In this free guitar lesson I demonstrate various ways of playing a fingerstyle chord melody guitar arrangement of the popular Christmas carol “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” You have the option of fingerpicking or using a regular flat pick. I perform here on an acoustic guitar, but you can just as easily play the same thing on an electric guitar.
Guitar Tab
You can follow along with this lesson using my free We Wish You a Merry Christmas guitar tab.
Guitar Theory
The music is in the key of C but uses a few secondary dominants in the form of D7 and E7. Dominant function and secondary dominant chords are taught in the second volume of my Fretboard Theory series.
Guitar Gear
I use a PRS SE Angelus acoustic/electric guitar. I plug into an Alesis MultiMix 8 and add reverb and delay from the mixer’s onboard effects.
Christmas Guitar Songs
To see more holiday guitar lessons click Christmas Guitar Songs.
Feedback
Was this free guitar lesson helpful? If yes, then please click “Like” on the video and leave me some positive feedback. Thanks!
Awesome stuff as always….I appreciate the lesson.
That guitar sounds better than the acoustic line 6 variax in the DVDs. It sounds great.
Great to hear you play these Christmas Songs, Keep it coming
good stuff there is a lot more here than you may think if you are a beginner work on this hard to understand what is going on and think about expanding this good luck
Art
Thanx Desi. Enlightening and very cool. Have a great Christmas as you’ve helped to make mine.
I’m wondering what kind of band and arrangement would be suited to this melodic playing.
That is, is this designed more for instrumental than for accompaniment?
Yes, this arrangement is meant to be played as a solo guitar piece, but I suppose people can sing along too!
Thanks, very helpful.