Angels Wish - Steven Curtis Chapman - How to Play On Electric Guitar video free download

We did this in church as an "item" song for Christmas a couple of years ago. I can still remember how I played it though it was a lot more refined (and properly in time) on the day.

It's in the key of A, which is lower than the original and was chosen for the vocalist's range. The verse is really easy, just arpeggios of (i.e. notes from) Em, Dsus4 and Asus4 played like open chords 12 frets up, basically following what the piano is playing.

What I play in the chorus is more complicated, partly arps of the chords and partly taken from the melody. Using the A major scale in the 14th position. This is the scale position I use the most in church music. If you play the shape that every beginning lead guitarist learns first, the 1st box pentatonic minor (or blues scale) shape - but three frets lower - you get a pentatonic major scale. In this case its three frets down from the 17th position which is the pentatonic minor in A. So you can kind of play "blues licks" in this position, except the root notes are in different places to the pentatonic minor. (Think of it as having an open G chord shape under the scale pattern, rather than an open E chord shape like the pentatonic minor 1st box has).

The bit before the bridge is just G, D, D, A and then B played like open chords but 12 frets up. For the beginning of the actual bridge I play along with the first line of melody, which was to help our vocalist get the notes spot on, since there are massive jumps and its really high, and it makes for a dramatic effect. For the rest of the bridge I'm just rambling with the A major scale, I didn't learn an exact part for that so it was kind of improvised (but better than in this video, and I didn't get distracted by a text message in the middle of it, lol).

Originally I played this on my other strat, which has 22 frets, and I was running right up to the high D and E notes at the end of some of the choruses and the bridge, which sounded really intense.