I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day - guitar chords, melody and arrangement

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I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is a Christmas carol based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This lesson covers the guitar chords for this song, sheet music for the melody including tabs, and also a finger-style guitar arrangement.

Grab your guitar and let’s get started!

How to read the guitar chord charts

To clarify how to read the chord charts in the next section, the top horizontal line represents the high E string and the bottom horizontal line represents the low E string. The vertical lines separate each fret. The numbers in the blue dots tell you which fingers to use on the fretting hand.

For example, on the G Major chord, you use the:

2nd finger on the 6th string, 3rd fret
1st finger on the 5th string, 2nd fret
3rd finger on the 2nd string, 3rd fret
4th finger on the 1st string, 3rd fret
Circles represent open strings
On some other chords, X means to avoid the string

You can check this link for more on how to read guitar notation symbols.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day chords

The basic chords for “this song” are (link to chord lesson if available). You can click on the chords with links to learn different ways of playing that chord.

Try the following chords one at a time until you feel comfortable switching between them. These chords will be written above the melody in the next section.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day guitar chords

Here are some other resources on chords:

I Heard the Bells on Christmas guitar tabs

This section shows you the melody of the song with guitar tabs and the chords written above the staff. Keep in mind that the melody and chords are meant to be played as separate parts. We’ll look at how to connect these parts later in the arrangement section of this lesson.

The numbers next to some notes on the top staff indicate which fingers to use on the fretting hand.

You can refer to this simple guide to understanding music symbols if needed.

By the way, you can get all the PDFs of this song below.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – PDF downloads

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day guitar tabs

You can learn a finger-style guitar arrangement of this song after the lyrics below.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day lyrics

Verse 1:
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace of earth, good will to men.

Verse 2:
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th’unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Verse 3:
And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Verse 4:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Verse 5:
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

References:
Christmas Bells. hymnary.org
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. wikipedia.org

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day guitar arrangement

In this section, we are connecting the melody and chords together by using a finger-style method of playing. If needed, check out this lesson to learn how to finger pick on guitar.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day – PDF downloads