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How To Play Amazing Christmas Carols And Songs With Just 3 Chords!

Christmas Carols are an inherent part of any Christmas celebration. For a long time now Christmas music has united people with a message of brotherhood and love. Historically Christmas carols were used by Christian leaders to unite their subjects in the spirit of the festival of lights. Be it Italian, French or the British, carols were created and sung by people, irrespective of their nationality.

With the invention of printing press in 1447 by Johannes Guttenberg , carols came to be printed and reached an audience wider than ever before. A large number of copies were made and distributed to people far and wide. They became important for anyone who was looking for a special touch of music and fun to their Christmas celebrations.

But things were different then from now. Christianity as a religion and celebration of Christmas had more ritual significance. Puritans and orthodox religious preachers did not look too kindly upon the revelries and carol singing. They were not in tune with a disciplined religious outlook. Many of the printed copies of carls were destroyed intentionally or otherwise. Between the years 1649 to 1660, when England was ruled by Puritans, carol singing was unequivocally banned.

There are a wide variety of Christmas carols that you can play this Christmas season and impress your friends and close ones. All you need to do is learn 3 chords.

Be ‘Amazing Grace’ or ‘Cum ba ya’ or ‘On top of old Smoky’ or ‘Take me out to the ball game’ and ‘My country tis of thee’ or popular tunes like ‘Happy Birthday’ you can play them all if only you master three chords. Also there is a whole range of Christmas carols that you can play, if you already know or are willing to learn these three chords.

Don’t you want to know what these three chords are?

If you know anything about playing the guitar you would know that in any key there are three ‘family member’—the I chord, the IV chord and the V chord. These three are the most liely chords to be played in any given key at any given time.

Say if you are playing C, and C is the first chord then there is a good chance that the next chord would be either F or G. The explanation would be that F and G are the other ‘family members’. So the possibilities can be narrowed down by just knowing what the other members of the family are. Looking at another example would be helpful in understanding the situation better. Say a given tune is based on B, then there is a good chance that the chord is a G. Why you ask? Well that if because there is a B in the G chord but not in the F chord.

Similarly if the melody revolves around A then there is a good chance that the chord is F because A occurs in the F chord but not in the G chord.

All you need to do is match one chord out of three to the tune and check if its sounds right. In not then try another combination. Before long you will get a hang of things and will be able to match chords in no time.

This does not mean that all Christmas music is based on three chords but there is enough. And once you get a hang of that you can move on to the next level. For more information on Christmas carols, [adrotate banner=”11″]