"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Happy Wednesday, folks.  In honor of the recent solstice event, & also with hope of imparting some Christmas spirit both to Robert Frost’s Banjo & to myself, a re-post of sorts: a video of yours truly playing a fingerstyle guitar arrangement of “In the Bleak Midwinter,” Holst’s lovely setting for Christina Rosetti’s poem (you can read the poem here, at WikiSource.)

I recorded the song & made the video last December when it was originally posted on this blog.  The arrangement (not original, but by Doug Sparling, with some minor variations by yours truly) is for guitar in the DADGAD tuning—so called because those are the notes of the open strings, as opposed to EADGBE in standard tuning.  The DADGAD tuning is particularly used by fingerstyle guitarists exploring British Isles folk music—the open strings taken as a whole are a “suspended chord”—one that is neither major nor minor, but hovering somewhere in between.  It’s a lovely tuning, & one that loves to have open strings ringing.  I played it on my well-loved old Washburn, which is a sweet fingerstyle instrument.

Hope the holiday season has been good to you, & that you enjoy the music.  There’ll be one more holiday tune—from the Alice in Wonder Band archives—on Friday!