https://youtu.be/sepZuhu4iqM - Twelve Days of Christmas Ukulele Tutorial
“Counting songs” are common in children's music – for example, “Old McDonald Had a Farm” – but The Twelve Days of Christmas has an unusual pedigree. The lyrics are from English folklore, probably around the end of the seventeenth century, with charming images of leaping lords and swimming swans. The melody is another story. Since the song was published in England around 1780, the melody was also assumed to be English. However, there’s a French folk tune with a nearly identical melody, so “Twelve Days” could easily be a musical hybrid from two countries who don't always get along.
It’s fun to get silly with the Twelve Days of Christmas – in fact, it’s almost impossible to get too silly with it, so don’t be afraid to write your own lyrics, change the tempo, and have different people sing different verses.
Be sure you practice the “partridge in a pear tree” chord progression until you can do it quite quickly. The chords are C, F, C, G7, C, with one chord per beat. See how Jenny demonstrates this in the video. The Twelve Days of Christmas changes both tempo and key more and more as verses are added. The “four calling birds, three French hens” part is in 3/4 time, so a single down strum for each measure of these verses sounds great. For the 4/4 parts (“two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree”), play down, down-up, down, down-up, or you can just keep it simple and play all down strums. Days 6-12 are in 3/4 time and can be played with all down strums, or down, down-up, down.
The “five golden rings” verse temporarily changes to the key of G major, so it deserves a bit of special treatment. You can substitute the two-fingered form of D7 in place of the three-finger D chord if you wish. It’s fun to strum a tremolo for “rings” by quickly swinging your right index finger back and forth in the middle of the fretboard.
To learn lots more ukulele chords, try our playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5meDCz5zO-B8UjXstv_2WurNRGJyyWz8.
To spice up your strumming, try our playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5meDCz5zO-DD1mcV8_t_tuga9MzOJA46
Want to learn to play the theme music from our intro? Check out https://youtu.be/YznUjC8pnUQ.
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