ronp – guitar + music blog

A gift of Vermont music: Art’s picks

Music reviewer and Vermont Arts Correspondent Art Edelstein recently wrote an end of year article highlighting music by Vermont musicians in 2022. The article is titled, “A gift of Vermont music: Art’s picks“.

The article summarizes nine Vermont recordings. My CD album, Uplifting Guitar Hymns, was mentioned by Art in paragraph 5. The print version included my CD cover.

The article appeared in the Vermont Arts section of Rutland Herald and Times Argus on December 10. It later appeared in the Rutland Reader, December 16-22, page 8 (e-edition).

Thanks again for Art Edelstein’s review of my CD album back in January 2022.

Happy Holidays!

Holiday Greetings 2022: Jazzy Jingle Bells on PEG-TV

My friend Linda MacFarlane and I recorded a musical Christmas greeting at PEG-TV in Rutland. We played a jazzy Jingle Bells duet. Linda played her ukulele that looks like a small Fender electric guitar, and I played my Heftone LoJo bass, which looks like a large banjo.

This video, along with other video greetings from the Rutland community, are being played on PEG-TV channels 1075, 1085 and 1095 during the holiday season, in between programs.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Musical Alphabet Song

Here’s a little song to go along with the intro to the Musical Alphabet.

What is the Musical Alphabet?

Music is a language. The written and spoken forms of music are ways that composers and arrangers communicate with other musicians, and are a way for musicians to communicate with each other. When music is played, the musician(s) are communicating to a listener or audience. The communication amongst musicians is facilitated through a musical alphabet, which I will explain below.

New Recording – Uplifting Guitar Hymns

I will be releasing a CD album titled, “Uplifting Guitar Hymns” in early 2022. There will be a CD Release Concert and Fundraiser for Grace Church on January 30, 2022. The concert will benefit the Mission and Service programs at Grace Church, via a Free Will Offering and sharing of proceeds from CD sales after the concert.

You can find more details about the music on this CD album, and the January 30 concert on the album website, Uplifting Guitar Hymns.

Pomp and Circumstance: Congratulations Graduates!

The tune Pomp and Circumstance, by English composer Edward Elgar, is often associated with high school and college graduation ceremonies. Elgar composed six “Pomp and Circumstance Marches” over his lifetime. The first five of these marches were composed between 1901 and 1930. The sixth march was published posthumously in 2005-2006, based on musical sketches.

The trio section of March No. 1, “Land of Hope and Glory”, is well known and often referred to as “Pomp and Circumstance”, or the “Graduation March”, in the United States, Canada and the Philippines.

This summer I attended an outdoor and socially distanced graduation party in August for my niece. The party was delayed due the coronavirus pandemic. My niece was a band student and played trumpet. In attendance at her party were fellow classmates from her school’s marching band and concert band. Ironically, these band students would have typically played at the annual graduation ceremony. Given that there was no in-person graduation ceremony this year, I felt bad for them. Since they have played music at graduation ceremonies for prior graduating classes, now they did not enjoy a traditional gradution ceremony themselves.

So I was inspired to learn this tune and arrange it for guitar. One version is single note melody and guitar chords. The other version is my fingerstyle guitar arrangement.

Congratulations graduates! Best of luck.

Pomp and Circumstance: Guitar melody, key of G

This tune by English composer Edward Elgar was composed as a march. So it is fitting to have a 2/4 time signature. The two beat measures are to be played at a comfortable walking pace as if you were playing for high school and college graduates to line up in a procession towards receiving their diplomas.

The first 16-bar section begins to repeat again, with a slightly different ending. So the last four measures of the first two 16-bar sections are different. Knowing where there is repetition in the melody and chords can help you to learn and memorize this tune more quickly. The third section is shorter at 8 bars.

Notice that the last phrase of melody is in an octave lower than the rest of the melody. This song is often repeated as necessary to accommodate the number of students graduating. Hence, upon repeat of the melody, the first note is an octave higher than the previous ending note and really stands out! This helps to continue the momentum of this processional tune.

PDF: Music notation, tablature and chords
MIDI Audio

Pomp and Circumstance: Fingerstyle Guitar, key of G

This tune by English composer Edward Elgar was composed as a march. So it is fitting to have a 2/4 time signature. I first learned the melody and chords for this tune from a simple arrangement for piano.

