14 Of The Best Christmas Music Guitar Tabs & Songs: Easy & Hard Versions To Satisfy You All
If you’ve been searching for easy christmas songs for guitar with guitar tabs, then you’ve probably been utterly disappointed, like I was.
That’s why I took the time to create some actual arrangements or riffs that’ll help any of you in dire need of guitar tabs christmas songs.
I didn’t want to just hand you some CAGED chords or give you a few melody lines. That defeats the whole purpose of you being here!
I wanted to make guitar christmas songs that can stand by themselves on both easy and expert difficulty.
I hope you’ll like my selection. Let’s dive into the christmas carols and songs guitar tabs already!
Table Of Contents
1. Christmas Time Is Here Guitar Tab, From The Charlie Brown Christmas Special
For each section of this article, I’ll give you either a standard “arrangement” I’ve made, or I’ll give you both an easy and hard version of the song.
Most christmas carol guitar tabs will just give you lyrics and some guitar chords. I find playing any song that way is boring as you ignore all the many things the guitar is capable of doing.
So here’s some tips for playing the hard version of the christmas time is here guitar tab up above:
- Practice the chord changes first and get the fingerings down. I’m aware I didn’t give fingerings up above
- Use your thumb to play the 10X01X and 7X75 voicings
- If you’ve never tapped a bass note before, it can take some practice. Use the tip of your finger to make the string sorta bounce as you’re tapping it, and then press down as hard as you can
- While tapping, you’ll have to use the free fingers of your pick hand to fingerpick the other notes
So I get it. You came into this article maybe just wanting some chords or a melody line. You don’t feel like playing like Chet Atkins when you’re just wanting some easy christmas songs for beginners like yourself.
Well here you go:
These christmas songs guitar tabs I have throughout the rest of this article will hopefully be within your ability.
This one only requires the ability to play two note chords, the Fmaj7, and a few powerchords.
You want to have this ring throughout as you go.
2. Last Christmas by Wham Guitar Tab
Wham’s Last Christmas is one of the best christmas songs to play on guitar because it’s really just four chords: Dsus2, Bm, Em9, and A major.
This version however is going to be a real test of your fingerpicking skills. I couldn’t help but add a counterpoint bassline throughout that I think came out really really well.
You’ll want to figure out what fingers to keep free while deciding which will be the best to hold the various chord shapes throughout.
So hopefully this one is easy enough but it will require at least some formidable fingerpicking skills to play the chords and melody at the same time.
3. All I Want For Christmas Is You Guitar Tab, By Mariah Carey
This is another guitar tab christmas song where I pull out quite a few stops for fingerpicking a chord melody.
I have you moving between different voicings of the same chord, using harp harmonics at the beginning, and using spread voicings throughout.
For my fellow music theory nerds out there, you may have heard how one of the most typical sounds in christmas music is to use a m7b5 on the ii chord in a major key. You can see that up above with Am7b5.
For the easy version of my all I want for christmas guitar tab, I mostly just removed a lot of chord tones and bass tones to make the fingerings easier to manage.
It’s still moving through the G – Em – C – D shapes like before, which I believe makes it one of the best christmas songs to play on guitar.
4. Wonderful Christmas Time Guitar Tab by Paul McCartney
If you have experience moving through jazz and funk chords, this one shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.
The biggest tip I have for all of these guitar tabs christmas songs is to let the top voice ring out….and to memorize the tab.
Another thing to add onto that is that if you want the absolute easiest way to play most of these songs, then just play the top notes on the high E and B strings.
5. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Guitar Tab
The best way to approach this rudolph the red nosed reindeer guitar tab is to keep your 1st finger ready to move to the lower strings. You’ll do this in the first Bb chord, as well as the F7 chords.
Like before, it’ll help to have some adequate fingerpicking skills to play these tabs.
And if you don’t? That’s ok. Learn the tab and fingerings of each chord, and play it until it becomes easier. That’s literally how I learned lots of music just like this christmas song guitar tab.
6. Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee Guitar Tab
I love the Mr. Tabs Youtube channel and they did such a good job that I feel like I should just point you to this video instead of me making my own arrangement. It’s a christmas song guitar tab meant to be played with an amp and distortion anyways.
