Arrangement by Michael Wood. It's in at least a couple of his books of tunes.
Meant to showcase fingerstyle guitar in some pretty little tunes.
Find it on my YouTube: LT Guitar, Parting Glass
Or IG account
Cheers!
There quite a few tricky elements here.
Well done!
Click HERE for the video
As discussed in MY PATREON POST on this, the Harfoot Song is a working song.
That means it comes from the fine tradition of music that helps people to accomplish a tedious or physical task. Think sea shanties that help sailors haul ropes. Or I'm picturing a film doc I saw once of women felting cloth singing together in Gaelic.
In 'Rings of Power,' Harfoot Nori sings this while she pulls the family's belongings in a hand cart on their migration.
She's going thru a lot of exertion to pull it, so her breathing is irregular - physical labour is baked into the song.
So try not to rush it - it should go slow.
Also it's a cappella. One small voice travelling into the unknown.
Applied to an instrument, it makes sense for it to be a small portable one. Think of the violins settlers brought to the New World a la movie 'Red Violin.' Or mandolin. Small guitar could work. Ukulele works for size. It looks like uses were based on a small Portuguese proto-guitar. Small folk instruments could also work, like wooden flute or recorder.
(*This tune adapts well to uke for strumming, in the sense that it doesn't need fully barred chords.)
The song is long, the way a lot of shanties are with multiple verses. But it can get tedious to play on its own. So I made the 3 verses a little different for a guitar solo. V1 is straight up, V2 is in lower register, V3 has trills, lightening the tune as the day's labours reach an end.
This piece ends up being more of a solo version.
Why Cathedral effect? The lyrics that first stuck with me were: 'My legs are so short and the way is so long.' Cathedral, which is an effect found in iMovie, gave the small voice in big universe I wanted.
The visual filter also comes from iMovie - 'Dreamy.' The video shot in my home studio in 2023 just didn't work. I felt the Dreamy filter gave the idea of how the impulse to migrate comes from deep cultural memory.
The tune is in Bb major. So you have to practice your chording in these barred chords to strum along.
Recorded on a Denver 3/4 classical guitar.
If you want to dig deeper into this tune, I tons more support files in the Patreon above - slower audio jam tracks without the effects, short how- to videos, sheet music marked up for guitar, more.
I've been trying to post a freebie element from each Patreon strudy. This is it!
Here's the link to it on YouTube: Harfoot Song on YouTube, LTG
Finally got around to developing a lesson on Nori's song, 'This Wandering Day,' from the Rings of Power series on Amazon, prequel to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Song composed by Bear McCreary.
There's sheet music available out there for piano with guitar chords and piano melody. But not specifically for guitar. Or that break down strum, fingerings etc. for guitar.
My Patreon study has links to sheet music marked up for guitar, audio strum & melody jam tracks, short demo videos for guitar and soprano uke.
Also the usual performance notes, tips and list of gear, apps.
One thing I discovered while working this up is that the chord fingerings in this Bb major key signature is probably easier on uke than on guitar.
The background on this song is that it's a working song to provide motivation for these tiny denizens of 2nd age Middle Earth, progenitors of the Hobbits, for loading up their belongings & migrating by push or pull cart. So a small portable instrument like a uke works well. Even tho the song is an a cappella solo, for some reason I'm hearing a small ukulele orchestra in my head. Maybe a few around a Harfoot campfire at end of a travel day. Or perhaps a tribute in later generations to the endurance of their ancestors.
Here's the link to the Patreon post:
Harfoot Song lesson, LTG Patreon
I've put a stylized variation up on YouTube as a playalong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGOxPUnl7W0&t=3s
It all depends on the effect you want or need. In 4SW, there are a lot of sustained notes. Guitar doesn't handle sustain well, nylon strings hand sustain worse than steel strings. (Maybe a chorus effect on an amp or some kind of pedal. But not everyone has that setup. And I don't know anything about electric guitars.)
Violin as a stringed instrument can kind of faux infinite sustain by drawing the bow in long strokes back and forth over the string. Mandolin can faux long sustain a long time too with tremolo. There's of course tremolo on guitar, but it's not top of the new learner's tool kit.
A simple technique we unplugged guitarists can use is vibrato. (Other string instruments, including ukulele, can use vibrato also.) This is that slight tremble where the note goes up and down in pitch by a micro tone. Singers do it by controlling air flow thru the diaphragm. String players do it by rotating a sort of flattened fingertip a very short distance back and forth over the note within the fret box.
