“What a Wonderful World” for acoustic guitar
Here’s a song for you, freshly arranged and just recorded in my home studio: the evergreen “What a Wonderful World.”
I've always have a soft spot for this song, from Louis Armstrong’s original recording as well as many covers (Eva Cassidy’s take is gorgeous). “What a Wonderful World” may seem like an awfully sweet sentiment in these fractious and difficult times, but that to me is part of the draw of playing it.
My arrangement is in F, Armstrong’s key, played fingerstyle with C shapes capoed at the fifth fret. I have a deep love for inspired chord progressions, and this song has one change in particular—to the ♭6 chord—that makes me swoon every time.
On Patreon, I’ve posted a complete chord and lyric chart plus tab for the intro and instrumental break, and I taught a live workshop running through everything in detail. The arrangement uses a lot of chord shapes—22!—but quite a few are variations on C, D, A, and G, so it's not quite as complicated as it might appear. There certainly are a lot of great harmonic and guitar ideas to explore.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did putting it together.
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