Every December, "Snowman" crawls out of Sia's Christmas album, climbs into your ear, and refuses to leave until roughly mid-March. It is objectively unfair that a song about a melting snowman is this sticky — but here we are, and resistance is useless.
So I did the only reasonable thing and arranged it as a MelodyChords piece, where one lonely guitar plays the melody and the chords at the same time. No band, no backing track, no capo held by an actual snowman — just six strings pretending to be an entire wintry pop production, with tabs included so you can melt along at home.
How this MelodyChords arrangement works
The whole trick to MelodyChords (or chord-melody, if you're feeling fancy) is voicing: the melody note always lives on the highest string you pluck, and everything underneath is harmony your thumb quietly takes care of. Sia's tune sits in a warm minor key with a bittersweet lilt, so as long as the top voice sings the melody clearly, your ear happily fills in the rest as "chords".
The genuinely useful takeaway: let your melody notes ring. Fret them where they can sustain — favour open strings and the top two strings — while your thumb changes the bass and inner voices underneath. If the melody keeps ringing while the harmony moves around it, one guitar suddenly sounds like three. It's the same principle behind my Last Christmas arrangement, just with more snow.
Will your thumb file a formal complaint after ten minutes? Absolutely. Will it hold up better than an actual snowman in a Zürich living room? Also absolutely. If you want the Guitar Pro file and the original video, they're melting slowly over on my Patreon.