4 Beginner Christmas Guitar Songs with ONLY 3 CHORDS!
This is a spoken YouTube guitar tutorial by Lauren Bateman teaching four beginner-friendly Christmas songs (Jingle Bells, Joy to the World, The First Noel, Silent Night) using only three chords: G, C, and D. The video demonstrates two main time signatures—4/4 (with a simple four-down or a down-down-down-up-down-up strum) for Jingle Bells and Joy to the World, and 3/4 waltz timing (down-down-up pattern) for The First Noel and Silent Night—plus optional tips (capo for higher keys, accenting bass notes).
Chapters
I've got four beginner Christmas songs that use only three very, very simple chords. And I'm going to show you how to play them step by step. But there is a little bit of a timing distinction between a couple of the songs. So let's get into it.
Now these songs are designed for the beginner guitar players. So we're not going to be doing anything really, really intricate in these. I'm going to keep them simple. And first let's start off with the chords we're going to be playing. So the three chords we're going to be using for all four of these songs we're not going to. Any other chords are going to be a G major chord. And you can play this with your third finger or your pinky, whichever is most comfortable for you. And if you know my easy G chord, it's kind of a G6 chord. But if you know my easy G chord with the two fingers, you could use that as well. We also have a C chord. Okay. You can use the full three fingered version if you know that. Or if you're an absolute beginner. The simple two finger version works just as fine. And the final chord would be the D chord. Or you could use the finger D chord. Okay, that's a DSUS 2. But I call it the easy D chord if you just want to use two fingers. So we have a G chord, a C chord and a D chord. Now let's talk about the timing for the first two songs. We're going to be playing what's called four, four rhythm. That's the, it's called the time signature. And all it's telling us right now is how high are we going to count for each one of these chords. And it's in the time signature. 4. We're going to be counting to 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3,. That's going to be the basis for the strumming pattern we're going to use here. I'm going to give you two options. The first one is if you're an absolute beginner and you can't do up strums yet, you can just do four down strums per chord. So if we play a G chord, 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.
Very, very simple. The other strumming pattern I'm going to show you if you're getting into doing up strums, and that's the one I'm going to be using for the demonstrations in a little bit is going to be 1, 2, 3 and 4. And play it as down, down, down, up, down, up. So it's going to be like this 1, 2, 3 and 4, and down, down, down, up, down, up.
So go ahead and pause the video if you need to, to practice that strumming pattern or rewind the video and play it again because we're going to jump into our first song, which is Jingle Bells. And just so you know, before I jump into Jingle Bells, there's a link in the description below if you guys want to go grab a free PDF of all these songs. They're not copywritten, they're all in the public domain, which means I can give you the chords and the lyrics. So if you want to go to the link in the description below, you can go and download that PDF now. Jingle Bells. Like I said, the strumming pattern we're going to be using is that 1, 2, 3 and 4. And so. So Jingle Bells is a lot of G chord, which is really nice. And every once in a while the C and the D chords come into play. So we're going to try and put some lyrics and chords up on the screen for you guys so that you can play along with me. So first, let's just get the timing of that strumming pattern. All right, we'll start slow and then I'm going to pick it up a little bit because the song's got a little bit of pep to it. So let's start slow.
1, 2, 3. And forehand. Let's pick up the speed.
Ready? Here we go.
Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way.
Fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
Now if you can play along to Jingle Bells, the great thing is you can play along this next song, which is a joy to the world, but there's a little bit of a chord split going on here in the lyrics. There are a couple places where the chords split a measure. You're going to see this big line. There's going to be a G and a D. And all we're going to do on that is. So when we come to the G chord, we're going to do two down strums and then when we come to the D, we're going to do two down strums. Also happens one more time with G and C. So when you see that, It'll be G2 strums and then C2 strums. But other than that, the rest of the strumming pattern is exactly the same as what we did on Jingle Bells. So we're going to throw some chords and lyrics up on the screen for you guys so that you can follow along. Ready? Let's get that strumming pattern in time again. One, two, ready? And here we go.
Same strumming pattern. Here we go.
Joy to the world the Lord is coming Let earth receive a king.
Let.
Every heart be fair in movement Heaven and nature sing and heaven and nature sing and heaven and heaven and nature.
Sing now, just as a note for female singers, you know, because the key of G can sometimes be low for female singers, I'm an alto. For those of you who need a higher vocal range, you could use what's called a capo. And what you do, it's just a little clamp. And you could clamp this, say on the third fret of the guitar. And you play all the chords relative to the capo. Hear how the sound got much brighter? Okay? So if you need to adjust your voice to make these higher, on the Christmas holiday, you can always use a capo. So now we're going to change up the timing. Before we do that, I'd like to introduce myself to some of you. I realize some of you might not know who I am. My name is Lauren Bateman, and I help make the guitar makes sense. I specialize in working with absolute beginners to intermediate players, especially those over the age of 50. I have a very specialized method for teaching older adult learners. And I hope you guys are having fun and learning from this video. So let's make sense out of this next timing. We are switching from four, four rhythm. Okay? Four beats. To three, four rhythm. So all that's changing is we're counting to three as opposed to counting to four, four, right? So we're just going to change up our strumming patterns just a little bit on these. So if you want to keep it simple, again, you can just do three down strums. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. Keep it nice and simple.
Okay? If you want to spice it up and you're someone who can do up strums, the strumming pattern I'm going to be using is 1, 2, and 3, and 1, 2, and 3,and 1, 2, and 3. And we call this a waltz. Feels like your body is swaying to the music. So this is called waltz time. Three, four time. Now the strumming pattern is going to be down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up.
Down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, down, up.
And that's going to be the strumming pattern that is the basis for our next two songs. So the next song we're going to jump on is the first Noel. Before we jump into the song, let's get the timing of that strumming down. Okay, we're going to be 1, 2, 3. A little bit slower. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2 and 3. And 1, 2, and 3. And 1, 2,. And 3. And.
The first of the well, the angel did say was to set to. And poor shepherds in fields where they lay in fields where they lay Keeping their sheep On a cold winter's night the woes so deep now well, Noel Nowell Noel.
Bon is the king of Israel.
And now that you have the timing of that strumming pattern, we're just gonna go right ahead and apply it to the next song, which is Silent Night, which is one of my favorite Christmas songs. I think it's probably because it's one of my mom's favorite Christmas songs. It's really nice. And again, the tempo is much slower, so you don't have to rush through it. And if you want just a little extra spice to throw into your strumming, I'm gonna give you a third bonus strum here. What you can do is you can accent the bass note of each of the chords. So on the G chord, you could just play the top string or the top couple strings. On the C chord, you could play the fifth string or, you know, the fifth and fourth string. And then you can the D string. Try and just get that D string. But this is what it's going to sound like.
It's a nice little ring to it. We're still doing 1, 2 and 3 and 1, 2, and 3. But on that one, we're letting the bass note ring out. Okay. Or the top couple of bass strings, the low sounding strings, letting them ring out 1, 2, and 3 and 1.
Just gives a little bit of a different sound. It's a little bit more of kind of like a late beginner thing. But I wanted to throw in a little spice for you guys if you're up for the challenge. And it sounds really, really nice on this song. All right, so let's start off by getting our tempo nice, slow and easy. One, two, three. One, two and three and one, two and three and one, two, and three and.
Silent night.
Holy night.
All is.
All.
Is bright Round yonder Mother and child.
Holy infant so tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
If you guys are interested in more crazy Christmas sweaters and really want to start learning about how to finger pick some of these songs, I highly recommend you go check out my finger picking Silent Night video over there where I'm going to show you step by step how to play that beautiful song.
