How Great Thou Art

[sundog90]

This is great - you really made this sound very full and rich

[J.W.C]

@Twin_Six @MiJoy @sundog90

Thank you!

[SgtColon]

That was wonderful Jason. Beautifully sung and played. Production was great as well. Loads of emotion coming through on this one.

[J.W.C]

Thank you, Stefan!

[Eccleshall]

Hi Jason
Really nicely worked out version and great vocal
I could swear I can hear there’s some kind of keyboard sound there in the arrangement too - must be the “choir invisible” playing along
The sacred/ secular use of guitar and lyrics in songs is an interesting seam to mine. I’ve found it fascinating looking at the history of rural and urban blues in the USA intertwining with church and gospel and country music.
A good way to go further with your How Great Thou Art version might be to take some nuggets from @Richard_close2u current lesson on chord borrowing and substitution and see if there’s anything in there that resonates for you to really make it your own
I’m mentioning that last bit because I’d been looking at an old hymn with an interesting history - Here is Love Vast As The Ocean - regarding the evolution of the lyric being used with different English, Welsh and American tunes over the years.
Then I made my own discovery that the usual tune used in the UK these days for that hymn, formerly used for the American hymn “Jesus Only” works very well with the backbone of the chords for Who Knows Where the Time Goes by Sandy Denny, giving me some “readymade” chord borrowings
Happy Strumming!
Cheers
Ruaridh

[J.W.C]

@Eccleshall

Really nicely worked out version and great vocal

Thank you!

@Eccleshall

I could swear I can hear there’s some kind of keyboard sound there in the arrangement too - must be the “choir invisible” playing along

Hah! Definitely no keyboard sounds on this. I think what you’re hearing are overtones from the guitars combined with the stereo reverb setup. Both these guitars are pretty nice instruments that produce beautiful overtones. (You can really hear the Martin’s overtones on this recording, which is just solo guitar and nothing else.) I also have the two guitars capo’d differently: the strummed Martin is capo’d on III, and the fingerstyle Yairi is capo’d on I. So even when they’re playing the same chords they’re using different voicings and have different timbres that blend together in the recording. The strummed guitar (the Martin) is also doubled and sent L and R, and the Martin-L track gets sent to a room-style reverb that is panned Right, and the Martin-R track gets sent to a room-style reverb that is panned Left. The master track applies a big hall reverb to everything.

@Eccleshall

A good way to go further with your How Great Thou Art version might be to take some nuggets from @Richard_close2u current lesson on chord borrowing and substitution and see if there’s anything in there that resonates for you to really make it your own

Yes, I think it would be fun to play with the arrangement and the harmonies.

@Eccleshall

I’m mentioning that last bit because I’d been looking at an old hymn with an interesting history - Here is Love Vast As The Ocean…

Cool; I’d love to hear your take on it.

[Eccleshall]

I’ve certainly got lots to learn re recording - everything I’ve ever done has been single take on my iPad Pro’s onboard mic !

[J.W.C]

Nothing wrong with that (i.e., recording a take with an iPad or phone). Getting into recording with a DAW (and using multiple tracks/instruments) is fun and satisfying, though. And you can still do single take stuff with the DAW, if you want to. I like doing that, sometimes; it gives a very “live” feel.

[brianlarsen]

@SteveL_G99

“How Great Thou Art” started out as a Swedish hymn “O Store Gut”

You should see the size of my ‘store gut’. I’m gonna have to avoid the confectionary aisles in the supermarket