Fiddlers' Ramble Acoustic Guitar - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1315901

I offer an arrangement for acoustic guitar of the traditional Swedish fiddle melody Gånglåt från Äppelbo attributed to Karl Johan Karlström (1826-1917). The folk tune is usually played by a group of fiddlers walking or promenading (thereof the title) around an outdoors area where a traditional Swedish fiddlers’ rally (Spelmansstämma) is being held. The tune is also often played together with the Gärdebylåten that I published recently under the title of Fiddlers’ Rally. It is a beautiful folk melody and although arranged in C major I find it has a slightly bitter-sweet flavour, typical of many Swedish folk melodies.

The arrangement uses lots of legato in the melody line together with right hand plucking. The combination of legato and plucking give the piece the proper folky feel that you find in the fiddle original. This might be a challenging technique for less experienced students of guitar, but once mastered it will add a new dimension of freedom to their guitar playing. The left and right hands have to be working more or less independently of each other, a bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. I give extensive left and right hand fingerings for the arrangement as an instructional aid to less experienced students of fingerstyle guitar.

The arrangement is fun to practice or perform as a duett following the chords provided in the notation. The chords may be plucked in a folk fingerpicking pattern over the chords (thumb-index, thumb-middle, repeat) in accompaniment to the fingerstyle melody. One way of approaching the piece, especially for less experienced players, is to play the chords following the fingerpicking pattern, while a more experienced player or instructor plays the melody.