Happy new year and welcome back to Folky Fridays! In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be going over a topic which I have covered many times, but which I still get a lot of questions about- what are the modes and how can I recognise them and pick the right chords on guitar? I’ll be showing you how the ionian, dorian, phrygian and mixolydian modes came into being and several approaches to finding the best chords for each!
Category: Folky Fridays
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be running you through some of the useful DADGAD chord shapes I have discovered while writing my latest book of DADGAD fingerstyle arrangements!
This episode comes with a free guitar tablature and scale diagrams download! You can get yours here.
I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you some useful scale exercises to practice on acoustic guitar and how you can use them to work out Irish, Scottish and other Celtic style folk melodies on the guitar. I’ll show you how to use the seven “greek” mode shapes to give you a handy map of the “right” notes for the key you’re playing in across the whole of the fretboard. We’ll look at how you can use these shapes in conjunction with the open strings for nice chord/ melody combinations. I’ll also be giving some pointers on how you can merge the exercises with chord shapes you already know in order to add your own accompaniment. By the end of this session you’ll be a one man band!
This episode comes with a free guitar tablature and scale diagrams download! Get yours here.
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you my super simple approach to ear training and learning to pick the right chords for Irish and general Celtic backing guitar. I’ll also be sharing some very exciting news!
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be recapping all the classic Irish strumming patterns (jigs, hornpipes, reels, slip jigs, polkas) and running you through a few of my favourite rhythmic variations for each one. All the techniques covered this week will be applicable to DADGAD, standard (EADGBE) or other tunings. This will also be something of an open session, so please feel free to ask me any questions you have about anything to do with Irish backing guitar!
In this week’s free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you how you can play the melody and the chords at the same time when accompanying Irish music in DADGAD! I’ll be demonstrating ways to practice accentuating individual notes when strumming, ear training exercises to pick out the melody notes relative to your key centre, shapes for easy scale incorporation on top of chords and much much more!
This lesson comes with a free tab download for all the exercises I’ll be showing you- you can get it here
I’ll be demonstrating using two tunes, my old demo favourite the Kerfunken Jig and the four part D mixolydian jig, Humours Of Ballyloughlin.
Here are some clips where the tunes are played slowly so you can get them in your heads:
Kerfunken:
Humours Of Ballyloughlin:
I recently finished writing a complete Beginner’s Guide To Celtic DADGAD Accompaniment! You can find it here.
In today’s Folky Fridays free Celtic guitar lesson livestream, I’ll be showing you how you can use walking basslines, dominant and diminished 7 chords to get cool jazz / swing inspired chord runs to fit with Irish and Scottish tunes! This stream is inspired by the playing of “Peerie” Willie Johnson, an amazing Shetland guitarist who pioneered the integration of gypsy jazz style into traditional Celtic music from the 1920s-2000s.
If you haven’t heard it already I really recommend you check out the “Willie’s World” album, which contains myriad cool chord ideas alongside some fantastic melody players and a fascinating window into history! You can download the album completely for free by signing up for a free trial of Amazon Music (which can be cancelled immediately for 3 months of free music). Trialing or buying through the links below also pays me a small commission which goes towards the costs of maintaining this channel.
UK: https://amzn.to/37REBni
USA: https://amzn.to/2HODeuP
Canada: https://amzn.to/3oF7N6O
You can also buy the Willie’s World album on CD:
UK: https://amzn.to/35KxkmF
USA: https://amzn.to/2Tzkdz0
Canada: Can’t find it, sorry!
In this week’s Folky Fridays Celtic guitar lesson live stream the amazing Felix Parker-Price will be popping into the studio once more- he might even be on time! Felix is an absolute tin whistle master and a scholar of ancient Celtic languages. I will also be running you through some of the ways you can create energy as a set progresses and use dynamics and changing chord options to create dynamic changes in you Irish backing guitar. I hope you can all join us this evening from 5:30PM.
I have a very special guest in this week’s Folky Fridays Celtic guitar lesson live stream! The one and only Felix Parker-Price will be popping into the studio to play some tunes on his flutey stick. Felix is an absolute tin whistle master and a scholar of ancient Celtic languages so this should be a particularly good episode! I hope you can all join us this evening from 5:30PM.
In this week’s Folky Fridays Celtic guitar lesson live stream I’ll be having a look at drop D tuning. I’ll be showing you some useful chord shapes which you can slide around for easy chord changes at speed and running you through some of my favourite tricks for rhythmic variations which work particularly well in this tuning. I’ll also be demonstrating a few cool tricks with partial capoing using a standard 6 string capo, to give your chords in drop D a higher, more tinkly sound!
I used this tuning in my arrangement of the classic Irish jig Out On The Ocean. It appears in my book of fingerstyle arrangements of Irish tunes, Irish Tunes For Fingerstyle Guitar, which you can buy here.