The Celtic Session No. 5 - It is Well With My Soul - Steve Baughman

Описание: It is Well With my Soul.

I arranged this piece with little Brennan Simkins of North Augusta in mind, a beautiful boy battling leukemia. Whatever one's religious views may be, all it takes to grieve for a suffering child and his family is that we be human. (Brennan is now doing fine and you can read his powerfully moving story in his father's book, “Possibilities: Perseverance, Grace and the Story of One Family’s Life with Leukemia.” Caution! Don't read it at the office if you have colleagues nearby.)

I have dedicated this video version to my friend, El McMeen, a fine guitarist who has been a guide and mentor to me over the decades.

This arrangement appears in my new book, Gospel Songs for Fingerstyle Guitar. https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Songs-F...

Celtic? Not really. But Spafford and Bliss have their roots in the British Isles, so close enough. :-)

For guitar players interested in what's going on technically, here is my description of mechanics from the book.

This is a beautiful old hymn with a tragic background. The piece was written in 1873 by a big Chicago businessman, Horatio Spafford, who received word that his daughters had drowned in a ship accident. So “It Is Well With My Soul” is a beautiful melody, attached to a very touching story, and it’s quite satisfying to play on fingerstyle guitar in double-dropped-D tuning. The melody was written by Philip Bliss, a well-known writer of hymns.

In terms of the picking hand, there’s nothing unusual about the technique here. As with any piece, pick the notes on the bottom strings with your thumb and those on the higher strings with your index, middle, and ring fingers. The fretting hand’s contributions are also fairly straightforward, save for an awful stretch, between frets 2 and 6, on beat 4 of bar 30. If this stretch is too difficult, just play the E an octave higher, on string 5, fret 7. You won’t ruin the funeral if you play it in that location.

Be sure to play “It Is Well With My Soul” unhurriedly and with emotion—keep Spafford’s tragedy in mind. Let all of the notes ring for as long as possible, and check out how a combination of ringing open strings and fretted notes, such as those in bars 26 and 29, add a moving quality to this beautiful hymn. And remember—especially when playing the block chords throughout—that it’s all about the melody.

The book is available at:

https://store.acousticguitar.com/coll...

Tuning: DADGBD