The key to learning this song is to recognize the chords: Ab, Cm, Eb, Db, and Gb/F#. Most of these are in the key of Ab major, which is a good reason why you should learn guitar music theory. I can follow what’s going on in this tab because I know the notes of these chords and the musical key, and thus I’m able to see what’s going on with the harmonic choices and scale runs.
Not digging my arrangements? Hoping to get the Trans Siberian Orchestra riff? Sorry my friend. It’s hard to predict what people want the most, which is why I put up this great YouTube Short from the pmx2n channel.
7. Silent Night Christmas Song Guitar Tab
This guitar tab christmas song translated extremely well because it’s all in the key of G major or relative minor E minor. This key contains the chords G, C, D, and Em, and thus all the opne chords works perfectly to make a chord melody with it.
It’s also why I didn’t make an easy version for this song. Like before, if you want it even easier, just play the melody alone, which is mostly on the top strings.
Chord melody is a type of guitar playing that’s been mostly relegated to the jazz world, but the concepts of voice leading and harmony can apply anywhere. All I’ve been doing basically is taking the melody, and finding the best chords to suit each note.
8. Oi To The World by The Vandals Guitar Lesson & Tab
This one should be straightforward to anyone who has played some punk or hard rock music. You’ll need to have fairly good command of power chord shapes and down picking.
For those wanting the theory behind this, it pretty much follows the E major scale except for the 6-8 powerchord, and the initial riff ends on B5, the V chord of E major.
A very typical punk rock phrase is to go from I-iii-IV-V, like the chords E5-G#5-A5-B5 do.
9. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas Guitar Tab
This will not be a perfect arrangement as I tried to compact a lot of the song into just the tab you see above.
This guitar tab christmas song follows a lot of the same territory as the previous riffs and will require the same techniques.
What I love about this christmas song is that it’s a harmony masterclass. It uses a major III, I7, minor iv, bIIIdim, and a #IV all in C major.
10. Jingle Bells Guitar Lesson & Tab
This is another one of the simple christmas songs for guitar to play like Silent Night was before.
You’ll have a wide finger stretch at the XXX685 chord, and you’ll ned to use a barre to play the XXX558 chord.
Everything else is pretty simple to play I hope. If you want it even simpler, like mentioned before, just play the notes on the top strings.
11. Carol Of The Bells Guitar Tab
This one is probably going to be one of the most difficult just because of the length. It’s going to be hard to be prepared for some of the trickier chord changes and stay in time.
Remember that you can always just play a few of the top string notes.
The good thing about this arrangmeent is I was able to keep most of it in the 3rd fret position. If you just keep your first finger in position to barre there at the 3rd fret, you should be able to handle most of the song fairly well.
12. Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy Guitar Tab & Lesson
This one I’m quite proud of because some other arrangements I’ve found of this piece are just too simple and ignore some of the harmonic choices that make it so interesting.
And I believe this is one of the best christmas songs to play on guitar because this arrangement turned out really fun to play.
Use your thumb to play that low E string throughout.
13. Home Alone Theme Guitar Tabs: The House & In My Memory
So these home alone guitar tabs cover two of the most recognized pieces in the movies: “the house” theme and “in my memory.”
When making this arrangement I had to look at a full score, which I’ll admit that I’m not the best at reading those and understanding the horn arrangements. So what I did was got a little creative and created some counterpoints to the more chromatic lines. Hopefully you won’t mind…..
For the other piece below, it came out fairly straight forward and the full chords worked quite well in my opinion.
14. O Christmas Tree Guitar Tab
And you’ve made it to the last one I have for you! I’ll be happy to make more guitar tab christmas songs if this article gets a good response.
Eventually I will make videos of myself playing this. Unfortunately for me arranging this stuff is easier than taking the time to rehearse and record it, but that shouldn’t stop you from being able to learn these songs.
And sorry, not much to add to this o christmas tree guitar tab. It will require a lot of the same techniques as before.
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Thanks a lot for using these christmas tabs and I hope you have a great holiday season!