Until then, happy holidays (if you’re into that kind of thing) whatever that may be and however you choose to spend it. I’ll be eating, drinking, gambling and letting my servants wear my clothes in celebration of Saturnalia.

Here’s a selection of my favourite ukulele Christmas videos. See you in 2012!

Tripping Lily – Santa Will Find You

The Mad Tea Party – Oh Shit, it’s Christmastime!

Todd Baio – Christmas Wishes

Michael McDonald – That’s What Christmas Means to Me

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Sleigh Ride

Tim Keough – Ukulele Christmas Medley

Rocky and Balls – The Christmas Song Song

Garfunkel and Oates – Scary F**ked Up Christmas

Jonathan Miller – You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Savannah Smith – Ex-Mas

Alexa Goddard & Brett Domino – Fairytale Of New York

Vince Guaraldi Trio – Christmas Time Is Here (Tab)

Tis the season to be jazzy. And I’ve thrown some decidedly jazzy bits into this tune from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

I’ve added an intro with a few licks (using the E minor pentatonic scale) and some discordant chords. It’s played very loosely so feel free to change whatever you like or – even better – come up with your own.

Other than some unfamiliar chords, the tune isn’t too challenging. The right hand is all done with the thumb (except for the last chord).

Buy the MP3

Away in a Manger (Full Arrangement Tab)

I thought I’d do a tab to give you an idea of what the stuff in the How to Play Christmas Ukulele ebook is like. Which, by the way, you can get $2 off if you use the code ‘armadillo’ by the 18th December.

But I’m not sure why I chose this one. I can’t stand the ‘baby Jesus meek and mild’ lyrics. I’m more into the ‘Jesus is here to fuck shit up‘ songs. But the tunes nice.

Like in the ebook, I’ve done two arrangements for this. The first one is a full arrangement that has the melody and back played on one uke. It’s arranged very simply. The right hand is all done with the thumb. And the left hand is based on familiar chord shapes (F, Bb, Gm and C).

Melody Arrangement

Away in a Manger (Melody Arrangement Tab)

The second arrangement is even simpler. The tab is just the single note melody which stays in the first position (except a quick trip to the fifth fret). And the chords above it.

For the strumming I’m doing this once for each bar:

d – d u d -

Here’s that being played:

Away in a Manger (MP3)

I’ve put the chords and melody on different sides so you can adjust your balance and play along with either.

Buy How to Play Christmas Ukulele

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

Chuck Berry – Run Run Rudolph (Chords)

An easy 3-chord Christmas song. And the benefit of being a twofer since Little Queenie (worth clicking for the video) is exactly the same.

Suggested Strumming

You can just stick with a simple down-up pattern with a bit of emphasis. Like this:

d u D U d u D U

Or you can throw in a few sixth chords like this:

I’m doing all down strums on this:

Strum

Twiddly Bits

An essential Berry intro:

Intro

And a not so essential harmonized outro:

Buy the MP3

- Make the arrangements easier.
- Make the tabs bigger.
- Do videos.

So that’s what I’ve done.

I’ve made the full arrangements simpler. There’s less fancy fingerpicking – they’re mostly just using the thumb of the right hand. And even simpler still, I’ve done melody-only arrangements (so you’re just playing one note at a time) with chord boxes for the backing.

There are videos for all the full arrangements and MP3s for all the melody arrangements (they’re made so you can adjust the balance on your speakers and play along to the chord backing).

The book has a new look and the tabs are easier to read.

If you bought the first edition, you should already have an email letting you download the new edition free. If not, send an email to howtoplayukulele@yahoo.co.uk with the email address you used to buy it and you’ll get the second edition.

The price is $9. But if you use the code “armadillo” (type it in the box on the left – without the quotes – then hit ‘Update Cart’) before 18th December you’ll get $2 off.

Click the button below to buy it or go to How to Play Ukulele to find out more.

How to Play Christmas Ukulele $9 $7 with the code “armadillo”.

What You Get

Once you’ve paid (payments handled by PayPal) you’ll be taken to the download page and receive an email with a link to the page where you can download a zip file containing:

- Tab for full arrangements 11 Christmas tunes for standard tuning (gCEA re-entrant). You can watch videos of all of them being played on YouTube.
- Tab and standard notation for the melodies only with accompanying chord boxes.
- A pdf file containing performance notes for all the tunes and descriptions of some of the techniques used.
- MP3s of all the melody arrangements. You can hear the melody being played and – after a bit fiddling with your balance knob – use them as a backing track.

If you haven’t bought an ebook from me before you might want to read the FAQ page for more information. And if you’re using an iPad or any idevice, you’ll need to download to your computer, unzip and transfer the files from there.

The Full Arrangements

Here are the videos for all of the full arrangements:

Auld Lang Syne
Deck the Halls
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Good King Wenceslas (Rocky Version)
Good King Wenceslas (Traditional Version)
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Here We Come A-Wassailing
In the Bleak Midwinter
Silent Night
Sussex Carol
The Holly and the Ivy
Twelve Days of Christmas

Melody Arrangements

Auld Lang Syne

Deck the Halls

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

Good King Wenceslas

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Here We Come A Wassailing

In the Bleak Midwinter

Silent Night

Sussex Carol

The Holly and the Ivy

Twelve Days of Christmas

Buy It Now

Click the button below to buy it or go to How to Play Ukulele to find out more.

How to Play Christmas Ukulele $9 $7 with the code “armadillo”.

Chords

12 Days of Christmas
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Santa Baby
Silver Bells – She & Him
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch

Tabs

German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
White Christmas

She and Him – Silver Bells (Chords)

Good to see Zooey Deschanel busting out the ukulele for this cover of Livingston and Evans’s Silver Bells on She and Him’s Christmas album. Also good to see that she’s handled being constantly referred to as ‘adorkable’ without having sprayed crowded streets with machine-gun fire.

Suggested Strumming

Zooey goes with mostly just down-strums all the way through. It’s in 3/4 time so do three down strums each for the C-Cmaj7 bit and six strums for everything else.

If you want to vary it up, you can replace a set of three down-strums with:

d – d u d u

Buy the MP3

So, to save you from the social disgrace I experienced, I’ve put together a mini-ebook covering the basics that every first time uke owner needs to know. Here’s what it contains:

Five Things to Know
Five Chords to Learn
Five Songs to Play
Five Websites to Visit
Five Things to Get Free
Five Things to Buy
Five Videos to Watch
Five YouTube Channels to Subscribe to

You can download it free by clicking here:

So You Just Got Your First Ukulele (PDF)

And get playing by following the beginner ukulele lessons.

Tripping Lily – Santa Will Find You

Thanks to tuscadero.

Todd Baio – Christmas Wishes

Josh Skaja – John King’s Gloria (Angels We Have Heard On High)

Alexa Goddard & Brett Domino – Fairytale Of New York

Michael McDonald – This Christmas

Savannah Smith – Ex-Mas

Jennifer Zuffinetti – Dashing in the Snow

Lisaxy424 – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

The Hives and Cyndi Lauper – A Christmas Duel (Chords)

It could be the swearing that does it for me rather than the Swedishness. But that would make this my favourite Christmas song.

Suggested Strumming

All down strums for the first bit (and the odd other bit in the song). And this one should see you through:

d – d u – u d -

Twice for each chord in the verses. Once for each chord in the bridge and chorus (except the last ones).

Twiddly Bits

It’s always a bit of a fag moving stuff from piano to uke but this just about works.

If you don’t have a 15th fret, just go with a standard C chord at the end.

(Holy crumble, Gary Glitter is on that album – maybe don’t buy the whole thing).