From there I set about trying to make this work as a guitar instrumental. The bass note pattern is pretty consistent throughout with two quarter notes per measure. You easily imagine taking two steps walking per each measure when you hear the bass notes. So I retained the bass note pattern pretty much as-is on the guitar.

The challenge for this tune are the measures where the melody note is a single half-note. On the guitar the sound of the notes can quickly decay after the note starts to play. On the piano, the notes will resonate louder and longer. When a high school or college band plays this tune, the horns can easily hold each note at the right volume for the full duration. However, on the guitar, during two beats the sound drops off (decays quickly).

Since this is a walking tune and I wanted to keep the momentum going, I did a couple things, one rhythmic and the other melody related. I started each measure by playing a chord on beat one (melody note, bass note and one or two harmony notes). Playing the new chord at beat one established a strong rhythm. The top note of chord is the melody. To keep the momentum going I fingerpicked the chords, primarily with eighth notes (4 eighth notes per measure), The exceptions are where the melody has multiple notes and may also involve some syncopation. In those cases, the bass notes keep things going.

In the fingerpicked chord measures, the second eighth note is a inner harmony note or the chord. The third note is a repeat of the bass note (held as second quarter note bass tone). The fourth eighth note is a repeat of the held melody note. So the result is instead of a half-note melody tone, on the guitar this is dotted-quarter note followed by an eighth note (equalling a half-note duration or two beats). The eighth note at the end of measure is almost like a pickup note leading into the next measure and chord, which gives this arrangement a flowing feel. The result I hope is that you can hear the melody such that the tune is recognized, while the fingerpicked notes, including bass notes, maintain the feeling of a march or procession tune.

PDF: Music notation, tablature and chords
MIDI Audio

Star Spangled Banner

Happy Independence Day (4th of July)!

The Star Spangled Banner is the official national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics are from a poem written by Francis Scott Key. Key was an American lawyer and author from Frederick, Maryland. He also wrote poetry and his poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry” is his most famous poem, which became the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner. Francis Scott Key wrote his poem in 1814, while looking at the American flag still waving over Fort McHenry, after bombardment by the British Navy during the Battle of Baltimore, in War of 1812 era.

The Star Spangled Banner melody that is paired with Scott’s poem was a popular English tune titled, “To Anacreon in Heaven”. The tune was used as a drinking song at a gentlemen’s music club in London. The tune was written circa 1775 by John Stafford Smith, a British composer.

This song is often played at 4th of July fireworks displays. Many Americans associate the singing of the Star Spangled Banner with the start of sporting events like baseball, football and basketball games. The song has a very wide vocal range (an octave plus a fifth), so it can be a challenge to sing. Thus over the years, performances of the national anthem at sporting events have ranged from beautiful, soaring and inspiring renditions to out of key and grating attempts at singing.

Needless to say, the choice of musical key is important to match the singer’s vocal range. While I play this song as an instrumental on guitar in the key of C, the upper range is too high for my voice. I am more comfortable singing this anthem in the key of G (a fourth below key of C).

Star Spangled Banner: Guitar melody, key of C

This single note melody arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner is in the key of C. This allows you to play the melody entirely in first position on the guitar neck. The melody range is an octave plus a fifth, so from low C note (5th string, 3rd fret) to higher G note (1st string, 3rd fret).

The melody for the first two lyric lines (top line on music sheet) is repeated again for the second two lyric lines (second line of music). While the melody notes in both musical lines are the same, in this arrangement the chord accompaniments are different. The first part uses C and G major chords, while the second part uses A minor and E major chord.

The last section of the piece is where the melody stretches to the 5th note (high G) above the octave note (C at 2nd string, 1st fret). For singers, this is where the song can become challenging. Sometimes it can help to transpose the melody to fit your voice.

There are three places in the melody where an F# note appears to lead into G note and G major chord. The F# brings with it a D7 chord accompaniment. In musical terms, when a note appears from outside the main key (C Major), it is called an “accidental”. So in this context, F# is an accidental note.

The cadence from D7 to G chords in this song, is referred to as a “secondary dominant” chord progression in music theory terms. That is because G or G7 “dominant” chords lead to C chord (the main key chord). Thus as the D or D7 chord is the dominant chord for key of G, and in this case we a temporarily going outside of the main key (modulating), the D7 is a “secondary dominant” to “dominant” G chord. You can find two places in this song where the chords go from D7 to G and then to C.