"Coventry Carol" is a Christmas song from the 16th century which I had not heard until last week, after Guitar Sessions editor Stephen Rekas had recommended checking it out. Its mournful lyrics tell the story of King Herod's order to kill all children under the age of two upon learning of the birth of baby Jesus. Bummer holiday song!

Nevertheless, it is a gorgeous piece of music and for guitar players- it offers a jackpot opportunity for playing triads all over the neck. The melody, just our luck, contains all chord tones, so we can have a ball with inversions.

Let's try it this way first: Keep an eye on the melody note and the high E (first) string. The triads will all fall on string set 1-2-3, or the first three strings. Do the shapes look familiar?

Now let's find those same inversions on a different string set, namely 2-3-4. This time, watch the B string for melody cues.

Here's a version which features the melody down an octave, so we'll be employing string set 4-5-6 and 3-4-5.

How about arranging it for spread or open triad voicings instead of all close- position voicings. We could also get fancy (but let's not overdo it!) and add an occasional 7th chord. Here's a possibility for mixing that all up:

Once you start fiddling with some of these ideas, I feel confident that you will find other ways to arrange this piece (and others) for guitar. It's the perfect time of year to be able to play a few songs all the way through with chords and melody together, just you and your guitar.

Here's wishing you peaceful and musical times ahead with family and friends.

With roots in both jazz and folk worlds, Jane Miller is an active guitarist, composer and arranger. In addition to leading her own jazz quartet, she is in a working chamber jazz trio with saxophonist Cercie Miller and bassist David Clark, for which she contributes many compositions.

Jane became a frequent guitarist with the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter SONiA, of the group Disappear Fear and has performed with the versatile bassist Tony Markellis of Trey Annastassio's band.

An Assistant Professor in the Guitar Department at Boston's Berklee College of Music, Jane completed five original tunes and five arrangements of standard pop and jazz tunes for solo guitar and performed them in recital at Berklee in September, 2005. The repertoire she created for this recital is now on file in the Berklee Guitar Department Library. Jane lives in central Massachusetts with Betty, her yellow Labrador retriever.

To learn more about Jane Miller, please see her website at: www.janemillergroup.com