Season 409: Yuletide Celebration

Tootler

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This theme started out slightly differently but it evolved. Then after I had got everything ready I found I had used basically the same theme and the same intro song this time last year, though new recording and video. It is now too late to change so here goes.



The winter soltice has traditionally been a time of celebration. In pre Christian times it celebrated the return of the sun after and the end of the darkening days. In old Norse it was called "Yule", a term we still use today in English. It is still called "Yule" in Scandavia. The Christians later adopted the Winter feast as the time to Celebrate the birth of Christ, so whatever your beliefs, this time of year is traditionally one of celebration. The challenge this week is to record a song to celebrate the season. It can be religious or secular. It can be an original or a cover. The choice is yours.

The usual rules and guidelines apply

* The recording must be new and made for this week
* Ukulele must be prominent feature though other instruments may also feature.
* State somewhere your video is for Season 357
* Start and finsh times as usual, 8 days starting midnight Hawaii on Sunday morning and ending Midnight Hawaii the following Saturday night
* Most importantly, this is about fun so enjoy yourselves.

Stick to one song a day and I should be able to keep up. Things have been a bit hectic chez Walker recently. I'll relax the limit if I find I'm keeping up OK

If you're not sure if a song fits, it probably does so do it and enter it anyway. No need to check with me. I'm not going to reject any of your entries. They are all good.

Playlist

I will comment on individual songs on You Tube and add periodic summaries in the thread.
 
:smileybounce::smileybounce::smileybounce:
 
Got the band back together...well the siblings anyway.
John Poole - baritone uke, Brother Michael - Telecaster slide, Sister Vicki on Tambourine and vocals, Sister Jeanette a guest appearance from Melbourne on vocals and shaker,
John Prine's - Christmas in Prison.
 
I do not seek power glory or wealth by Club for Five

En etsi valtaa, loistoa, en kaipaa kultaakaan;
ma pyydän taivaan valoa ja rauhaa päälle maan
Se joulu suo, mi onnen tuo ja mielet nostaa Luojan luo
Ei valtaa eikä kultaakaan, vaan rauhaa päälle maan.
 
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Hello, Geoff ... and thanks for giving us the "Christmas Week"! I don't think this song really fits into the "cool kid" category ... it is decidedly UNcool. On the other hand, though, it is definitely very "kid-like." It reached the top 20 in the Christmas charts of 1963, at a time when Beatle mania was just coming into its own, and was sung by Dora Bryan, an actress who is probably unknown to anyone outside the British Isles. She had a long career here, though, and ... excitement (!), she once walked past me in a busy shopping street in Brighton, where she lived.

 
As Trent says 'I took the sopranino challenge' on this one...

Best seasons wishes to all seasonistas.

Thank you for your annual Yulefest Geoff!
 
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My favorite nontraditional holiday song is "No Pretty Presents" by Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers from my onetime hometown of Riverside, California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUAcg7zOk7s

But since it's impossible to approach that level of awesomeness, instead I'll bring a Buck Owens number.



Best wishes to all!
 
Jingle Bell Rock

Well, would you look at that! You get one instrumental and two come along at once! I've been doing a bit of guitar and ukulele teaching over the past year or so, and last month one of my guitar students asked that I show him how to play this song - and that's sent me down a complete rabbit hole! It's the jazziest 2 minute rockabilly song you'll ever see, with a ridiculous number of chords!

Turns out the guy who probably wrote it, one Hank Garland, was a Nashville guitar maestro, and a big influence on, among many others, George Benson, but writing credit goes to a couple of otherwise unknown songwriters, one of whom's day job was running a dress factory in New York's garment district! [ *scratches a thoughtful chin* ]. The movie 'Crazy' (2008) was his biopic - check it out if you can.

