guitar/voice folk song arrangements

Subject: guitar/voice folk song arrangements
From: croper
Date: 14 Nov 03 - 05:34 PM

I've been looking all over the internet for a collection of modern popular standards arranged for solo fingerstyle guitar and voice. Just intermediate level and more difficult arrangements written on the Bach scale. I don't necessarily modern, but not exclusively traditional and ancient. As a lot of folk song collections seem to be.
    I'd sure appreciate it if someone would point me in the right direction. I'm not savvy or talented enough to write my own arrangements. I'm tired of spending $20 a whack on mailorder disappointments. Thanks.

Subject: RE: guitar/voice folk song arrangements
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 07:49 AM

What does "written on the Bach scale" mean ?

Subject: RE: guitar/voice folk song arrangements
From: GUEST,Frankham
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 05:50 PM

I believe that there's not a lot available for guitar and voice in a "folk style" but with a quasi-classical feel. Richard Dyer-Bennett did a lot of these folk songs as art songs and his arrangements might be published somewhere.

Trad "folkies" would eschew this kind of thing but if it's well-done and skillfully written, I like them. Why not? Most folk songs that we hear were never intended to be accompanied by the guitar anyway. It's of recent origin so I think that if it's tastefully done, why not?

I like ol' Burl Ives accompaniments because he played tastefully and completely simple unadorned um-plunking to back his songs.

Josh White was a stylist who tastefully accompanied traditional blues and folk songs in a non-traditional way (his own).

Someone really should transcribe some of these great arrangements by the popularized folk performers such as White, and Dyer-Bennett.
Some guitarists during the 60's folk boom such as John Stauber,
Ray Bogoslav, Millard Lampell, Erik Darling, Freddie Hellerman did tasteful quasi-classical musical arrangments of folk songs. Pete Seeger and Peggy did some too.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: guitar/voice folk song arrangements
From: CraigS
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 07:08 PM

People tend to do these things because they like them. Isaac Guillory used to do a tremendous version of "wherever I lay my hat", and James Taylor has done some nice things. Dave Burland tends to throw such into his performances, and me myself I have been known to do Ghosts. Can't be bothered to write them down because of copyright hassles in most cases - is why it's hard to find things

Subject: RE: guitar/voice folk song arrangements
From: Willie-O
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 07:13 PM

"Just intermediate level and more difficult arrangements written on the Bach scale. I don't necessarily modern, but not exclusively traditional and ancient. As a lot of folk song collections seem to be.
"

Huh?

Croper, try rephrasing that. Better yet, ask for specific songs that interest you. "Modern classics" covers a lot of ground, including three to twenty-three chords...

If you are intermediate to advanced though, there is the tried-and-true method of getting the chords and working on them for ten or fifteen years until you're comfortable with the material--it works for me!

Willie-"I like the classics"-O