[allthumbs]

A personal thanks to D-Dawn for the inspiration for this tune. I started thinking about lullabies and slow tunes in general and came up with some ideas to try out. 60 to 80 BPM to simulate a heart beat. A droning bass. A simple chord progression and a strong hum-able melody.

I wrote this tune for my wife for our 23rd Anniversary. To get the droning bass I wanted, I used Dropped D in the Key of D. That gave me the D,A, and G open strings for bass drone notes under the chords. I thought this would make a good lesson for you since it has a multitude of different techniques involved.
-The use of chord fragments
-Double stops and double stops harmony
-Alternate bass.
-Playing up to the 14th fret
-Harmonics.
- and playing over a broken tempo.

I have provided an intermediate and less difficult version for those intimidated by playing up the neck. A guitar take, tab, MP3 of the GP5 file and the GP5 file itself for each. I have also included a fully orchestrated version that a friend added to my take.

At the top of the tab you will see that it says play Play Slowly and Freely. This tune is meant to be played in a very relaxed manner. Anywhere from 60 to 80 BPM. It is all about feel more than timing. To play this tune well, you have to hold the notes or chords you choose to suit yourself. You will notice that the GP5 files sound a bit stiff. That is because it forces the tune to fit into a 4/4 time. It would have to be micro managed to catch how freely this tune should flow. The notation below the tab bar shows you the beats per bar. Even though each adds up to 4 beats per. each bar has it's own feel so trying to count it out will give you a headache. Once you have listened to it and played through it a couple of times it will become clear what I am talking about and the best way to approach it.

Anna's Autumn Smile

|D|Dsus2/5+-Gm|D|Dsus2/5+-Gm|
-I---I---------iv-I---I--------iv
|D-A6/D|Asus4|A|D|
-I--V------V---V-I
|Dsus2-D|A5-A|D-A7|D-G|
--I-----I--V-V--I-V---I-IV
|A7-D|D|
-V--I--I
Repeat the above twice and the third time through replace the last bar with the outro bar. I prefer to think of that Dsus2/5+ as a Daug sus2 Not sure why GP put it the other way.

Anna's Autumn Smile(Short)

|D|Dsus2/5+-Gm|D|Dsus2/5+-Gm|
-I---I---------iv-I---I--------iv
|D-A6/D|Am|Gm|D|
-I--V-----v--iv--I
Play through twice. The third time add the outro to the end
|Am-G|D|

As you can see, they are basic 3 chord tunes in spite of all the various chord extensions. The melody is mostly chord tones with some passing notes. I hope you enjoy playing them. Feel free to use any part of the above in your own tunes. Those first 4 bars are such a strong melodic hook that you can probably find countless ways to use them in your own tunes.
Now that I have a marginal understanding of GP5, I will start up loading more lessons. The next one is a BT made up almost entirely of 7Maj chords followed by a Texas blues rhythm thing.

[allthumbs]

I have to put the tabs in this post. I can only upload 5 things at a time per post who knew. For some reason the realistic engine doesn't like dropped D on the first GP file so just turn the engine off to listen to it.