Anyway, it took me nearly two weeks to learn it on guitar for myself, before I could begin to start teaching it! Now, if a song's any good it's got to work on ukulele ("the musical BS detector" according to the legendary George Hinchcliffe of the UOGB). Obviously you can simplify it down quite a bit (on guitar or uke - just play 'D' until you get to that D#dim for example); and you can directly transfer the intro riff from guitar to uke(!); but the simplified chords don't really suit the uke - nor does playing the Em, G or A chords in first position. To harmonise the melody properly, those chords really need to be played up the dusty end of the neck (A7 as 0454 for example) - the power of inversions!!! :)

Anyway, enjoy - and even if you don't, it's less than 2 minutes long. Next!




Code:
Jingle-Bell Rock
(Joe Beal / Jim Boothe) or (Hank Garland/Bobby Helms)


D             F#m           D6  Dmaj7    D6 
Jin-gle bell, jin-gle bell, jin-gle bell rock
D6  Dmaj7 D6    D#dim7    G6            A7 
Jin-gle   bells swing and jin-gle bells ring
Em7          A           Em7         A 
Snow-ing and blow-ing up bush-els of fun
Em7                 A7     A+ 
Now the jin-gle hop has be-gun

D             F#m           D6  Dmaj7    D6 
Jin-gle bell, jin-gle bell, jin-gle bell rock
D6  Dmaj7 D6    D#dim7   G6           A7 
Jin-gle   bells chime in jin-gle bell time
Em7          A            Em7          A 
Dan-cing and pran-cing in Jin-gle Bell Square
E7       A7      D    D7 
/ In the frost-y air___ (What a… )

       G                     G#dim7 
What a bright time, it's the right time
   D    Dmaj7 D6      D 
To rock the   night a-way
        D6   E7        E     E7 
Jin-gle bell time is a swell time
A7    D             E   D     A7 
To go glid-ing in a one-horse sleigh

D         Dmaj7          D6   Dmaj7 D6 
Gid-dy-ap jin-gle horse, pick up    your feet
D6  DMaj7 D6  F#m7b5    B7 
Jin-gle   a - round the clock
G                    Gm        Gm6 
Mix and min-gle in a jing-ling beat

E7           A7 
/ That's the jin-gle bell 
E7           A7 
/ That's the jin-gle bell
E7           A7           D 
/ That's the jin-gle bell rock

And by the way, lambing season in the middle east is Nov-Jan, and lambing season is the only reason the shepherds would be watching their flocks by night all seated on the ground. Happy Holidays!
 
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I'm having so much trouble with YouTube's new steps in the uploading process. They're such a crazy pain in the ass to work with and I'm not that technical about stuff like this. The video is now working. Thank you and Merry Christmas.
 
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Not the cheeriest of songs, but an amazing achievement on the part of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure at very short notice to persuade so many of the top UK recording artists of the time (1984) to donate their time and talent to this hugely successful Christmas charity single in aid of the victims of the famine in Ethiopia. Happy Christmas (and Birthday sometime soon?) Geoff - and Happy Christmas to all Seasonistas! :)

 
I wish that I could be like the cool uke kids,
Cos all the cool uke kids
They seem to fit in :(
echosmith!

all the cool uke kids WANNA be here
but luckily for me, geoff's only letting in nerdy seasonista uke peeps :rock:



I'm having so much trouble with YouTube's new steps in the uploading process. They're such a crazy pain in the ass to work with and I'm not that technical about stuff like this. The video is now working. Thank you and Merry Christmas.
is that beta? i keep clicking to go back to classic about A HUNDRED TIMES A DAY :mad: and i know soon they will take even that option from us :(


here's a homemade-y for the season, "maybe this year"

 
Joulupuu on rakennettu
If there is one Finnish Chistmas song I would love to sing then it would be Oi Jouluyö
but I don't have the pipes for it... but it is the most powerful christmas song I know... give it a listen.


Rough translation
Code:
[B]The Christmas tree has been prepared, 
Christmas is already at the door.
Gifts are hanging, on the spruce branches
The small candles illuminate the tree with beauty
Around the tree the children sing sweetly
Thank you, Jesus, our dear Savior
You are our guest, our best Christmas gift
When you come you bring light, and gifts abundant 
You give forgiveness, and all the riches of heaven[/B]
 
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