Silent Night is an accessible Christmas carol that beginner guitarists can easily play. It requires only three chords to support its melody.
G is the starting chord of every key; counting up musical alphabetically, this note should correspond with your fifth note in key. Therefore, bass singers can start their song from that note.
Practice D and C chords before trying to combine them with your melody!
G-D-C-Em
Silent night is one of the best-known Christmas songs, and learning it on guitar is very straightforward. All it requires are four basic chords which many beginners already possess: G (root), C (fourth), D (fiveth) and Em (sixth). Although it is also playable in F key, beginning guitarists might find this more challenging.
As well as these basic chords, this song features additional ones which you may require practice to master. For instance, the seventh bar requires an F sharp diminished chord; however, you could use any regular D minor chord instead. Another alternative would be for you to skip it altogether and continue the bar without pausing at this seventh bar altogether.
As soon as you have learned the basic chords, move onto fingerstyle patterning. The fingerstyle part of this song follows a straightforward block playing technique; picking strings simultaneously with thumb and three fingers will produce an endearing, soothing sound to complete this piece of music.
Once you’ve mastered chords and fingerstyle, add embellishments with your left hand to give the song more character – this is also an excellent opportunity to showcase your abilities!
For the first two bars of this song, play an open G chord using your left hand. In bars three and four, add G major arpeggio using only your thumb for root note playback and three other fingers to form shapes on strings one through four.
Finish off your song with a D minor arpeggio for the fifth and sixth bars to create an effective endnote. Start off by tapping out the root note with your thumb, followed by placing middle fingers on second fret of A string, while fourth fret of D string for arpeggiation.
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If you’re still developing your chord progressions, play along with some slow audios. These will help keep the beat and eventually allow you to play full speed songs. Start off by starting with some one-minute clips before gradually increasing speed until you can play an entire song in an acceptable pace.