When Santa Plays His Ukulele

Need a happy holiday tune that highlights your ukulele players? Here it is! "When Santa Plays His Ukulele" is a fun, laid-back song that your singers will love to sing and your ukulele players will enjoy playing. 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 ukulele chords used are C6, F, A7, D7, and G7. Note that we have provided two ways to play the D7. One is the traditional version and is a bit more difficult to play. The other isn't exactly a D7 (it uses the notes F#, A, and C – an F-sharp diminished chord), but fits nicely in the tune and is much easier to play. To make things even easier, you could split your players into four groups, with each one taking one of the needed chords. As usual, we have provided a written ukulele part in the score, but we also encourage your players to freely strum along. A PDF of the extracted part is also available on our web site.

Playing and dancing! - For yet more fun, our amazing choreographer, Melissa Schott, was inspired by this easy-going style and chose it as one of her feature numbers for this issue. That makes it even more perfect for performances! You can find her helpful demo video online along with a PDF of her movement notes. Use her moves as she shows them, or adapt them freely for your own situation.