Christmas Ukulele: Silent Night (Tab)


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Silent Night (Tab)(PDF)

In the ukulele harmonics post I promised tab for a harmonics only version of Silent Night. I hope you’ve been practicing the stuff in that post, because here it is. And it’s tricky.

This version starts off fairly easy. The natural harmonics at the twelfth fret shouldn’t cause too many difficulties. It’s much more difficult to get clean harmonics at the fifth and seventh frets.

In bar 14 the artificial harmonics start. here you have to keep track of where both your left and right hands are. I find it easier to start the artificial harmonic technique at the beginning of bar 13 to avoid switching hands quickly.

The hardest note in the entire piece is the first note in bar 18. You have to fret the A string with your left hand and play a harmonic at the eighth fret (seven frets above the note you’re playing). It’s very difficult to get that one to sound cleanly.

Even though it’s tricky, I think it’s worth playing. The harmonics give it a Christmas bell feel to it.

If you want a non-harmonic, easy to play tab of Silent Night there’s one in my Christmas ukulele ebook.

Creative Commons License
This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Another Harmonic Tune

After my harmonic post Jimmy of the Bobby McGee’s suggested Popcorn as another tune that sounds great with harmonics. And he’s absolutely right.

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11 Comments

  1. Jules December 22nd, 2008 11:16 am

    I just wanted to say thanks for this tab.
    A really inventive way to play this piece. I found it ‘easier’ (*Kaah!* yeah!) to play the harmonics with my right hand.
    Stop the note gently with my RH index finger and pick the string with my thumb..left over guitar technique I reckon?!
    Or mebbe I’m just weird!

  2. Woodshed December 22nd, 2008 7:59 pm

    Jules: No that’s one way to do it – I’m doing that with the artificial harmonics and a few other notes.

  3. peewee December 1st, 2009 8:34 pm

    i so look forward to checkng my mail everyday to see what treasure al has left for me on this site—-keep up the great job and keep them coming ——peewee–usa

  4. Woodshed December 3rd, 2009 5:05 pm

    peewee: Thanks very much for the kind words.

  5. Silent Night (Single Note Version)(Tab) | Ukulele Hunt December 3rd, 2009 6:01 pm

    […] it’s too easy for you, you can try to play the very tricky all harmonics version. Or you can split the difference and play the middling version in How to Play Christmas […]

  6. Rob NY December 5th, 2009 7:31 pm

    There is a nice version on uker tabs.Not to difficult.

  7. caroline April 14th, 2010 12:02 am

    i’m a fan of this tab http://www.akulele.com/tabs_silentnight.html and its nice arpeggio. whatcha think?

  8. ukugirl December 11th, 2010 9:38 am

    Thanks Al, God Bless and have a wonderful Christmas

  9. Ukemorph December 4th, 2011 2:12 pm

    Im just wondering, no one else having a problem with the “2c”-tab on “night”? sounds really off to me. uke is tuned and should be fine, am I the only one? thanx for response!

  10. Ukemorph December 4th, 2011 2:14 pm

    @caroline: how do i read those tabs? have no idea… thx for help!

  11. claudia December 5th, 2012 6:02 pm

    I can’t get the Silent Night Harmonics version to open. any suggestions?

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