I don’t mean devious in topic matter—I’m talking musical structure.
For the past couple years—having overcome a certain Scroogey tendency (and having improved as a guitar player)—I like to pick up the old axe and break out the holiday songbook.
(Metaphorically, I mean—I use the Guitar Tabs app.)
And, every year, I am blown away by how hard some of these songs are to play.
With more of a country and folk background—three chords and the truth!—I am bowled over by the complex chords in certain Christmas songs.
F#m7b5?
My 101-level music theory no longer in arm’s reach, I have to sit down and stare at that chord to make sense of it. There’s no way for me to just pluck it from the air the way I can like with Am7.
And then there’s the melodies—“Christmas Song” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” force you to listen to yourself singing. In other words: you have to try to sing. You can’t just wing it like we’ve all drunkenly done at karaoke.
Taylor Coe 