Happy, Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah is a very happy and lighthearted holiday. And what's more happy and lighthearted than a ukulele?! "Happy, Happy Hanukkah!" gives you the opportunity to sing a bright and cheery song and play the ukulele at the same time. Of course, if it is easier, you can have one group do the singing and another group do the ukulele playing.

The song begins with a one measure drum set-up so that your ukulele players can get the tempo and be ready to start playing in measure 1. Note that there is a simple rhythmic pattern written out for the ukulele, but if your players would like to be more creative, they can strum freely to the beat of the song. On the full performance and accompaniment tracks, we have a ukulele playing freely as a guide. There are only four chords used – C, Ami, F, and G. To make things even easier, you could split your players into four groups, with each one taking one of the needed chords. You can download a ukulele part from our web site for free.

The song itself is very simple and most students should be able to sing it, even your youngest. And because it's unison and repetitious, it probably won't take long to learn it.

The lyrics of the song mention a few Hanukkah traditions such as lighting candles one by one, spinning dreidels, etc. If you'd rather just use this tune as a ukulele feature, you could have the ukuleles play and not have any singing, or have the performers just hum or whistle the tune.