Free Guitar Music

Guitar Ensemble School

www.derek-hasted.co.uk

Free Guitar Ensemble Music

4 Guitars - Once In Royal David's City

Download and print this easy ensemble piece with my compliments. Help on printing

PDF - Click here

GIF - Click for page 1 and page 2

Brief Study Notes

Music by H J Gauntlett, this carol is traditionally used to open the Anglican service of 9 lessons and carols, with the first verse sung unaccompanied by a single choirboy, and then adding more voices and organ.

My arrangement captures some of that harmony, but is pretty much constrained by my wish to keep all four lines ostensibly in the first position (including high A in part one). Some additional smoothness will result if the players are able to snap and hammer (slur) adjacent pairs of quavers (eight notes) so that the off-beat quaver has less attack and marginally less volume. But musicality must come second to fluency - be guided by the overall sound in deciding whether to try to enhance the flow, or whether to make it sound more confident.