Here’s another video from Folk Friend Celtic Guitar Tutorials, celebrating the release of my latest book (see below) with a guide to how to use inversion shapes for Irish and general Celtic guitar accompaniment in the key of A major / ionian! I’ll be using an Irish polka called Ger The Rigger which you can find in the Folk Friend tune playalongs pack with on-screen guitar chords and played on a loop at three different speeds- perfect for practicing your Irish guitar backing!
Category: Celtic music theory
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’m going to be letting you in on a little secret about backing tunes in minor keys… You can BLEND THE MODES! No longer will you be tied to either building chords from the dorian or aeolian mode… Now you can mix and match for super-cool chromatic effects!
I’ll be applying this mind boggling technique to my free playalong video for The Cliffs Of Moher which you can watch here:
https://youtu.be/K-2QuP35y70
In this free lesson from Folk Friend I’ll be running complete beginners through the top 5 tips for complete Irish guitar beginners! I’ll be showing you how to hold your guitar and plectrum, some of the best things to learn to begin with, which chords fit with tunes in the most common keys and general tips for how you can improve your Irish guitar backing fast!
This is the second free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend covering tetrads or four note “jazz chords”. This week I’ll be demonstrating how to use the principles covered in part one with classic Irish tunes in each of the four modes used in north western european folk music, ionian, dorian, mixolydian and aeolian.
And part 3 here
I’ll be demonstrating with my playalongs for:
Fahy’s: Become a Folk Friend member now for access to this and 20 other playalongs, with guides to the theory and diagrams for all the chords used!
In today’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be running you through the three families of 7 chords and how you can implement them to make your traditional folk guitar accompaniment sound more jazzy! We’ll be looking at major 7 chords, minor 7 chords and dominant 7 chords and discovering which ones fit with traditional tunes in certain keys and why.
My Celtic music theory for beginners videos can be found below:
The rest of my series on jazz chords in folk guitar can be found below:
In this week’s free Irish / Scottish / Celtic guitar lesson, I’ll be finishing off my series of videos about how to pick chords by ear. In this one I’ll be covering the dorian, aeolian and mixolydian modes and showing you how to apply what you have already learnt in my previous videos to quickly and easily pick the right chords to back your favourites folk tunes every time!
Here is the rest of the series:
Complete Guide to Celtic Music Theory part 1
Complete Guide to Celtic Music Theory part 2
In my previous free guitar lesson I showed you how to pick the right chords for Irish / Celtic music by ear. I realised after I’d made it that there was another chord available to you, so I’m following up with one more type of simple chord substitution you can use to make your Irish backing guitar more interesting! If you haven’t already seen it, watch part 1 here.
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson I will be showing you the easiest way to pick chords for a tune in a major (ionian) key.
I’ll be working with my “Out on the Ocean Tune Loop” video, which you can watch here:
The music theory guides for Celtic music which I mentioned are available here:
Simple chords:
G / G / G / C /
G / G / C / D G X2
C / C / G / D /
G / C / G / D G X2
Example with related minors:
G / Em / Am / D /
G / Em / Am / D G X2
C / Am / Em / D /
G / C / Em / D G x2
Hello again, and welcome to part 2 of my guide to scales, modes, and chords for Celtic backing guitarists! In this video I’ll be looking at the seven “Greek” modes formed from a major scale, particularly the four used in Celtic music; ionian, dorian, mixolydian and aeolian. You’ll learn how these modes are formed, which chords fit with each of them and how you can quickly and readily memorise their relationships in order to never be stuck for the right chords in a folk session ever again!
I’ll also be demonstrating my brand new invention, The Amazing Mode Wheel by Finale Guitar, which makes the whole topic much easier to understand, visualise and memorise.
You can read my blog dealing with the major scale and the chords which go with it here.
…And my complete guide to using the “Greek” modes for Celtic music here.
Watch part 1 here.
Hello again, and welcome to part 1 of my guide to scales, modes, and chords for Celtic backing guitarists! In this video I’ll be looking at how a major scale (ionian mode) is formed, and how we can use this knowledge to find all the chords which will fit with a tune in a major key.
I’ll also be demonstrating my brand new invention, The Amazing Mode Wheel by Finale Guitar, which makes the whole topic much easier to understand, visualise and memorise.
You can read my blog dealing with the major scale and the chords which go with it here.
…And my complete guide to using the “Greek” modes for Celtic music here.
Here’s a link for the circle of fifths I use in the clip (thanks to Soundfly.com , a great site with lots of well-written tutorials).
If you want to get a better understanding of why the major scale is made up the intervals it is, and you’d like that information clearly presented using beautiful visualisations in a book which costs less then £5, then check out Harmonograph, one of my absolute favourites.
Watch part 2 of this video here.