Folk Friendhttps://youtu.be/ctkSdAvDObM
In this video I’ll be showing you how to accompany one of my favourite Irish reels, Ramnee Ceilidh in DADGAD guitar tuning!
I’ll also be telling you all about the Folk Friend tour- I will be offering tailor made guitar and general accompaniment workshops all over the UK, suitable for groups of all ages and levels! Click here to book or find out more
Click here to find out more about Finale Music School.
Welcome back to another Celtic guitar accompaniment tutorial from Folk Friend! This week I’ll be demonstrating the “Faith” strumming pattern which is mentioned in my first book, Backing Guitar Techniques For Traditional Celtic Music which you can buy here
Eagle eyed viewers will notice that my guitar is in DADGAD tuning- I’m currently working on a complete beginners guide book to accompanying folk music by ear using this tuning so watch this space ;).
The guitar I’m playing is an AWESOME Turner 75CE jumbo electro-acoustic with solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides… If you’re looking for an amazing sounding guitar for accompanying Irish music at only £550 brand new then I really can’t recommend this one enough! Find out more on the Finale Guitar online shop by clicking here.
In this week’s Folky Fridays free online guitar lesson live stream from Folk Friend I will be having a look at some of my more unusual reel strumming patterns, including the dubstep inspired “half time” strum. These are a fun way to add variation to high-speed tune sets and can really enhance your rhythmic fluency.
In this week’s free guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you two easy strumming patterns you can use to play along with polkas! One is the “hup-two” pattern which you see a lot in Irish sessions and the other is a more motion-efficient variant which I have borrowed from the great guitarist and music educator Steve Cooney.
Get your hands on the Folk Friend Playalongs Pack in order to practice along with 20 tunes at 3 speeds each, with on screen guitar chords, diagrams, a write up of why the chords work and loads more.
In this free beginner Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you how to incorporate strummed triplets into your slip jig guitar accompaniment. These highly versatile strumming ornaments will make your Irish guitar backing a lot more energetic and they’re not too hard to master so I hope you enjoy this easy Irish guitar lesson.
You can find my free playalong video for The Butterfly here:
The Butterfly slip jig – slow, medium and fast playalong with guitar chords – E aeolian
In this week’s free beginner Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be showing you how to add strummed triplets to your Irish jig guitar accompaniment! This can be quite a tricky technique for beginner guitarists, but as soon as you get it down you’ll be able to add loads of cool rhythmic variations to your Irish backing guitar!
You can find my previous jig strumming videos 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 free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend will show you how to strum waltzes and songs in the 3/4 time signature. I’ll be showing you two very simple strumming patterns that you can use to accompany songs in 3/4, and running you through how to use them with various different chord shapes.
In the second part of this video, I show you how to use these strumming patterns to play the classic Irish song Raglan Road, as famously recorded by Van Morrison with the Chieftains. Watch part 2 here.
In this free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend I’ll be showing you how to play Raglan Road. Written by Patrick Kavanagh, this song was also famously recorded by Van Morrison and The Chieftains. Thanks to Barry for requesting this song- if you’d like me to cover anything particular then let me know in the comments down below!
You can watch Van Morrison and the Chieftains play the song live on BBC television here.
Here’s my free download of the chords and lyrics.
You can watch my complete beginner’s guide to strumming waltzes on the guitar here.
In this free Irish guitar lesson, I’ll be replying to a comment from Olivier Castel who wanted to know what I play in the intro to my clips. Here is a complete guide to the upside down strumming pattern, an extra percussive version of a jig strumming pattern, how I modify it to get the rhythm in the intro and how to add your own variations to it. I’ll be covering the chords in a future video.
