Customer Reviews:
 Very Nice Christmas Book July 23, 2009
Loveguitar (Georgia, USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have to say that I am surprisingly pleased with this book. The tunes are just what I was looking for! I wanted some fun, light-hearted Christmas songs to play on my Guitarlele. Since you can't "Look Inside!" here is the list of songs:
*1.) The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
2.) Blue Christmas
3.) Do You Hear What I Hear
4.) Frosty the Snowman
*5.) Happy Xmas (War is Over)
6.) Happy Holiday
7.) Here Comes Santa Claus
8.) A Holly Jolly Christmas
9.) Jingle-Bell Rock
10.) I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
11.) I'll Be Home for Christmas
12.) Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
13.) Merry Christmas Darling
14.) Silver Bells
15.) This Christmas
16.) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
The songs with the * beside it are in Drop D tuning. The rest are all in standard tuning. All of the songs are relatively simple. Most are in the key of G major but none have any more than 3 sharps in the key signature and no flats. The top stave has the melody and words. The middle stave has the guitar notation and the 3rd stave is for TAB readers.
I find beauty in simplicity. These tunes are for the late-beginner to intermediate player. None are very hard but they all have what they need to be easily recognized. I bought this book especially for playing the songs on my guitarlele. It's got the voice of a ukulele but has a neck with six strings like a classical guitar, and it's little, like a ukulele. Because it has the timbre of a ukulele I have to be careful what tunes I select to play on it since many songs don't carry well on it. So far, I'm pretty pleased with most all of these songs. Rudolph, Frosty and Silver Bells are especially fun to play on the guitarlele. But all of these song sound good on a regular, full-sized classical guitar. I suppose they'll sound good on a steel string too, just haven't tried it yet.
What I especially like about these "Fingerpicking" series of books by Hal Leonard is that the notation always carries the melody, but the harmonic structure underneath is very simple, yet still nice to listen too. Frequently it's only a 2 or 3 note chord and on a very small instrument like my guitarlele, it makes fretting easier. And for beginners to guitar and notation, it keeps the challenge reasonable. The hardest song in the book is "Chestnuts" which is in drop D and requires going up the neck to the 10th fret.
Get this book now if you want to be ready by Christmas time with some nice songs. Definitely a good buy. The reason for only 4 instead of 5 stars is that for me to give a product 5 stars it really has to blow me away in quality. This book is very good, but not quite a 5-star.
Nice Arrangements November 20, 2009
M. Coats
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really enjoy the arrangements in this book. They are written for "intermediate" guitar, and I find them very playable and don't consider myself to be a great guitar player. You need to have some experience in playing with your fingers (not pick), but you can simply strum the chords and sing or have someone play the melody lines and the pieces sound great. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
I'll give it 4 stars just for the very good arrangement of "I'll Be Home for Christmas." December 4, 2009
Filmfan (Denmark)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have tried only a few pieces in this book, and the arrangement of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is so good, I'll give the book 4 stars just for that.
Fun for Christmas without the sappy religious edge July 24, 2010
C. Nelson (AUSTIN, TX, US)
I really like this book because it has Christmas songs that are not tinged with religious nonsense. Thus the title "Fingerpicking Yuletide" as opposed to the publisher's other offering entitled "Fingerpicking Christmas." I wanted some songs that are upbeat to play at our family gathering and this book fits the bill perfectly. I really like to play the version of "Jingle Bell Rock" included in this book. It is provided in standard tuning in the key of G, but I have transposed it to Open G tuning using Guitar Pro. (I'm a sucker for slack key) Anyways, the arrangements are pretty decent for the novice to fingerstyle guitar. I've been playing fingerstyle (4 finger right hand technique) for about a year and find that these arrangements are pretty easy to tackle with a little practice.
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