TonalicsJOURNALOpen Tuner
‹ Ukulele songs
SongsDeck the Halls
Play a different song (23)

13 more songs need notes this instrument does not have. Changing the ukulele brings some of them into reach.

Chords
The melody on its own, as a tab.
Play along
  1. 5
  2. 4
  3. 3
  4. 2
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 2
  13. 3
  14. 2
  15. 1
  16. 7,
  17. 1
  18. 5
  19. 4
  20. 3
  21. 2
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 1
  26. 2
  27. 3
  28. 4
  29. 2
  30. 3
  31. 2
  32. 1
  33. 7,
  34. 1
  35. 2
  36. 3
  37. 4
  38. 2
  39. 3
  40. 4
  41. 5
  42. 2
  43. 3
  44. 4
  45. 5
  46. 6
  47. 7
  48. 1'
  49. 7
  50. 6
  51. 5
  52. 5
  53. 4
  54. 3
  55. 2
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 1
  60. 6
  61. 6
  62. 6
  63. 6
  64. 5
  65. 4
  66. 3
  67. 2
  68. 1

Welsh traditional air “Nos Galan”, in print by the 1790s. Public domain.

4 strings · C4–A5 · G–C–E–A with the high, re-entrant G: soprano, concert and tenor ukuleles.

Tap a string, or tap a chord and drag across them to strum. On a keyboard the letters on the strings are the ones to press — Q, W, E and R are the four strings, A first; 1 to 7 hold the chords of the key, Space strums, and 0 lets go.

UkuleleFree · printable · plays in your browser

Deck the Halls — Ukulele Tab

Deck the Halls, written out for the ukulele as easy melody tab with the string and fret for every note and set up above on the Standard, in F major, an octave lower. Press Play to hear it, Practice to learn it one note at a time — the ukulele waits for you — or Play along to keep time with it.

  • Notes68, 9 pitches
  • RangeE4–F5
  • Key hereF major
  • Tempo132 bpm · about 29 s
  • LevelIntermediate

Can a ukulele play Deck the Halls?

Yes — every one on this page plays it. The check is made note by note against what each one can actually sound. Where the tune does not fit as the library writes it, another key or octave is tried, and the table says which; where nothing fits, it names the notes that are missing.

  • Standard↕ Plays, movedPlayed in F major, an octave lower: F major, E4–F5 · loaded above
  • Low G↕ Plays, movedPlayed an octave lower: C major, B3–C5 · load it
  • Baritone↕ Plays, movedPlayed an octave lower: C major, B3–C5 · load it

Deck the Halls: ukulele tab

The large line is the fret — 0 is the open string; the small line under it is the string it is on. A dash holds the note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and a dot beside a note makes it half as long again. Each line is one phrase.

▶ Play it above

Deck the Halls — ukulele tab (Standard) · tonalics.com

Deck the Halls ukulele tab as text

The same notes as tablature: one line per string, the A string on top, and each number the fret to press on that line — 0 is the open string. Read it left to right, one note at a time. The letters above the lines are the chord to strum from that note on.

   F                   C7      F
A|-3-1-0---|-----0---|---0-1---0---|--------|
E|---------|-1-----1-|-------------|-1-0-1--|
C|---------|---------|-------------|--------|
G|-------0-|---0-----|-0-----0---0-|--------|

                       C7      F
A|-3-1-0---|-----0---|---0-1---0---|--------|
E|---------|-1-----1-|-------------|-1-0-1--|
C|---------|---------|-------------|--------|
G|-------0-|---0-----|-0-----0---0-|--------|

   C7        F                       C7
A|---0-1---|-0-1-3---|-0-1-3-5-7-8-|-7-5-3--|
E|---------|---------|-------------|--------|
C|---------|---------|-------------|--------|
G|-0-----0-|-------0-|-------------|--------|

   F                   B♭      C7    F
A|-3-1-0---|-----0---|-5-5-5-5-3-1-|-0------|
E|---------|-1-----1-|-------------|-----1--|
C|---------|---------|-------------|--------|
G|-------0-|---0-----|-------------|---0----|

Deck the Halls chords for ukulele

To accompany the tune rather than pick it out, strum three chords: F, C7, B♭. Change where the name appears over the tab and strum once or twice a bar; somebody else — or the ukulele above — plays the melody.

  • F21GCEA
  • C71GCEA
  • B♭3211GCEA
▶ Hear the melody with the chords strummed, above

These chords are an arrangement, not part of the tune: they are chosen by rule from the melody, giving each bar whichever of the three chords of the key holds most of its notes. Compared with the chord symbols printed in Paul Hardy’s Xmas Tunebook, 2019 (2024), the rule puts the same chord on 14 of the 19 bars and half bars the two share. A fuller arrangement would use more chords than three.

The 9 notes it uses

Lowest to highest, with how many times each is played. Learn these 9 and you can play the whole tune.

  • 0E×2
  • 1E×11
  • 0G×16
  • 0A×14
  • 1A×9
  • 3A×7
  • 5A×6
  • 7A×2
  • 8A×1

What to expect on a ukulele

  • It runs from E4 to F5, an octave and a semitone, using 9 different notes. That leaves 4 semitones unused below and 4 above.
  • 87% of its moves are a step or a repeated note. The widest is a major sixth, F4 to D5, at note 60.
  • The highest note is at fret 8, so the hand has to leave first position for it.
  • It is played on 3 strings (G, E and A), and 32 notes are an open string.
  • The picking hand changes string 37 times.

About the tune

The tune is the Welsh winter air “Nos Galan” — New Year’s Eve — a dance melody that was sung with improvised verses and a harp answering each line. It was in print by the 1790s, and the English Christmas words were added in 1862.

Welsh traditional air “Nos Galan”, in print by the 1790s. Public domain. The notes follow Paul Hardy’s Xmas Tunebook, 2019 (2024), cross-checked against 2 other transcriptions. More about Deck the Halls →

Deck the Halls on other instruments

The same melody, in each instrument’s own notation. It is not offered for the guzheng or handpan, which do not have the notes.

More songs for the ukulele

All 36 ukulele songs · Christmas songs for ukulele · The online ukulele on its own

Playing it on a real ukulele?

If it sounds wrong, check the instrument before the notes. The ukulele tuner listens through your microphone and names what each note is actually sounding.

🎙 Open the Ukulele Tuner