Be Thou My Vision - from new Hymn Book

[Glennwillow]

I also got Doug's book. I keep my 1967 Martin D-35 out on a stand in our piano room so it's easily accessible. I went to Doug's version of "Be Thou My Vision" and using the D-35 started playing the song within about 5 minutes of getting to the right page. It sounds so good!

It's nice to have something low pressure, something simple that still sounds good. And so many of these old hymns are familiar that the learning time is cut down significantly, as least for me. They work really well for guitar!

- Glenn

[TomB'sox]

Thank you Doug, I also just ordered the book, should have it by Monday, looking forward to it!

[JL5555]

Beautiful arrangement and playing Doug...thanks for sharing! Thanks also for this book...so many great hymns and I'm sure the arrangements are fantastic. I have your DADGAD Christmas songbook and really enjoy playing your arrangements. God bless.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by JL5555

Beautiful arrangement and playing Doug...thanks for sharing! Thanks also for this book...so many great hymns and I'm sure the arrangements are fantastic. I have your DADGAD Christmas songbook and really enjoy playing your arrangements. God bless.

Thanks! Always great to hear someone's enjoying one of the books. Happy Holidays.

Doug

[steelvibe]

I have Pete Huttlinger's CD and that is already killing me

Nice work Doug!

[Livingston]

Beautifully played!

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by steelvibe

I have Pete Huttlinger's CD and that is already killing me

Nice work Doug!

Thanks, Pete has lots of fingerbusters :-) But always great arrangements. I have his hymn book here somewhere.

My hymn book's a bit different - meant to be *very* easy as written, and to allow space for you to come up with your own variations on the fly instead of trying to memorize complex arrangements. So hopefully they aren't killing anyone.

[Rogerblair]

Just ordered the book. Thanks Doug, for sharing your talents with us.

Roger

[rjathon]

I bought the book and it is great fun. I don’t feel like a musician, I usually just download tabs from the internet and learn songs as written. Doug’s book is different. He offers up a simple version of the song that sounds fine as written but has lots of room for embellishments. He gives examples how to accomplish this.

Doug also gives ideas on how to fabricate intros and endings. He really opens the door to brining out your inner musician and turn your fingers loose. What is so cool about this book is that as you work through the book you get better and better at improvising so that by the end you have developed a good skill that is useful outside of the book.

Hymns are such a good choice for the book because in my case I have known them my whole life so I already have how they should sound in my head. The tempo is slow which opens the door to improvising. My guess is that Doug could play these hymns ten times in a row and they would be different each time and he would achieve that without much effort.

I am not very far into it but I can see that by the end Doug will have transformed me from a music player to a musician, and that is really cool.

My wife is musically trained and used to be the church pianist. She dreads my guitar playing because I have the struggles as an adult that she had when she was five. It is an annoyance to her and she is reluctant to help. However, with hymns, she tunes in and is happy to share her knowledge. My in house private music teacher awakens.

Thank you Doug!

Russ

[Doug Young]

Thanks Russ. I'm glad to know the concept comes thru and that it's working for you!

[ceciltguitar]

I received Doug’s new book “Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar” today, and I enjoyed playing through many of the tunes for 30 minutes or so this evening.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL BOOK!

My observations below come from the perspective of one who has been buying guitar sheet music books since 1973, with easily over 1000 books in my collection. (I wish I could play more than I can) I play some of, and have played through many of the intricate arrangements by Christopher Parkening, Rick Foster, William Foden, etc.

Doug’s book fills a fantastic sweet spot on many levels:

- GREAT selection of material
- accessible and very usable for guitarists of ALL levels:
* If you’re a beginner, you can play the chords notated, and use the notes and tab to learn to play these tunes, and learn by example how to craft simple arrangements.
* If you’re a pro you can use this as a fake book and build whatever you want around the arrangements presented.
- every arrangement takes ONE page.
- the page facing each arrangement is full of tips for performance, intros, endings and a sentence or two about the hymn.
- very nice layout of the book, including nice (simple, sparse, reverential theme appropriate) artwork.

Congratulations, Doug, and thank you for creating this WONDERFUL book!

[Lone Star]

Your book is just what I have been looking for. Placed my order immediately after watching your video. Thank you sir!

[Doug Young]

Thanks, Lone Star, hope you enjoy it!

[RockyRacc00n]

I logged on just now to give a bump on this post. But I see that it’s stayed active. That’s great. If you want to learn hymns you should try this book

I ordered and got it last week. I started working on Blesses Assurance as my first piece from the book and even for a beginner finger stylist like me, I am finding the book very easy to follow. I will probably learn the as-written versions and start to venture into other variations as suggested.