Customer Reviews

Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Christmas: Ukulele Solo

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of Jumpin' Jim Beloff's two Christmas collections for uke. This one features the more traditional carols and songs. One really nice feature of this book is that most of the tunes are arranged with certain chords in parentheses. The parenthetical chords are optional - the tunes sound fine without them, but if you can hit them, it enriches the harmonies. This makes the book useful for beginners, but also interesting for more advanced players. I got this book about a year ago when I was just getting started, and I just pulled it out for the first time in almost a year. It's really fun to see how much progress I have made: I can hit most of those parenthetical chords now! The most challenging and interesting number included is a chord solo arrangement of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," which manages to capture both the chords and the melody quite nicely. I noticed that Amazon did not include a list of the tunes in this book, so here they are:

Angels We Have Heard On High
Auld Lang Syne
Away In A Manger
Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella
The Coventry Carol
Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (chord solo arrangement)
Deck the Halls
The First Nowell
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Good King Wenceslas
Go Tell It On the Mountain
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Here We Come A-Wassailing
The Holly and the Ivy
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Jingle Bells
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas
Joy To The World
The Last House
O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum)
O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow
Silent Night
The Twelve Days of Christmas
We Three Kings Of Orient Are
What Child Is This?
When You're Born on Christmas Day
We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I'm a self-taught guitarist of about 8 years, and got a ukulele on my honeymoon in Hawaii. Most of the songs in here are very easy to learn to play ukulele on, despite the fact that I know very little music theory, but there is still a good variety in difficulty. Christmas songs were great to learn with because I already know most of them and so do other people.

It's a good book. Well laid out. Nice size. Good selection of songs. It doesn't have tabs though, only notation and chords which may be a problem for some beginners. You can add tabs yourself by figuring them out and squeezing them in or you can learn to read music which is what I'm doing. I'm grateful to be sort of pushed into this. It was something I'd wanted to do but thought I'd do it later rather than sooner.

Jumpin' Jim's company, Flea Market Music, is excellent - good products, excellent customer service. I have one of their ukuleles - a concert Flea and it's just exceptional. (I also have a Risa electric concert stick.)

Pug At The Beach, An island dog's reflections on life

I've been playing 'ukulele for a few months now (self-taught), and I can pretty much play or struggle through most of these songs. The chords are not too difficult, though a few are new to me, and changes sometimes too fast (like on each beat occasionally). Contrary to what one reviewer said, the TABs are actually given above the staff of each line. On the staff is written the melody line only, with the words below the staff. Also given is a diagram indicating the location of the first note. Thus, the book does not require that you read music, just that you know how the tunes go. Indeed, there is no basic music theory at the beginning of this book; it is not a method book, but rather a song book for at least advanced beginners, I would say. There is one "how to" page at the beginning that explains tuning the ukulele, and how to transpose (assuming that you understand about keys), though this is not necessary. Following that is a two-page Chord Chart with nicely breaks the chords down into the major, minor, sevenths, and so on--12 categories in all. I appreciate this as it helps me see how the chords are related to each other. Then Jumpin' Jim's jumps right into the songs. As I said, I can barely play them, except for "Silent Night", which is easy-peasy. There are two songs written by Jim Beloff himself. Also included is a chord solo of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy", which appears to be quite challenging. The volume measures about ten by seven, and should be a handy addition to most 'uke players library.

This has all the Christmas standards, has the simple (but not boring) chording that makes the music instantly accessible and charm that is found in all of Jumpin' Jim's books. Happy strumming!

Jumpin' Jim does it again... This book is a good one to have on the shelf when you need to "dig one out". I am a self taught Uke player and I have several of the Jumpin' Jim books. There are better ones out there but this one works nicely for the holiday's. Merry Christmas and UKE ON!

It's what I was looking for. Wish it came with a cd. I'll be ready by next season.

Pretty good for a novice. Some songs are a bit over my head, but a few standard songs are nice to add to my playing time.