Coventry Carol
One of my favorite Christmas albums is Loreena McKennitt’s, A Winter Garden. The Holiday EP was released in 1995, the same year I graduated high school.
At that time, I had begun working part-time in the mornings at Natural Wonders (I taught guitar in the afternoon and evenings.) Natural Wonders was the first mainstream “new age” store in American malls. We sold rain sticks, telescopes, sand gardens, and CD’s. Super cheesy stuff.
The music playing in the store was a mixture of John Tesh, Yanni, and Celtic everything. It was constantly playing in the store at full blast. Depending on the selection, you didn’t know whether to scream for mercy or fall asleep.
However, we tried to play Loreena McKennitt’s music as often as we could, because it was so dynamically different than anything else in the “genre”. Loreena’s music was serious and actual artistry.
The opening song from A Winter Garden is Coventry Carol: an English Christmas carol dating from the 16th century.
You might also like to play…
My other Christmas and holiday guitar arrangements.
Some of my favorites are Greensleeves, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen — based on Loreena McKennitt’s version from A Winter Garden.
Gear used
For Coventry Carol, I used my Cordoba GK Studio guitar with a G7th capo. The GK studio, as implied in the name, is the perfect recording guitar. It sounds and plays great all the time — without the intonation and action issues of regular classical/nylon string guitars.
You can find a current list of my gear here.
Spotify and streaming
You can find my personal music on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and all streaming services:
The Intellimusica Spotify Playlist: Ethereal & Cinematic Music
(This is music that I’ve played and intend to play on Intellimusica. It flows beautifully — and additionally works as music for focus, meditation, and relaxation.)
How to play Loreena McKennitt’s Coventry Carol for guitar
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Coventry Carol will be best suited for intermediate guitarists. Although I’m not using any difficult chord shapes, the fingerstyle is slightly challenging. Hopefully you’ll find Coventry Carol easy enough to play.
The guitar tab is beautifully written on a single page. In accordance with the guitar tab, my order of play looks like this: Intro, Verse 2x, Chorus — Verse 2x, Chorus, End.
Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:
Coventry Carol is played in a drop tuning. Your tuning will look like this from low to high: D A D G B E. You’ll then place a capo on the 7th fret.