What Pieces are you Working On?

[Scott Rucker]

Working on flatpicking several fiddle tunes with Tony Rice's version of Cattle in the Cane and Bryan Sutton's Daley's Reel in the forefront. Bryan does his on a Homespun DVD, Tony's I'm trying to get from the Church St Blues album.

I'm also working on arranging some more traditional hymns for fingerpicking. I used to tab them out but have quit that practice. I'm hoping that will help me to be more fluid on them.

[David Hilyard]

Not having tackled anything new in a long time, I didn't think to contribute to this thread. Well, I just got a new assignment today. I do this once a year, and it's totally outside the box I live in the rest of the year. I accompany my work place group of chorus members while they sing Christmas songs at three or four Christmas Parties we have on campus here. I don't sing and I rarely strum, so it's a different take on my guitar technique.

The songs this year:

* A Jewish song called "Not By Might, Not By Power"
* "Feliz Navidad"
* "Let it Snow" with lyrics rewritten by our computer wizard, based on what we are doing in astronomy and in the labs.
* "Silver Bells"
* "Jingle Bell Rock"

I'm having the most fun with "Jingle Bell Rock".

Kind of fun, the whole thing. I figure out intros and outros and keep the melody, harmony and rhythm intact for the singers, and we rehearse once a week at lunch time. I bring in my Ultrasound amp and a few mics and we are a band on wheels, traveling around campus performing.

For myself at home, I'll probably relearn a couple fingerstyle Christmas tunes like "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "The Christmas Song" and "Carol of the Bells".

Seems so early for this stuff, but it's really not, if you need to get it right.