Last Updated on September 12, 2021 by Rebecca

Every piano improvisation needs a good chord progression. But what if you don't know how to make a chord progression? Borrowing from traditional Christmas songs might be just the trick to get you started!

The best thing about this post is that it's useful for pianists of all levels!

If you're just starting out, there's enough explanation in here to help get you started so you can start creating your own improvisations today.

And if you're more experienced, this post might spark new inspiration in your musical soul and send you running to your piano!

Whatever your skill level, this post will have you creating your own original music… and that's my whole goal here at RebeccasPianoKeys.com!

Keep reading to find out why borrowing chord progressions from old Christmas tunes is a good idea, and how to do it!

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Why Borrow Chord Progressions

First of all, let's just talk about why you would want to borrow chord progressions from other songs when creating your own original improvisations.

Learn Proven Progressions

These Christmas songs are well-loved songs that have stood the test of time. Their chord progressions have been proven. They work. They sound good, and people like them. So that means you don't have to spend time experimenting and trying to come up with the “perfect” chord progression for your improvisation.

And, you already know what kind of mood these Christmas songs evoke, so you can choose an appropriate Christmas song to borrow from based on what kind of mood you feel like creating.

Want to create a beautifully soft, relaxing atmosphere? Borrow from Silent Night.

Want to create some up-beat, mood-lifting music? Borrow from Deck the Halls.

Want to create something with a bit more brooding melodrama? Borrow from God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.

When you borrow a chord progression from a popular Christmas song, you know what you're going to get. You're going to get a chord progression that sounds good, and creates exactly the mood you're going for.

(Or you could even challenge yourself to create a completely different mood that uses the same chord progression!)

Be Inspired

It can be so easy to fall into a harmony rut, where all your improvisations are using the same old chord progressions.

Maybe you're always using the same chords. Maybe you change up your chords, but the overall structure and harmonic rhythm of your progressions never changes. Maybe you're always using major keys.

Now, I'm not saying your “same old chord progressions” are bad. You're probably creating beautiful music with them.

But if you've been using them for a while, you might be feeling like everything you play sounds the same, and you might be feeling a little bored and uninspired.

The good news is that these Christmas songs (especially older ones) came around before record labels started pumping out cookie-cutter pop music chart-toppers. So their chord progressions do some more creative things that you might not think of on your own.

So borrowing these chord progressions can be a great way to break yourself out of a creative rut. It can help you get out of your comfort zone and start experimenting with music that feels new and different for you to play.

And, this in itself could end up sparking some inspiration for you to create other brand new chord progressions of your own!

Experiment with More Advanced Chords

As a beginner, once you've mastered the basic triads, it's time to start incorporating seventh chords. But as a beginner, it can be difficult to understand how and when to use seventh chords.

Borrowing from popular Christmas songs is a great way to successfully experiment with seventh chords. You don't have to decide where to use them, how to lead into them, how to resolve them… all you have to do is play them!

And hopefully, while you're playing them, you're paying attention to how the song's chord progression leads into them and how it resolves them. Hopefully you're also listening to what you're playing and hearing what kind of sounds, emotions, and atmosphere are being created by the different combinations of chords and seventh chords.

Pay attention to all this and you'll learn a lot of tricks to take your playing, improvising, and composing skills to the next level!

Learn Christmas Songs!

And, of course, the sneaky Miyagi benefit of borrowing Christmas chord progressions for your improvisations is that by the time you're done improvising over the chords… you've mastered the chord progression!

This means you'll be able play that Christmas song sing-along style for your next holiday get-together!

And if you're any good at figuring out a melody by ear, you could even play the actual melody of the song over the chords and impress everyone by serenading them with their favourite Christmas songs!

Figuring Out a Song's Chord Progression

If you're going to borrow a chord progression to create your next piano improvisation, you're going to need 3 very important pieces of information: the chord progression, the key, and the time signature.

The chord progression will tell you what chords to play in your left hand, the key will tell you what notes are “safe” to use in your melody, and the time signature will tell you what beat to follow.

If you're a skilled musician with excellent ear skills, you might be able to figure these out on your own just by listening to the song.

But what if you don't have that ability? Don't worry, here are 3 other ways that are easier for beginners! (Number 3 is the best way!)

1) Ultimate-Guitar.com

Guitar tabs are a great way to figure out the chords and key of a song. If you can get your hands on a guitar tab, you don't need the ear skills to figure it out on your own from the song, and you don't need the music theory knowledge to determine the key based on what chords are present in the progression.

The most famous guitar tab website is Ultimate-Guitar.com. It has virtually every song, ever, in its database.

Now, the information on this website is not pretty, but it's extremely useful. It provides the lyrics, with simple chord labels above the words in all the appropriate places. And at the top of the song's page, it will also tell you what key the song is in.

As an added bonus, Ultimate-Guitar.com has a transpose feature, where you can transpose any song into any key you like, with just the click of a button. So if the song is in the key of Ab major, and you find those chords really intimidating… click the transpose button a few times until you get to the key of C major, and suddenly you might be looking at some much more friendly chords!

However, because U-G.com is a community site and the tabs are posted by members, there's no guarantee that the tabs are accurate. (They're usually pretty good though.)

And you'll need to have a pretty good sense of rhythm, since the tabs don't give you a time signature. You'll have to be able to to figure out for yourself if a song is in 4/4 time, 3/4 time, or 6/8 time.

2) Church Hymnals / Sheet Music

Some sheet music comes with chord symbols written above the music staff, at the beginning of each bar of music. And church hymnals are a great place to find classic Christmas songs!

