I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and had a chance to spend some great quality time with your family. The holidays are always such a busy time. These are the times when it's easy to neglect picking up that guitar and playing a few tunes.

On the other hand, it is also a great time to get together with a few friends and do some picking! There's nothing better during the holidays than to add a little music to your plans. I remember all the great times at our home growing up when we would have a picking party. People used to love coming over for Thanksgiving and Christmas because they always knew we were going to pick. It was always so much more entertaining than watching TV.

It never fails that when you have a picking session during the holidays, someone is going to request a Christmas tune. Last month, I taught you the first of two- "Away in a Manger". This month, we are going to learn the second one. The tune I have selected this month is one of my very favorite Christmas tunes to play on the resonator guitar- "Silent Night".

We will also be learning a new technique this month called the "drone". A drone is created by striking two strings simultaneously in such a fashion that it creates two separate tones that sound really cool when played together. In the tune "Silent Night", we will use the open 6th string as our "drone". I hope you enjoy this resonator version of "Silent Night".

Phil Leadbetter's very busy 2006 performance schedule with the award-winning bluegrass group Wildfire can be found at: http://www.wildfireband.com/Wildfire/schedule.htm

For a comprehensive biography and discography, please see Phil Leadbetter's website at: http://www.unclephilonline.com/ and the Wildfire website at: http://www.wildfireband.com/Wildfire/bio.htm