet at the point of adding my own embellishments, but the arrangements do leave enough room to do so and I can envision doing that in the near future. I recommend this for those who are fairly new to fingerpicking.

教会の賛美歌などによく歌う曲がたくさんあります。 とてもシンプルなので練習してみなさんとさんびできます。 とても気に入ったギターＴＡＢ楽譜でした。

Simple basic fingerpicking basis simple harmonies.

People will say I'm boring for saying this, but this book of fingerstyle Christmas arrangements is so good, that I find myself eagerly returning to it throughout the year - not just at Christmas. I'm a self-taught and early-intermediate level guitarist, and I've found that not only do the arrangement fall under the fingers beautifully well, they also sound even better. A wonderful edition that I'm so glad to have found - pray the rest of my journey is filled with more quality sheet music arrangements of this excellent standard.

Christmas gift, the person is very happy.

Das perfekte Fingerpicking- Buch für Freunde der englischsprachigen Weihnachtslieder. Wobei man manche der Songs durchaus auch in Deutschland mit deutschem Text singt. Und die Melodie bleibt ja die gleiche. Wie zum Beispiel: Go, Tell it on the Mountain - Komm, sagt es allen weiter O Come, All Ye Faithfull - Oh kommt, oh ihr Gläubigen Silent Night - Stille Nacht Sämtliche Songs kommen mit Noten für Melodiestimme und Bass, TABs, Akkorden und Text. Und zumindest die ersten drei Strophen stehen direkt drunter, so dass man prima mitsingen kann während man spielt. Eine tolle Bereicherung für mein Repertoire an Weihnachtsliedern.