Jingle Bells is one of the most popular secular Christmas songs in the world. You will learn the chords to the song and also to play the melody in this ukulele lesson!
I will show you how to play the song by using ukulele tablature. Tablature is a music notational system that shows you where to put your fingers on your ukulele in order to play melodies and chords.
The most common type of tablature notation or tabs uses lines that represent the strings and numbers on the lines to show which frets to press down.
I will use another type of tab notation that I call number tabs.
Why number tabs?
1. Number tabs work better on article sites and will not be distorted if the fonts are changed.
2. Number tabs makes the information accessible to visually impaired readers using braille.
I will not use lines to represent the strings but instead use numbers for both strings and frets this way:
fret/string
This means that the first number will tell you which fret to press down and the number after the slash which string to use. 3/1 for example means: Press down the third fret on the first string!
0/1 means, play the first string without pressing down a fret! This is called to play an open string.
The first string is the bottom string when you play the uke the ordinary way.
Here are the first chord, C-major, that we will use in this song:
C: 0/4 0/3 0/2 3/1
In this chord you can see that the only string to press down is the first string but you will play all four strings together.
When you play this chord you should strum the strings from the fourth down to the first string with your right hand thumb or your index finger or in some other way.
Now we can sing the first line of the song. I have put the chord in brackets before the syllable where you are to start playing it. You can strum the chord in an even pace according to your taste:
(C)Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way
In order to sing the next line and play the chords you will need the chord F-major:
F: 2/4 0/3 1/2 0/1
And here is the next line:
(F)Oh! what fun it (C)is to ride
For the next line we need the chord D7 and G7:
D7: 2/4 0/3 2/2 0/1
G7: 0/4 2/3 1/2 2/1
Here is the next line to play:
In a (D7)one-horse open (G7)sleigh
Then you have to sing the lyrics once more with slightly different chords:
(C)Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way
(F)Oh! what fun it (C)is to ride
In a (G7)one-horse open (C)sleigh
Here you have the same song with the melody written with ukulele tabs:
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way
0/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 0/2 3/2 0/3 2/3 0/2
Oh! what fun it is to ride
1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 1/2 0/2 0/2
In a one-horse open sleigh
0/2 0/2 0/2 2/3 2/3 0/2 2/3 3/2
Then you have to play the melody once more and change the last line to:
In a one-horse open sleigh
0/2 0/2 3/2 3/2 1/2 2/3 0/3
I suggest that you play the notes in the melody that are on the first fret with you index finger, the notes on the second fret with your middle finger and the notes on the third fret with your ring finger.
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