song: One Christmas Night
artist: Tommy Emmanuel
writer: Tommy Emmanuel
performance: YouTube video (9th of November 2012), promoting his album All I Want for Christmas (2011)

steel-string acoustic guitar: Tommy Emmanuel

This is a complete and detailed transcription of Tommy Emmanuel’s YouTube performance of his original composition “One Christmas Night”. The transcription is complete with fingering-notation and the voices notated separately. The main sections are relatively easy to play, accessible to mid-level guitar players, while the intro/outro harmonic lends a challenge to everyone – see the technique up close in this live clip at WCCB Charlotte. Enjoy!

“ While John [Knowles] and I were arranging some of the traditional Christmas songs for [the All I Want for Christmas] album, I just suddenly had the idea that I wanted to have a go at writing a traditional Christmas carol myself… and ‘cause I needed the royalties, you see… you know, like Paul McCartney and John Lennon… anyway!… So, I checked out all the carols that we all know, and I thought: »Okay, it starts out with a little introduction, then there’s a repeating verse-melody, and then there’s the bridge that goes here, and then there’s a little mystery, and then it comes back again, and it does the whole thing again, and so on… Okay, I think I can do that!« So here it is: It’s called One Christmas Night, and it starts and ends with a little music box. ”
– Tommy Emmanuel, Live! Christmas Time (2020)