The Story Behind the Book

The publication of "Easy LDS Fingerstyle Guitar Hymns" was a long road. It began in 2006, when I saw an inexpensive guitar at the music store and decided to buy it on a whim. Thinking I could teach myself to play the instrument, I struggled for 6 months on my own before getting frustrated and deciding to find a teacher. Under his direction I made rapid progress. One day he told me there was going to be a recital. I sat down at home and arranged an instrumental version of "Silent Night." When I played it at the recital, my guitar teacher was impressed. Until that moment I had never before attempted to arrange my own music. But I liked it.

As my guitar skills began to improve, I started spending a lot of time at the music store. I really wanted to be able to play instrumental LDS hymns, but all of the books that were available were far too difficult for me. So I started making my own arrangements. The first song I arranged was, "Be Still My Soul." It was also the first arrangement I wrote down (rather than just memorizing). It just came to me somehow, and I'll always be grateful that it did, because it showed me what was possible.

A few years later I was talking to a friend about my desire to write a guitar book. I had arranged more songs by then, and I was learning how to use a software program called Sibelius that allowed me to create publisher-quality arrangements. But I knew very little about copyright laws and publishing, and I wasn't sure how to create a book. My friend advised me to do the creative work and worry about the rest later. It was the best advice he could have given me.

Several months later I finished arranging 25 of my favorite hymns for guitar. I went to the LDS church web site and found a copyright permissions form. About two months after that, they informed me that 17 of the hymns I had chosen were in the public domain. It turns out that about 2/3 of the hymns in the LDS hymnal are in the public domain. Armed with this new information, I selected 75 songs and went to work. It took about 2 months to arrange them all, but I still had questions about the publishing process. One day I realized that if I generated PDF files from my music program and combined them, I could upload them to a print-on-demand publisher (Lulu.com was the one I chose). The next challenge was cover art. I hired a designer and after reviewing a few different options, I chose one and ordered a proof copy of the book. Getting the print publication just right involved a bit of trial and error, and I also continued to refine my arrangements -- adding chords, fingering, and arranging practice tracks. From start to finish, the process of creating "Easy LDS Fingerstyle Guitar Hymns" took about 7 years: 6 years of talking and experimenting and learning, and a year of actual work. I woke up an hour early for 6 months in order work on it, and in the end it was worth the effort.