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SKU: A0.1155054
By Louis Armstrong. By Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. Arranged by Richard Hirsch. 20th Century,Multicultural,Pop,Standards,World. Individual part. 8 pages. Richard Hirsch #755336. Published by Richard Hirsch (A0.1155054).Taking inspiration in Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World mashup, I offer an arrangement in polyrhythmic 4/4 time of What a Wonderful World for solo acoustic guitar. The arrangement has an afro-flamenco character with two tiers of rhythm. Tier one is the normal 4/4 rhythm with accents at 1 and 3. Tier two consists of accents falling on beats 2 and 2& and 3& of the 4 beat measures. Tier two can be highlighted by clapping or tapping with a table knife on a bottle at beats 2 and 2& and 3&, with the strongest accent on 3& (an upbeat). The tune is really happy and up-lifting. If there are any little folks (kids two to four years old) around listening, they will have a hard time sitting still. My grandson (two and a half) really got going when I played it for him. I can hardly resist the urge to dance to the tune while playing myself! The arrangement is in the spirit of the Canarios by Gaspar Sanz for classical guitar and is meant to have the nature of a dance. The repetitive alternating thumb and index and middle finger cycle going through the broken chords with the melody woven in works to give the arrangement an almost hypnotic character. The fingering for the right hand is given in first section and is basically the same throughout the piece. The fingering for the left hand can, I believe, be easily figured out from the tablature. The arrangement is within the reach of intermediate students of the acoustic guitar; anyone who has mastered the basics of fingerstyle fingerpicking guitar, and can be played on both nylon and steel string acoustic guitars. The short and long glissandos and the arpeggios of natural harmonics resembling the kalimba (thumb harp) together with the drone effects of the enharmonic tones in the chords give an added dash of African spice to the piece.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard’s global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.
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