The Christmas Song Guitar Lesson – Nat King Cole
In this guitar lesson video for The Christmas Song, I will show you how to play my solo guitar arrangement of this much loved Christmas classic by Nat King Cole note-for-note.
The tuning is standard tuning, E A D G B E.
The video will start with a full performance of my arrangement so that you will know what I will be teaching during the lesson portion.
I am basing this arrangement off of the most well known version of this song originally written by Mel Torme and Robert Wells. This arrangement is based off of Nat King Cole's amazing 1961 recording with full orchestra. It's the one you hear all over the airwaves during the holidays.
There are a lot of rich jazzy harmonies in this one. I tried to keep the harmonizations from the original recording intact for this solo guitar arrangement. I will even include the intro, which is absolutely beautiful.
An arrangement like this, that incorporates more sophisticated harmonies played by full orchestra is not gonna be the easiest thing in the world to play for solo guitar. I decided to not worry about that and instead focused on getting the sound that I wanted. So this arrangement is for players that are at least an intermediate level, since it can be quite challenging to play.
It will be well worth the effort in the end I believe. Nat King Cole's orchestral version of "The Christmas Song" from 1961 is my favorite Christmas recording of all-time. This arrangement was sort of a labor of love on my part. It really has a nostalgic vibe for me and I hope that is conveyed in my arrangement.
Have fun learning this beautiful Christmas classic. It is a nice challenge and a great chord workout!
Merry Christmas! Carl...
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