In this week’s free Scottish and Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend, I’ll be looking at the playing of the amazing folk / gypsy jazz fusion artist Peerie Willy Johnson, a fantastic traditional guitar player from the Shetland Isles. In the first part of this video I’ll be showing you a set of guitar chords he used together often and some of the principles behind his chord choices. I’ll also be showing you how you can emulate his “La Pompe” strumming pattern (as borrowed from Django Reinhardt and other gypsy jazz guitarists). In the second part, I’ll be looking at his recording of the classic, traditional hornpipes Harvest Home and Ragtime Jane, taken from the amazing Willy’s World album, and showing you how he applies jazz theory to come up with outstandingly original chord progressions for folk music and how you can take his chord choice techniques and apply them to your own guitar playing!
Category: Strumming patterns
This free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend covers one of the first topics I ever made videos about- strumming along with jigs! These are probably the most common type of tune in Irish and Scottish folk music. They are in the compound time signature 6/8 , with six quavers (8th beats for American viewers) in every bar. They have a very distinctive sound- if a tune goes “diddly diddly” or “da-da-diddly” then the chances are that it’s a jig!
There are two main patterns used by Irish and Scottish backing guitarists, and in this video I’m going to show you both of them. You can find more ideas for rhythmic variations in my more in-depth jig video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-kdVnVQpQ8
And the top secret “upside down” jig pattern (more difficult, but seriously cool) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj7JjiDWXlk
This free Irish guitar lesson from Folk Friend covers the music theory behind the amazing chord progressions of the amazing Shetland jazz / folk guitarist “Peerie” Willie Johnson. I’ll be analysing the chord progression he played on the track “Harvest Home, Ragtime Jane” from the Willie’s World album.