Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar

Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar contains twenty five well-known hymns arranged for fingerstyle guitar in standard tuning.The arrangements are designed for easy sight reading, with the potential to embellish them on the fly to create more complex arrangements in your own style. In addition to the hymn arrangements, the book includes tips and suggestions on adding your own introductions and endings as well as improvising variations. Recordings of all hymns are available as a free download. Hymns:

Abide With Me

Amazing Grace

A Mighty Fortress is Our God

Be Thou My Vision

Blessed Assurance

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Fairest Lord Jesus

Faith of Our Fathers

For the Beauty of the Earth

He Leadeth Me

Holy, Holy, Holy

I Have Decided to Follow Jesus

In the Garden

Jesus Loves Me

Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross

Just As I Am

Love Lifted Me

Praise Him, Praise Him

Sweet Hour of Prayer

The Old Rugged Cross

This is My Father's World

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Whispering HopeFrom the author's Introduction:

This book grew out of a need. Recently, I was asked to play during several funerals, with the request being to "just play some hymns." When I began looking for material, I found a wealth of wonderful arrangements for fingerstyle guitar, but none of them were going to work for me in this situation. Naturally, I had only a few days' notice, so I wasn't going to learn and memorize complex arrangements, no matter how beautiful they were. Even the simplest arrangements I found were many pages long, and I didn't want to be turning pages during a funeral service, the way I would if I tried to read the music rather than memorize it. I also realized that in this setting, the focus wasn't on me, or how clever or complex the music was. I just needed to play appropriate music for the occasion that helped set the mood and that didn't detract from the service. Uncomplicated, melodic arrangements would be a plus.

My solution forms the basis of this book - my own arrangements that are simple, almost "sketches" of an arrangement. What I decided I needed was a type of book known as a "fake book" in jazz circles - but for hymns - and designed for solo fingerstyle guitar. Jazz fake books are typically limited to just chord names and perhaps melody. I wanted a bit more than that - basically easily-playable arrangements with no complicated parts, and designed to be extended on the fly.