Blue Christmas - Fingerstyle Blues - With Free Tab

 


This is my fingerstyle blues version of the classic Xmas song Blue Christmas. The song was made famous by Elvis Presley and eventhough it's title might suggest otherwise, it is not a piece of blues music but a piece of country music. In the video, I will play through the music, then have a look at the structure of the music. I will also give some playing tips on some of the trickier sections of music which might trip you up when playing. Lastly, I will play through the music slower and put the tab on screen.

The music is in 4/4 time, it is in the Key of D and is played on a guitar in Dropped D tuning.

Below are some tips to help you play this piece, and links to download the tab.

Blue Christmas Downloadable Tab - Power Tab - PDF - TXT
 
  • Early Chord Changes - To make this piece of music have more of a blues feel, I have taken some of the melody notes off the beat of the bar and played them early. Because of this, it is beneficial if you make the chord changes at these points just slightly earlier as well. This is because it's easy to get your fingers tangled up if you play the note on the previous bar, and then play the chord change on the first beat of the next bar, you have to make the chord change very quickly and may make mistakes. If you watch the video,I will show you which parts of the music where this will happen and you can see the optimal times for doing the chord changes.
  • Minimal Chords - When you're playing through the music, you will have to form all or part of the underlying chords when you're playing it, so that you can get the Travis picking pattern to ring out. The temptation is to play the full chord every time you make the chord change, but this isn't necessary and can make the music a lot more difficult to play. When forming the underlying chords, you only need to fret the minimal amount of strings needed to make the chord and play the picking pattern. If you look at the tab for the music and also watch the video, I will show you the optimal fingerings for each chord in each bar of the music. Just remember that when you're playing through it, just do the minimum that's necessary to make the chords and that way you won't do unnecessary finger work and have more chance of making a mistake.

This is about all I need to say about this piece. It is a fairly straightforward piece of fingertsyle music using a travis picking pattern. If you can nail the chord changes accurately and get the correct fingerings this shouldn't be too hard to play.

Thanks for Reading,
Neil

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