Carl Boberg was struck by how rapidly a thunderous storm appeared. It rained for just a short time, followed by a breathtaking rainbow.

That night he wrote the words. The original sown was called ‘O Store Gud’ which basically translated to ‘O Great God’ in English.

Through the years, the song, which was sung with the melody of a Swedish folk song, was translated into several languages. In the early 20′s, Mr and Mrs. Stuart Hine were English missionaries that moved to Poland. Stuart heard the song and later translated it into English. This is the version we know as ‘How Great Thou Art.’

Today, there are over 1700 recordings of this song! It’s is said to be the #1 favorite hymn in polls conducted in the US and in Britain. I’m certain that Mr. Boberg would be shocked to find that his inspired poem was translated and loved by so many Christians all over the world!

I’m currently filming a couple arrangements of this beautiful hymn.

Using walking basses is a common technique used to write worship songs. You see this in songs like ‘As A Deer’.  You can also use this technique to make a song arrangement. I show some examples in our Music Theory Course of how to take a song and make many different arrangements of it. In the video below is a video showing how to find the walking basses in three different keys.

There are examples in the key of ‘C’, ‘D’, and ‘G’. In the key of ‘C’ there are no sharps or flats, so the notes of the descending scale are C, B, A, G, F, E D and the back to C. In the video below you learn that the descending scale often moves to the ‘V’ or ‘V7′ chord between the last two notes, or last two chords.

In the picture you can see one example using the chords ‘C’, ‘C/B’, ‘Am7′, Am7/G’, ‘F’, ‘F/E’, ‘G7′, then ‘C’. The note underneath a slash ‘/’ is always the bass note. In the video the chord should have been called ‘Am7/G’ instead of ‘Am/G’. It’s actually the chord in the picture.

In the key of ‘D’ the bass notes are ‘D’, ‘C#’, ‘B’, ‘A’, ‘G’, ‘F#’, ‘E’, ‘A’ (which is the V), and ‘D’. In the key of ‘G’ the descending bass notes are ‘G’, ‘F#’, ‘E’, ‘D’, ‘C’, ‘B’, ‘A’, ‘D’ (the V), and ‘D’.

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‘It Is Well With My Soul’ is one of the songs in the New Reading and Music Theory Guitar Course. The story is so touching, I decided to make a short video about it to share with you. God is FAITHFUL in all of our trials and helps us through them when we have an eternal perspective. I hope you enjoy this short video and are maybe even inspired to write your own songs or poems of His Unfathomable Love and Faithfulness.

It’s common for a song to end with a chord called the V, or V7,  to a chord called the I. There isn’t space here to talk about the various chord structures and keys, but the I chord is the root chord of a key. For example in the key of ‘G’ the I is the ‘G’ chord. The V in the key of ‘G’  is the chord ‘D.’

A ‘D’ or ‘D7′ chord resolves nicely to the chord ‘G.’ A deceptive cadence is when you change to the VI chord at the end of a song instead of the I.

A good example is the song ‘Lord I Lift Your Name On High.’ I know many of you have our ‘Worship Guitar Class’ course and this song is in the first volume. The chords are predominately ‘G C D C.’ It ends with the chords ‘D,’ ‘Dsus,’ G…..

The deceptive cadence for the key of ‘G’ is the VI chord which is the chord ‘Em.’ Instead of playing ‘D,’ Dsus,’ ‘G’ … you can play ‘D,’ ‘Dsus,’ Em.’ The ‘Em’ is on the last word ‘high.’ Play it for a measure then half a measure on ‘Am’ and ‘D’ ‘Dsus’ for the 2nd half of the measure and ending on G. The ending is below…

|    Em     |  Am              Dsus       D           | G  C | D C | G
… high.             Lord I lift your name on high.

We often repeat the deceptive cadence 2 or 3 times before finally ending on G.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to read music or to understand music theory, would love to have you join our music theory class.

The new ‘How to Read Notes and Music Theory‘ course is ready! It’s a 17 week course with streaming videos, music, a forum, phone calls and more. Visit the website to get the music for the first Lesson free. Learning how to read notes and about music theory will help any guitarist to understand their instrument better. Would you like to pick up any music and be able to read it? How about taking a song and making your own unique song arrangement?

Free Guitar Reading Lesson.