Christmas Ukulele: You’re A Mean One, Mr Grinch (Chords)

You’re A Mean One, Mr Grinch (Chords)(PDF)

I always use this song as the soundtrack to my pre-Christmas chores: stealing presents, setting light to trees and punching reindeer. So I’ve written up the chords for Jonathan K Miller’s excellent ukulele version.

Christmas Ukulele: Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Chords)

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Chords)(PDF)

The first and most famous version of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree was by Brenda Lee, but these chords are taken from the version by Roses Polenzani and Cousins. All the chords are pretty simple. And I’ve substituted the E chord in the intro for an E7 to make it even simpler.

Christmas Ukulele: All I Want For Christmas Is You (Chords)

Mariah Carey – All I Want For Christmas Is You (Chords)(PDF)

The secret is out; I’m a massive Mariah fan.

Or not. I decided to write up the song after watching the ukulele version by Mariel a la Mode and Uni and her Ukulele. But I ended up missing the jazzier chords in it and wrote up the Mariah version instead. But they’re both in the same key and not a million miles apart, so play along with whichever you prefer.

Plus, it has the de rigueur Christmas intro:

Christmas Ukulele: White Christmas (Chords)

Jason Castro – White Christmas (Easy Chords)(PDF)

Jason ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow on American Idol‘ Castro has just released a ukulele version of White Christmas and you can get it free on Amazon (or on ReverbNation if you’re outside the US). I don’t want to be mean at Christmas time, but I’m guessing that isn’t him ukeing on the track because it being played well.

But he is playing it on this very simple version. I thought that, since I’ve already done a tricky tab for White Christmas, I’d write up these very simple chords

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.

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.

Ukulele Christmas List: KoAloha, Charnago, World Peace

Dear Santa,

I’ve been ever such a good boy this year and if your list says an different it must be an administrative error because the police station was on fire when I got there.

So here’s the stuff I want:

A tenor KoAloha Sceptre (or at least a concert koa ukulele).

Ukulele Hero T-Shirt – now gone forever. As an alternative, I’ll go for this one.

A Charango aka the Bolivian super-ukulele.

Whatever this is.

A re-up Anne’s video of her Lanikai ukulele review.

A chicken finger shaped like a rabbit.

A ukulele necklace.

An unplayable Ukelin.

The immediate arrest of everyone who inaccurately labels African MP3s ‘Reggae’.

A tacky ukulele Christmas ornament.

eBay to ban people using the words ‘Martin’ and ‘ukulele’ in the title of items that aren’t Martin ukuleles. I don’t care if it’s ‘like Martin’, ‘has Martin strings’ or is a Martin Rival.

Thanks, Dude.

Al

Christmas Ukulele: Winter Wonderland (Chords)

Winter Wonderland (Chords)(PDF)

Another Christmas song with no reference to Christmas in it but I loved the version by keonepax with Bosko and Honey I had to write it up.

In the chord chart I’ve shown the chord inversions that keonepax is playing, but it’s great to mix them up with other inversions. Here are a few possibilities.

In the solo Bosko is using quite a few sixths:

And finishes of with a cool little variation on the Hawaiian turnaround. Here’s my take on the same idea:

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keonepax’s YouTube Page
Bosko and Honey

Christmas Ukulele: German Carol Tabs

Weihnachten mit der Ukulele (PDF)

As well as his classical and traditional tab book, Wilfried Welti has also put together an ebook of German Christmas carols. Some of these – such as O, Tannenbaum and Stille Nacht – are very familiar outside of Germany. Some of them are less recognisable – such as Ihr Kinderlein Kommet (O Come, Little Children). Others are entirely new to me but have great tunes such as Lieb Nachtigall. All of them are beautifully and simply arranged for the uke.

Visit Wilfried Welti’s YouTube channel.

Christmas Ukulele: 12 Days of Christmas (Chords)

12 Days of Christmas (Chords)(PDF)

Incredibly irritating to song to go through sober, but the big advantage of it is that all the numbers from 12 to 6 just require one strum of a D chord.

The best bit, obviously, is the ‘FIVE GOLDEN RIIIIIIIINGS’. I like to beef that part up a bit with these chords:

I also like to add bits of the melody into the chord accompaniment as well. And a solo version in this key is, handily enough, in my How to Play Christmas Ukulele ebook.

There are two different versions of the D chord in the chart: one with an open A string and one with the A string at the fifth fret. But you can use just one of them the whole way through if you’re not comfortable with either. I’m going to have to come up with a better way of referring to different inversions of a chord than calling it ‘alt’, let me know because there must be one. Perhaps calling it D, D’, D”. Let me know your suggestions.

Requested by Annie

Christmas With The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I find most Christmas songs unbearably bad. The only type of Christmas songs I love are the old Pagan ones that have had a thin layer of Christianity papered on top (much like Christmas itself) and one of the best, Down in Yon Forest, crops up on the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s new Christmas album. A quick lyric sample: “In the bed there lays a knight / Whose wounds do bleed by day and night / Under that bed there runs a flood / The one half runs water the other runs blood.” … and a Happy New Year.

But there’s plenty of jollity on the album as well along with a bunch of lyric changing that I’m dying to quote here and entirely ruin for you. These humorous, singalongs are enhanced by being recorded live while the more intricate songs are recorded in the studio.

But the highlight of the album for me is – as you might expect – the top notch uke playing. Their instrumental version of Wassail is a masterclass in arranging for a ukulele group – everywhere you look there’s something interesting going on and it still works as a whole – and Christmas Rose is a beautifully played waltz. They use the uke in some interesting ways; the album opens with sleigh bells imitated by playing the strings behind the nut. The uke playing highlight of the album is the album closer: a funky-ass version of Good King Wenceslas. The intro is incredible. I don’t know how they manage to build those up.

You can buy Christmas with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and listen to extracts here.
And The Ukes will be turning up on Colin Murray’s Christmas Show on Radio 1 on the 22nd December (who has some mad ukulele skillz himself).

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