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Guitar: Bagpipers' Carol (The) (Including lyrics and chords)

882 views · Published 24 December 2018 · 2:07 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: threelegsoman · 2018 · Education

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(I have just spotted a typo in the opening title screen. It should read:" ....in the key of A", not as it is written  ... in the hey of A!!!)

My friend Sharon plays this tune on her bagpipes. 
Up to a couple of days ago, I did not know the lyrics, but thanks to Joe Offer's useful site "Mudcat Café", where there is a page dedicated to songs that were published in the BBC Schools "Singing Together" programmes, I found them.

The original song is an Italian song "Quanno nascette Ninno a Bettelemme" with music written by Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.

Although they do not name the person who translated the lyrics into English in this version, the following notes accompanied the song in the 1984 Singing Together pamphlet:

For many centuries, during the period before Christmas mountain shepherds have descended on Rome, Naples, and other cities in southern Italy and Sicily, clad in sheepskin cloaks and wide-brimmed hats and singing and playing pastoral music such as this carol. They accompany each other on the ciaramella (a small shawm) and the zampogna, a large, sweet-toned bagpipe with two drones and two chanters, which is played mostly in thirds and sixths with some embellishment.

I have worked out my own fairly simple chord progression for the song to suit my own playing abilities.

(Note that when I play a sequence of G and D or D7 chords close together, to play the G chord, I simply lift off all fingers and just strum the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings while keeping the D chord shape ready to drop back on the first three strings where required).

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