In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you a simple rhythmic variation for jigs which will really enhance your Celtic backing guitar! I’ll also be showing you how to apply it using linking chords to create a smooth chord progression between a major chord and its related minor chord. The demonstrations in this acoustic guitar tutorial use DADGAD tuning (including diagrams for DADGAD chords), but I’ll also show you how you could use the same techniques in standard (EADGBE) tuning.
I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.
In this free Celtic backing guitar lesson from Folk Friend I’ll be showing you how to vary your reel strumming patterns by using off-beat chord changes to make your playing smoother and more funky and add drive to the melody! I’ll be demonstrating the chords in both DADGAD and standard tuning, and applying the theory using my playalong video for the classic Irish reel Maid Behind The Bar, which you can find here.
I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.
Here is the second playalong video from Folk Friend! This one is a classic Irish session reel called Maid Behind the Bar. Following some user feedback I changed the chord order in this one. You will now get two rounds of the slow version with simple chords and two with substitutions. This will be followed by two rounds at medium speed with simple substitutions and two with more advanced, jazzy chords. The fast version then does the same.
If you like this playalong, you can now get the full pack of 20 by becoming a Folk Friend member!
This week’s Folky Fridays free Celtic guitar lesson live stream will be on a topic which I absolutely love: borrowing chord progressions from Latin jazz music and using them to come up with unusual but cool sounding accompaniments for Celtic tunes! I’ll be talking about the 69, dominant 13 and altered dominant chord voicings (amongst others) which are in lots of south American music, particularly in bossa nova, and showing you some simple ways to integrate these peppery chords into you Celtic backing guitar!
In this week’s episode of Folky Fridays from Folk Friend, I’ll be giving you a first glance at partial capoing techniques you can use to get ethereal, tinkly chords with big ringing bass notes! These techniques all use a standard capo and can really enhance the range of cool chords you can get using standard chord shapes which you will already have used for Celtic guitar backing. I will be expanding on the topics covered in this free Celtic guitar lesson live stream in the forthcoming partial capo-ing video which will be up on the Folk Friend channel in about three weeks.
This video only requires a standard six-string capo. If you would like to buy one then please support the channel by buying one directly from my guitar shop, here.
I also used the 7th fret partial capo technique in my arrangement of The Castle Jig, also commonly called Sean Ryan’s (E dorian). It appears in my book of fingerstyle arrangements of Irish tunes, Irish Tunes For Fingerstyle Guitar, available on the shop page of this site!
In this week’s free Irish / Celtic guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you a “quick change chord scale” for C major and its related modes, D dorian, G mixolydian and A aeolian. The idea is that using these easy Celtic guitar chord shapes you will be able to create fluid movements between chords in any of the above keys. Chord scales can be used to provide links between chords or even as ready made chord progressions in their own right.
There are two more videos in this series, dealing with:
This free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend covers the “chord scales” for G and D ionian. These are super easy chord shapes for backing guitarists, which fit with Irish and Celtic tunes in these keys and can easily be played together at speeds. They also create nice runs of linking chords and will work in the other modes related to D major and G major; A dorian, D mixolydian and E aeolian for G and E dorian, A mixolydian and B aeolian for D.
You can learn more about the modes with an Amazing Mode Wheel, in my first book, Backing Guitar Techniques For Traditional Celtic Music, or on my free blog here.
There are two other videos in this series, dealing with:
This free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend is the last in my series on easy to play chord scales for Irish guitarists and Celtic backing enthusiasts! I’ll be showing you my absolute favourite chords for my absolute favourite mode in all of Celtic music- A ionian (or A major). These chords will also fit with tunes in the common Celtic mode of B dorian. These are jazzier than the chords which I demonstrated in the first two videos in this series (linked below) but they are easy shapes to play and very quick and easy to change between by just sliding up and down the fretboard!
Last week I had the pleasure of talking to Duncan Cameron, a Canadian singer, multi-instrumentalist and Youtuber from Ontario, Canada. We had a long chat about such wide-ranging subjects as tunings used for Irish and Celtic backing guitar, the styles of classic guitarists like John Doyle, Paul Brady and even Django Reinhardt, the differences between the various styles of folk music prevalent in Canada, how to accompany Irish songs and loads loads more!
Here are some links to Duncan Cameron’s social media and music:
Here are Amazon links where you can buy all of the music we mentioned in this video. These are affiliate links- if you buy through any of them I receive a small commission which enables me to continue to run this channel. Please make sure that you click the correct one for your country otherwise I won’t receive any commission- thank you in advance for supporting Folk Friend!
