Song 12 - I Saw Three Ships on Christmas Day

Here's the final song in this series, 'I Saw Three Ships' which is a fun two chord song.

Check out a full play through of the basic strumming version further down this page (yes, I did all 12 verses!). Also see tab for the melody for each variation of the melody as the song progresses.

Key learning Points

• Learn to play just a two chord song!

• Practice playing at tempo with faster chord changes

I Saw three Ships - Full play through

This song is great fun as the pace is fairly quick. We need to be ready for the quick changes!

• Warm up the fingers first by playing the D major and the A major chord (your preferred way of playing it)

• Try going between both chords a few times to get a feel of the type of chord change we are going for

The first chord change has two strums on the A and this gives us a little more time to change chord.

The one to watch out for is the single strum on the A chord, where we need to return to the D chord quite quickly.

See below for how the chords sit on the words in the song.

"D A D"

"On Christmas day in the mor - ning"

Of course, as shown in the lesson video, we should practice as slow as needed to make sure the chords are sounding as clear as possible as we change.