I did a little Holiday music poll on my Instagram and at the ukulele bass-focused Facebook group; Ubass Freaks and the song that got the most votes was ”Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” made famous by singer Brenda Lee.
When I started researching the tune I found out that Mr Bob Moore was the bass player of the session recording back in 1958. Read more about the song here.
You might remember his name if you have followed this blog for a while. I wrote about him in a blog post from 2011. I was fortunate to meet Mr. Moore in person at the famous bluegrass venue; The Station Inn, Nashville, TN back in 2011. I chatted with bassist Dennis Crouch in the intermission, he played with the Western Swing group, The Time Jumpers that night. He saw Mr Moore enter the venue and wanted to pay homage to the bass legend. A lucky moment for me since I could talk to him for a while and he agreed to write his autograph on my first ukulele bass, bought in 2010, that I happened to have with me! 🙂
I decided to cover both the bass part and the tic-tac part of this classic!
(U)Bass part
The bass part was played on an upright at the original recording session and I decided to record my version on my spruce Kala UBass. It has the Aquila Flat Spirals strings and was recorded with a combination of the built-in piezo and an Ehrlund EAP contact mic. I used the two-channel EBS Stanley Clarke Acoustic Preamp to sum the two signals and used the XLR-DI out into my audio interface.
I did my own transcription based on others I found. The one I used as a starting point was mostly right but there were a couple of places where I added some alterations. In the on-screen sheet music (also available for FREE at payhip.com/playubass) the way I played the bass part is included in the tablature. I always try to mimic how I would play the bass parts on an actual upright bass to get the most authentic upright assimilation when playing ukulele bass.
Tic-Tac part
A typical tic-tac bass part was added to get some more momentum. The sound of the upright was hard to record and the tone was a bit lost when you heard the recordings on small speakers the most radios of the time had. To compliment the upright bass tone a baritone guitar was used to play the bass part with a more ”snappy” sound. I always thought that the baritone guitar always played exactly the same thing as the uptight bass part.
When listening closely to Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree I heard that the tic-tac part was a new part used to compliment or augment the bass part. Instead of a baritone guitar I used one of my UBasses on my recording. I tried my fretted Kala Striped Ebony UBass with the Aquila Round Spirals strings. These strings have a brighter sound than the Aquila Flat Spirals used on the bass part (See above) and helped the tic-tac part to stand out and augment the bass part. You can download The tic-tac part for FREE at payhip.com/playubass together with the bass part and backing tracks in two tempos.
I hope you will enjoy playing these parts as much as I did!
Good luck with your playing, and please feel free to comment on this blog post if you have any questions!
Play UBass! 