Barde:
UK: https://amzn.to/3nKI8tf
Canada: https://amzn.to/3k0YLyy
USA: https://amzn.to/3lF58HW
La Bottine Souriante
UK: https://amzn.to/3155Syx
Canada: https://amzn.to/3lJA5Ld
USA: https://amzn.to/3nNYfWG
Pete Seeger:
UK: https://amzn.to/3k0WAuH
Canada: https://amzn.to/33WAvrN
USA: https://amzn.to/3iZ0piy
Tony Mc Manus
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Canada: https://amzn.to/34UCCeW
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Martin Hayes and Denis Cahill
UK: https://amzn.to/3jX08yd
Canada: https://amzn.to/3lQtMpr
USA: https://amzn.to/2ItKmNn
Paul Brady and Andy Irvine:
UK: https://amzn.to/36ZG4rg
Canada: https://amzn.to/373LhOF
USA: https://amzn.to/2ItOlJQ
Ewan McColl
UK: https://amzn.to/2IqZSJL
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USA: https://amzn.to/33WYxTl
Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger (only available in UK)
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The Dubliners
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Liz Carroll and John Doyle
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Canada: https://amzn.to/3jY7tO3
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Finally, here is a clip from the work of Dr Aindrias Hirt which gives further information on his theory on the “natural scale”.
Dr Aindrias Hirt: https://otago.academia.edu/AindriasHirt
(Extract from “The European Folk MUsic Scale- A New Theory”, paper by Dr. A Hirt available at the link above):
“What I found is the following. If a trained art musician hears a natural trumpet playing in the lower range (see Figure 15: G3, C4, E4, G4, A4, C5), that musician will classify the tune as tetratonic (four notes per octave; that is, four notes ascending including and starting on C4, and then the octave, C5). If the tune happens to rise to D5, the diatonically trained musician will then assume that D4 is in existence (a note an octave lower)25 and declare that the tune is pentatonic (missing F4 and B4, but having five notes per octave; that is, five notes starting at C4 and then the octave, C5); this implies that the pitches present are G3, C4, D4, E4, G4, A4, C5, D5, when in fact D4 does not appear in the tune at all. A similar erroneous assumption may occur again on a different note (F5) as a shepherd’s trumpet ascends in pitch. A tune that would be classified as pentatonic (missing all Fs and Bs), is declared to be hexatonic once F5 is found; this is because the trained art musician will assume that the lower octave F4 is in existence. To explain this last point in more detail, examine a tune which scholars have classified as pentatonic (having C4, (D4), E4, G4, A4, C5, D5, E5) until the tune ascends to an existing F5/F♯5. Once the tune includes F5/F♯5, scholars will assume that the lower octave F4 exists, and the tune is then declared to be hexatonic (missing B4, but not F4), resulting in a scale of: C4, (D4), E4, (F4), G4, A4, C5, D5, E5, F5, etc. This classification occurs even though both D4 and F4 do not exist. Simply put, because diatonically trained musicians think in terms of seven notes per octave and “octave equivalency,” it has never occurred to them that they were dealing with a system that was not octave-based.”
This free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend covers one of the most popular tunings out there; drop D. This is a great tuning for beginner folk guitarists as it has the nice low, booming bass notes of a tuning like DADGAD but without the need to learn loads of new chord shapes!
If you are interested in finding out more about the amazing guitarists Tim Edey, John Doyle, Arty McGlynn or Paul Brady who I mentioned in the intro then please consider buying their music through the links below. These are affiliate links so I receive a small commission if you buy through them, which enable me to continue to make free Youtube content for you! Please note that you will need to click the link for your country otherwise they WILL NOT WORK.
Tim Edey: UK: https://amzn.to/2TlMzwg
USA: https://amzn.to/3klj75K
Canada: Not available- sorry!
Arty McGlynn:
UK: https://amzn.to/3jmZBEH
USA: https://amzn.to/2FQRQJg
Canada: https://amzn.to/2HvuGZf
Paul Brady:
UK: https://amzn.to/3ohpFVk
USA: https://amzn.to/2HpkodI
Canada: https://amzn.to/3okRzj0
John Doyle:
UK: https://amzn.to/2Hx0Wez
USA: https://amzn.to/3klux9q
Canada: https://amzn.to/2TiKwcI
You can also buy a full DVD of John Doyle teaching Drop D guitar here:
