ISBN 9781513459950. 8.75x11.75 inches.

This fingerstyle guitar collection features 20 engaging lyrical tunes from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales plus three original pieces by accomplished guitarist, trumpeter and composer William A. Bay, president, and editor-in-chief at Mel Bay Publications. Tasked with writing intermediate-level arrangements in either standard or dropped-D tuning, guitarist/arranger Raymond Gonzalez displays uncommon music rethinking skills while preserving the plaintive and lilting nature of these enduring melodies. Unique to these settings, you will find sparse, open-chord harmonies accentuated by double hammer-ons and pull-offs, and the odd harmonic mixed with normal tones within a melodic line all reminiscent of gentle waves washing up against a rocky island shore. Conceived to be played on either steel or nylon-string guitar, these pieces are written in both standard notation and tablature. Includes online access to the authors own audio recordings.

ISBN 9781619115286. 8.5 X 11 inches.

This book features 22 gems of gospel and hymn music, arranged in various keys in dropped D tuning (DADGBE - 6th to 1st string) for the intermediate and advanced guitarist. The arrangements provide compelling evidence that dropped D tuning has been liberated from its usual position as simply a variant of standard tuning. In this book, it takes on an exciting open-tuning character. Innovative string choices and guitar voicings are employed to evoke different textures for the various melodies. The music ranges from the single-note treatment reminiscent of the solo singer, to the flowing, arpeggiated approach of the harper, to the chordal power of the organist. The pace can be slow and meditative, or up-tempo and celebratory. The presentation is in tablature and standard notation.