Registered with the London Stationers in 1580 and traditional ever since, “Greensleeves” is the graduation piece of this set. It is in A minor rather than a friendly major key; it leaps a third to start each phrase instead of walking; and twice per verse it borrows notes from outside the scale — the raised G# (and once an F#) that give the old air its bittersweet lean. If the other arrangements taught your fingers the style, this one teaches them repertoire.
Playing it
The verse falls into two nearly identical halves — learn the first thoroughly and the second is a repeat with a different tail. The opening arc (A up to C, D, E, F and back down) is pure cross-string campanella in the middle of the neck; the cadences are where the borrowed notes live, with G# at the G string’s first fret pulling home to the open A. Feel that pull: G# is the leading tone, and holding it a hair longer before it resolves is most of what makes the tune sound played rather than recited. It is in 6/8 — count a gentle “one-two-three, four-five-six” sway rather than a march.
Where it leads
Warm up with the A minor pentatonic map, which owns the same neighborhood of the neck minus the leading tone, and see the full A natural minor maps for the scale the melody actually lives in. When the verse flows, you have outgrown these pages in the best way: pick any melody in our soprano scale reference’s keys and arrange it yourself — different strings for neighboring notes, open strings wherever they hide, everything ringing. That is the whole method.