Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree (Brenda Lee) Guitar Lesson with TAB

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB lesson.
In this guitar lesson, we work on how to comp all sections before we learn the original guitar parts!


Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree | TAB


Let’s go through how to play all the chords from Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree using TAB, ignoring the original guitar licks.

We do this because, on the original recording, many backing vocals take on this role. At your gig, there will most likely only be one singer and someone has to provide the chords.

Here’s the verse, or how I would suggest you do this. When you can play as the TAB display, it’ll be obvious that this part can be improvised.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, verse idea.

Let’s move on to the bridge and do the same.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, bridge idea.


And finally, let’s look at the last part of verse 3 and the end. I’ve taken inspiration from the original guitar part by adding and taking away dom7 chords to the first Eb chord.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, end idea.

When you can play like this for the complete song, move everything up to an Ab in a C shape and play all chords there.

When you feel comfortable, learn the original parts, starting with the original intro, it looks like this:

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, intro.

Notice how the Ab is 6 and root, making it an Ab6 chord. The Fm is root and m3rd, the Bbm7 is 5th and b7. All these notes are the same, you need to see this.

The final bar is Eb dominant chords as we hit the 9, 6, and b7. Do make sure you can see how this is happening. Try incorporating these extensions further down the neck.



Here’s lick 1, this comes back all the time.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, lick 1.

When you can play it, work on integrating this into the comping we practised at the beginning of this lesson.

Here’s lick 2.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, lick 2.

Again, you need to practice integrating this with the comping.

Lastly, here’s the outro, notice the similarity to the intro.

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree TAB, outro.


Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree TAB | Related Pages


Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree | Chords + Lyrics

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree chords lesson.

Learn Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.

| Ab | Ab | Eb7 | Eb7 |
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree at the Christmas party hop…


Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics

When you can play Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree's chords, try these five tunes from the songbook.


Brenda Lee tunes

Brenda Lee tunes.

Brenda Lee is known for a string of hits during the 60s, charting 47 songs on the Billboard Hot 100.

Her best tunes include Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Sweet Nothin’s, Fool #1, I’m Sorry, and Break It To Me Gently.


Brenda Lee on the web

Listen to Brenda Lee on Spotify.


About me | Dan Lundholm

Dan Lundholm wrote this guitar lesson and TAB for Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree.

This guitar lesson by Dan Lundholm features TAB and covers Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.

Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.


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