Gospel Songs for Fingerstyle Guitar: Softly and Tenderly

“Softly and Tenderly,” an old invitation hymn, makes excellent use of Orkney tuning and uses a strategic combination of fretted notes and open strings that allow the notes to cascade together in a beautiful, harp-like way. Orkney tuning is spelled, lowest string to highest, C G D G C D. That’s two Cs, two Gs, and Ds, and the open strings form a Csus2 chord. To access Orkney from standard, lower string 6 by two steps and strings 5 and 1 by one step each; raise string 2 by a half step.