Silver Bells

From: Chris Crain [stickmusic@earthlink.net]
Silver Bells

I would like to return to the topic of transitional finger positioning. Last time, the focus was aimed toward left-hand work, whereas, this time we will work on the right hand. Plus, there is a bonus - you get to learn a new song! Download the following files to get started.

StaffTab: silverbells.pdf
MP3: silverbells.mp3

Like I said, we will be focusing on the right-hand, but you might want to familiarize yourself with the LH chord progression first.

As you can see in my arrangement of 'Silver Bells', I rely heavily on a RH technique of playing double notes (partial chords) for the melody. The trick is to play the melody as smoothly as possible, without feeling like your hand is jumping around all over the place. The fact is, sometimes it must, but the idea is to limit that kind of hand movement. The tablature should give you a pretty clear picture of what is going on. But I will point out anyway, that instead of playing a pair of notes with fingers 1 and 2 or 1 and 3, you will find that fingers 2 and 4 or 3 and 4 are employed. Again, the only purpose to this is to keep your hand in a relative position for playing successive notes - which inevitably include the first finger. Without using this technique, your hand would need to shift three to four frets.

Oh yeah, for those who are curious - the solo is improvised over the following chord changes:

|: CM7 Em7 Dm7 G7 :| (3x) and then: FM7 Em7 Eb7 Dm7 G7: then repeat entire phrase.

Merry Christmas.
-Chris
www.ChrisCrain.com