Amazing Grace, Solo Guitar, Fingerpicking

This is my instrumental acoustic cover of Amazing Grace. Played & arranged by Thomas Lorenzo with a flamenco guitar touch.

Amazing Grace was first published in 1779. Its lyrics were written in 1772 by John Newton (1725–1807).

I have arranged this song in the key of D and as you can hear I play through it several times.

I organise my solo guitar playing, in a manner that allows me to modify the arrangement every time I play it. For this purpose I only memorise the melody and the corresponding harmony.  As I play, I then can create variations of the melody:

• I add more notes to it,
• I expand durations , shorten duration,
• I add more rhythmic density and,
• I change octaves .

When I get to the solo section I just  play what I hear in relation to the harmony I have created.

In both sections, melody and solo, I am only concentrating on one melodic line at a time, therefore I do not focus on adding an independent bass line to my playing, and I focus more on harmonising the melodic note I target.

In order to maintain my flow in life, I need to be able to express my emotions that vary a lot, on a daily basis. When I first started playing the guitar as a classical guitarist, I only had one way of expressing myself, which was that of the original composer.

I soon started to realise the need for variations, and I approached jazz music. After many years of playing jazz and flamenco, I now have the tools to be able to thoroughly enjoy music, because I have the skills that allow me to create these variations that make me feel good about life.

I now also believe that all composers would play their songs differently every day, as this is the sole purpose of composition: to be able to bring to an order one’s emotions.

Please note that the 5th guitar string is tuned to a G, and that the 6th is tuned to D.

This allows me to have a tonic pedal over all the chords, and or a dominant pedal I can play whenever I wish. They sound great and create nice airy sounds that bring together all the harmony and variations I add.

Please listen and you will hear in the solo section how I add a secondary dominant to the V7 of the key and also the F Maj 7 that I borrow from modal interchange with the aeolian mode.

For all those who wish to learn more on how to create melodies on the go on the guitar, please study my Online Guitar Course Level 4. Making Melodies With Chords.

This course will show you to see the chords you play, and to see all the melodies around them all over the guitar. It is the perfect link between a visual and aural understanding of the fretboard. In other words you see and hear the sounds you want.

I strongly recommend this course to all those songwriters who also play the guitar and want to create special accompaniments and do not know how to get a chord sounding the way they imagine. Please follow this link and you will be able to hear songwriters I work with and see the results of applying all these concepts to their musical productions.