Little Town of Bethlehem - Fingerstyle Blues - With Free Tab

 




In this video I want to share with you my fingerstyle blues version of the traditional Xmas song 'Little Town of Bethlehem'. This is a nice, straightforward fingerstyle version of the song and shouldn't be too difficult to learn. The structure of the music is very straightforward with there being only two sections, the 'Main' section and the 'Bridge' section. In this video, I play through it Main x 2 - Bridge x1 - Main x1. You can just keep repeating this over and over if required.

The music is in the Key of D and is played on a guitar in Open D Tuning. It is in 4/4 time and it is a fingerstyle piece incorporating a travis picking bass pattern.

Below are some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Little Town of Bethlehem Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT
 
  • The Bass Picking Pattern - The travis picking bass pattern is played on strings 6 and 4, and strings 5 and 4. However, the changes between these picking patterns occur quite frequently and at unusual times in the music. As such, it is easy to play the wrong bass note. Learn the music slowly and be mindful of this changing pattern and you should be able to play it fine. Just remember though, if you do hit the wrong bass note it will sound quite jarringly wrong.
  • The Stretch - The bridge section staring at the end of Bar 9 is the trickiest part of the song to play. It involves moving up the neck quickly and stretching between fret 4 on the lowest string and fret 7 on the highest string. It is easy to get the timing wrong or hit the wrong notes. If you are struggling with this part, the only thing you can really do to make the music easier to play is leave out the bass notes for the first two beats of bar 10. It will make the music sound a bit disjointed and hollow at this part but if it helps you get through the music then that is ok.
This is about all I need to say about this piece. It is a fairly straightforward piece and shouldn't take too much practise to learn it. Just be mindful of the bass notes changing strings regularly and you will pick this up in no time.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil

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