There are variables that contribute to nicer vibrato. I recently replaced my string set, and vibrato came a lot easier on certain strings.
Some times you'll see players almost wiggle the whole instrument in the neck area against the fretted string, like they are trying to wring the last millisecond out of the note. And maybe they are!
There are a couple of spots in 4SW where you land on an open D and/or open G for a held note. (Verse at 'We've been thru that a hundred times or more,' and Chorus, "I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way.')
You could also opt to play these D and G notes by fretting them. An open string note can't be fretted, therefore vibrato'd. But a fretted string can.
Two other merits of a fretted vibrato note are: 1. it slows you down and reins you back from rushing. And 2. something is happening visually, creating the useful supporting 'illusion' that the song is still in motion, that a tone is being carefully considered and played, even if it doesn't ring a ton longer than the open string.
Open string notes are of course wonderful, they ring beautifully. But this may not be the best solution every time.
I've posted a few short video clips on YouTube to show the same phrase with open strings, then with vibrato on fretted strings. Start with Clip 1, 4SW phrase in Verse ending on Open String video, and the remaining 3 clips should autoplay:
To Fret or Not to Fret Clips, YouTube
Fretted strings can also *sometimes* have the advantage of not requiring a string crossing, thereby helping you to minimize chance of a mistake. But in this case, going from 4th string E to fretted D on the 5th string, you do have to cross strings. With a bit of practice, you will develop the muscle memory to start the reach for the 5th string D, also glancing at the neck, to ensure you hit the right string.
There's nothing wrong with playing the open D almost as a pull-off from the 2nd fret E note. But you are making a choice to just let the open D ring and die off when it wants to, rather than having more control over it. Ultimately the choice is yours.
Good talk!
Virtual, Zoom-based for families trying to keep distant from face to face learning during pandemic until the weather warms up and there can be more outside interaction.
It's colour-coded, coordinated to desk bells for frame of reference.
Can be used for ukulele or guitar.
It's also important for new (especially young) learners to work on finger strength, so each lesson 30 minute lesson dedicates 10 minutes to a fine motor activity. The two methods used here are clay play (with plasticine) and forming coloured yarn strands. I've created an online album that shows a map (overview or flow) of the program. Click HERE for the online album for the 7 -week course.
Materials needed: uke (or guitar), plasticine, clear plastic page sleeve, small balls of red, green & blue yarn, lucet or yarn corker. (If you are local to me and can arrange to pick up, I can provide you with most of these material. You will need your own instrument.)
Here's of guideline of the content for each day:
Day 2. Strings & tuning. Finger warmup - plasticine - start clay dot art piece (will continue working on this in next lesson). Review Doe a deer song. Tune ukes to note names. Review at bell colour notes on staff. Find corresponding notes on uke fretboard. Isolate arpeggio (1, 3 & 5 notes). Prepares the ear for these notes together forming a chord.
Day 4. Form C chord. Finger warmup - make red lace representing C note. On uke - go up and down scale. Review arpeggio. (Can look at arpeggio song from Aristocats. Link to 'Scales & Arpeggios Song on YouTube is HERE.) Form C chord. Play silly 1-chord song. Vary rhythm. Try pluck, then strum pattern.
Day 6. Form partial G chord. Warmup - make blue G lace. Braid 3 laces together. This becomes a physical representation of the 3 notes together in a chord.. What a chord 'looks' like. On uke - review arpeggio. Form part G chord. (Try walking fingers analogy for how to play fingers. Gives students chord is more than 1 finger. If this is too hard, do 1 finger G7 chord). Play 3-chord song, Twinkle little star from Kids Uke book.
Day 7. New 3 chord song. Review relevant learnings to day. Introduce song such as On Top of Old Smokey (orig lyrics are refreshing. Revert to On Top of Spaghetti for fun.) With these 3 chords, new players can play a huge range of folk or pop songs.
Cost: $20 per lesson. I can work out a deal for 2 or 3 children from 1 family or location on screen at same time. Total: $140 ($20x7). I'm offering the Pandemic Survivor discount on this program of 1 free lesson, which is $20 off). So Pandemic Survivor deal is $120 in total. I can take etransfer or cash. Payment for this package is due at start of first lesson. Please give 24 hours notice to cancel or reschedule.
This is a rough outline. We can cover more or less info than indicated depending on interest level. (It's not a race. Getting thru it faster isn't the goal here. ) But we'll end up at the same spot by last lesson.
Stay well, everyone. Six more weeks until spring. We got this!