The downside is that you'll have to do a bit of thinking to figure out what key the song is in, and you'll need a bit of music theory know-how in order to do this.

The first thing to check is the key signature. That will narrow it down to 2 possible keys, a major key, or its relative minor key. From there, you'll have to figure out if it's in the major key or the relative minor key.

Here are 3 hints you can look for to help you determine this:

Ending Chords

It's very common for a song end on the tonic chord, with the tonic note in the melody as well. So if your key signature tells you the song is in either C major or A minor, and the last chord of the song is a C major chord, then you know the song is in the key of C major.

Chord Families

Every musical key has 3 primary chords: the tonic chord, the dominant chord (a fifth above the tonic) and the sub-dominant chord (a fifth below the tonic). So if your key signature says you're in C major or A minor, and you see a lot of C, G, and F chords, you know you're in C major. But if you see a lot of Am, C, and Em chords, you know you're in A minor.

Accidentals

Finally, it's useful to know that composers often use the harmonic minor scale to create their melodies.

In the harmonic minor scale, the 7th scale degree is raised by one half-step.

The quickest way to find the 7th scale degree is to hop down one whole step from your tonic. So in the key of A minor, the 7th scale degree is G. If the key signature says you're in either C major or A minor, and you see some G# notes in the music, that's a good indication that you're in the key of A minor, not C major.

3) My Free Christmas Chord Charts!

The best way to get your hands on some chord progressions for Christmas songs is to download the freebies in my Piano Vault.

My free Christmas chord charts provide the chords, key, and time signatures for 5 popular Christmas songs: Silent Night, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, Deck the Halls, and Away in a Manger.

Scroll down to learn more about my free Christmas chord chart packages, or subscribe now to download them straight away!

What to Do with Your Borrowed Chord Progression

If you're already comfortable reading chord sheets, incorporating left hand patterns, and creating melodies, then scroll down, download your free chord charts, and go have some fun with your piano!

But if you're new to this, here are some tips to get you started as a beginner!

Solid Chords in Left Hand on Every Beat

The simplest thing you can do with your left hand is just play solid chords on every beat, and move to the next chord in the progression on every beat 1.

Or you could just play your solid chords on every beat 1, and hold them until the next chord.

Melody in the Right Hand

As a beginner, it's easiest to build your melody using only the notes from the pentascale of your song's key. The pentascale consists of the first 5 notes of any musical key.

• C major pentascale = C, D, E, F, and G
• A minor pentascale = A, B, C, D, and E
• G major pentascale = G, A, B, C, and D
• E minor pentascale = E, F#, G, A, and B

Start your melody on your tonic note (the first note of the scale), and play whatever feels good using any combination of notes from the pentascale.

Punctuate your melody by returning to the tonic note now and then. (Returning to the tonic note is like putting a period at the end of a sentence.)

It's also important that you make sure to add some breathing room to your melody. You can do this by adding some long, lingering notes here and there. Effective breathing room is what makes the difference between a melody and “a bunch of notes.”

Sample Improvisations Using Borrowed Christmas Song Chord Progressions

This video gives a quick demonstration of the chord progression for Away in a Manger, and 3 of my own improvisations that were created using the exact same chord progression! Check it out if you want to see borrowed chords in action.

I chose not to limit myself to the C major pentascale and instead allowed myself to use any of the notes from the key of C major. But if you're new to improvising, there is absolutely no shame in limiting yourself to the notes of the pentascale! I've often used only the pentascale of a given key to create beautiful music, and you can too!

I also opted to use chord inversions in my left hand to bring the chords closer together, but this isn't at all necessary. If you're a beginner and just working on learning your chords, you'd be better off to start with all your chords in root position.

Understanding Chord Symbols

If you're not already familiar with chord symbols, this post will help you understand the symbols that are used to represent basic triads.

There are other, more advanced types of chords, but major triads, minor triads, and seventh chords are the only 3 types of chords you'll need for the songs in my free Christmas chord charts.

7th Chords

To play a seventh chord, simply play a major triad, with a 4th note added 3 half-steps above the top note. For example, in a C7 chord, you would play the notes C, E, G, and B flat.

Free Christmas Chord Sheets

Now we're getting to the good stuff!

My free Christmas Chord Sheets!

I've created chord charts for 5 popular Christmas songs:

• Silent Night
• It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
• Deck the Halls
• Away in a Manger.

I've sized them to fit perfectly on a smartphone so you can easily play from these charts no matter where you are! No need for sheet music, no need to Google the chords, and no need to squint at tiny font from a website.

I've designed my chord charts to be simple, easy to follow, and visually appealing. The chord symbols are large for easy readability, and I've used a heavy white font on a dark background to reduce eye-strain.

To suit different playing abilities (and different vocal ranges for sing-alongs!) I've created 2 different versions of the chord charts. You can download the charts in the keys of G major/E minor, or C major/A minor.

Pick the freebie that is right for you… or go ahead and take both!

But whatever you do, don't forget to use these chord charts to create some of your own original music!

Related Christmas Songs Posts

• How to Build Any Piano Triad… in Seconds! [An Illustrated Guide]
• How to Use Dominant Seventh Chords and Major-Minor Seventh Chords
• How to Learn Hundreds of Pop Songs by Practicing Only One Song!
• How to Create Spooky Halloween Piano Music… for the Pianist Who Is Nervous About Improvisation
• 9 EASY Steps to Create Your First Piano Improvisation RIGHT NOW!