If you’re looking to entertain over the festive season, it’s time to start polishing up your holiday tunes and learning a few new ones. Here’s a rundown of everything Christmassy and seasonal on the site.

Christmas eBooks

I’ve written 3 collections of easy Christmas tabs: How to Play Christmas Ukulele, Christmas Ukulele 2 and Christmas Ukulele 3.

You can pick up all three for the price of 2 by buying the whole Christmas Trilogy at once.

Chords

12 Days of Christmas
2000 Miles – The Pretenders
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Christmas in July – Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Fuck Christmas – Eric Idle
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
I Wish it Was Christmas Today – SNL/Julian Casablancas
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Lumberjack Christmas/Christmases Past – Sufjan Stevens
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
Run, Run Rudolph – Chuck Berry
Santa Baby
Santa Will Find You – Mindy Smith/Tripping Lily
Silver Bells – She & Him
Somewhere Only We Know – Keane/Lily Allen
Space Christmas – Allo Darlin
Suddenly it’s Christmas – Loudon Wainwright III
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch

Tabs

All I Want for Christmas is You – Mariah Carey
Away in a Manger
Carol of the Bells
Christmastime Is Here (from Charlie Brown)
German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Little Drummer Boy
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence – David Bowie
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Baby
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
Various – Wilfried Welti’s Musikalisches Naschwerk für Solo Ukulele
We Three Kings
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland

Ray Charles – Georgia On My Mind (Tab)

I hastily put together this version of the Hoagy Carmichael classic last week while it was still relevant. But it turns out this song is going to be relevant for a while yet.

My version is heavily based on Ray Charles. But I’ve made a few adjustments. For the intro, I played around with the chords and I added on an old-school blues outro.

The picking is a bit haphazard, but it’s mainly melody notes picked with supporting chords strummed. Other than a few moves up and down the neck, there’s nothing particularly tricky and the tune flows beautifully.

Links

Buy the song
More 30s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Norwegian Uke – Snappin'
Walk off the Earth – Thunderstruck
Inni-K – Sweet Geranium
Edem Soul – Leave All Your Burdens
Markus Rantanen – Valdemar
The Kid LAROI – So Done
Arko Mukhaerjee – Without You
Aabha Hanjura – Hukus Bukus

Two excellent new instrumental albums: from Finland Markus Rantanen’s debut Ukulele and from Israel, composer and producer, Ziv Grinberg’s Ukulele Fantasies.

Vulfpeck‘s Cory Wong chats with Jake Shimabukuro about technique, gear and touring with Bela Fleck. A big step above the standard Shimabukuro interview. (Thanks to Dan for the tip-off.)

CPR Classical ask James Hill and Anne Janelle how their raising their son to love music.

The UOGB have released a new DVD collecting their COVID restricted videos: The Ukulele Lockdown

Patreon

A massive thanks to Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running. And double thanks go to October’s Tenor backers:

– Arthur Foley
– Dan.
– Fiona Keane.
– Joseph Freeman.
– Katherine Penney.
– Kie77.
– Mr Daniel Barclay.
– Nick Parsons
– Olga deSanctis.
– Pat Weikle.
– Pauline LeBlanc.
– Sandi Clement.
– Thorsten Neff.
– Trevor Mccravy.

October’s Patreon exclusive for Concert and Tenor level backers is Neil Young’s Harvest Moon.

Frankie Valli – Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (Tab)

For this arrangement I’ve mashed-up elements of the Andy Williams version and the original Frankie Valli version. Like the Williams version, mine is in the uke-friendly key of C all the way through. Whereas the Valli version starts in E and modulates to G.

The verses are fairly straightforward. A simple melody with descending notes on the g-string. Things get a little harder with preposterous Austin Powers bridge. Then ramp up to a chorus with fancy chords and a few jumps around the neck.

Links

Buy the Frankie Valli version
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

It’s Uke Hunt t-shirt season again! Most years around this time I do a run of t-shirts. This year you can buy them from either the US or the UK:

Pre-order now from US

Pre-order now from the UK

I’m using Teespring again this year. If you want one of the shirts they’ll only be available until 27th November.

They’ve changed how it works slightly since the last time I used them. Instead of waiting until the end of the campaign to print the shirts, they’re printed every three days. So you won’t have to wait until the end of the campaign to get your shirt.

I’ve been using Teespring for many years now and it’s always worked well. My shirt came here (the UK) quickly and without any hassle. It’s nice quality. The one I have is five years old and it’s still in good shape.

Pre-order from US

Pre-order from the UK

For more information on the shirts and the system take a look at Teespring’s FAQ.

Sylvan Esso – Rooftop Dancing (Tab)

There’s been a healthy crop of great albums this year. My current favourite is Sylvan Esso’s Free Love. So I grabbed my uke and put together a cover of Rooftop Dancing.

The song fits nicely on uke. The chords are simple and the melody is contained in the first five frets. There’s only one trip up the fretboard in bars 15-18. This section is essentially the intro moved up an octave. So you can substitute the intro there if you prefer.

The challenge in the song is the speed of some notes in the melody. I’ve made things a little easier by removing a few notes. But you’ll still need to do some alternate picking to keep up.

Links

Buy the song
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Kamakakehau Fernandez – He Mele No Hina
Elisabeth Pfeiffer – Galliarde
Ziv Grinberg – Ukulele Fantasie no.2
Winchester 7 & the Runners – My Super 8
Maia & TJ Mayeshiro – Nada Sou Sou
Natasha Ghosh – ily.
Ukulele Death Squad – Insano
Birch Pereira – I'll Come Running Back To You
Ukulele Solos – Clair de Lune

Harold Melvin – Don’t Leave Me This Way (Tab)

Don’t Leave Me This Way was originally recorded by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. But by far the most well known version in the UK is by the The Communards. It’s also been covered by Thelma Houston and briefly popped up in Moulin Rouge. This version is based on the Melvin version with shades of the very similar Communards version.

The biggest element of this song is the switch from D minor in the intro and verses to D major in the chorus. Unlike the strange change from major to minor, the change from minor to major is pure fun and lifts the song as it enters the big hook.

The outro for both the Melvin and The Communards version are very loose. So I went into the outro with that spirit and improvised around the D-C-G progression. I’d encourage you to play around with your own ideas in that section.

Links

Buy the Harold Melvin version
More soul tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Now you’ve got your suggestive zither costume together, here are some tunes you may wish to bone up on before the big night.

Addams Family Theme Tune
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Chopin – Funeral March
Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains
Dance Macabre
The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers
The Doors – People Are Strange
The Fall – Mansion
The Gothic Archies – Freakshow
Halloween Theme
Harry Potter – Hedwig’s Theme
The Last of Us II –
Through the Valley
London Bridge Is Falling Down (From Halloween)
The Misfits – Dig Up Her Bones
The Misfits – Halloween
My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (from The Exorcist)
One Night Ultimate Werewolf – Fantasy Theme
Ray Parker Jr – Ghostbusters
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
Gustavo Santaolalla – Last of Us Theme
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
This is Halloween (From Nightmare Before Christmas)
Tom Waits – Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
Twilight Zone Theme
Twin Peaks Theme
The Walking Dead Theme
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
The White Stripes – Little Ghost

Five Halloween riffs/intros: Thriller, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Sweet Dreams, Don’t Fear the Reaper and Jump in the Line
Five More Halloween riffs: Voodoo Child (Slight Return), All the Good Girls Go To Hell, Suspiria Theme, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, Evil Eye.

And a tutorial to spookify your playing:

Spooky Ukulele Sounds