Folk FriendIn 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:
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend I’ll be running you how to pick chords by ear for the rarest and darkest of the “Celtic” modes, the aeolian. This is also sometimes called the “natural minor scale”.
I’ll be demonstrating using my free playalong for The Rights Of Man, which you can find here:
Here are the other videos in this series:
In this week’s free Irish guitar tutorial from Folk Friend I will be running you through a very popular modern session jig called Donegal Lass, written by Brian Finnegan of Flook fame. I will be showing you how you can analyse a melody by ear and quickly pick out the best chords to accompany it! I will also run you through basic guitar chord substitutions that you can use to add variation to your Irish guitar backing. This is also applicable to Scottish and Welsh folk music (and that of most of north western Europe).
Here are the other videos in this series:
This week on Folk Friend’s weekly Celtic guitar tutorial video I’ll be running you how to pick chords for Irish, Scottish and general Celtic music in the most common type of minor key, the dorian mode.
Here are the other videos in this series:
Part 3 (mixolydian)
Part 4 (aeolian)
This week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend is for complete beginners who want to learn how to accompany Irish traditional music on the guitar by ear. I’ll be showing you which chords fit with a tune in a major key and how you can train your ears to recognise where those chords should fit. I’ll also be giving you some examples using my free playalong video with on screen guitar chords for a classic Irish reel called Maid Behind The Bar. You can find that video here:
Here are the other videos in this series:
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!
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
It can be difficult to get started learning Celtic backing guitar. There is so much to learn, from ear training, to music theory, to strumming patterns to rhythms to memorising tunes…. So much to practice- so little time! In today’s free Celtic guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’m going to be telling you my top ten practice tips to make your guitar practice time more efficient.
I’ll also be demonstrating my brand new invention, the Folk Friend Guitar Practice Diary (click the link to buy now)! It uses a targeted system of quarterly, monthly and weekly reviews alongside an events calendar and my revolutionary Tablusic system to help you achieve your goals quickly. It also contains lots of handy tidbits for the budding Celtic guitarist, like chord shapes, mode diagrams, practice techniques and a ready made section for you to write your own tabs and chord diagrams quickly and easily.
The Stephen Guise book I mentioned (Mini Habits) is available here.
I receive a small affiliate commission if you buy it through the above link.
This free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend covers “swing” and shows you exactly what is actually going on. It also shows you how you can copy the amount of swing a given melody player puts on a tune and reflect it in your own backing.
