- 15 lessons teaching how to play 11 very popular Irish tunes.
- Progress at your own pace, pause & repeat videos.
- Access on all your devices.
- PDF sheet music & mp3’s to download & keep for each tune.
- 14-day free trial. Cancel anytime
- Access to 14 instruments, 40+ courses, 700+ tutorials
BONUS:
- Access our Entire Course Catalogue for Every Instrument.
- Library of over 150 popular Irish tunes to practice along with.
- Virtual Reality Sessions for the unique Irish Pub Session experience – a real treat for the Irish music lover.
- Community Forum of students and teachers, all friends with a love of Irish music.
The guitar has well earned its place as a favoured accompaniment instrument for Irish music. In many ways this has opened the doors of the tradition to musicians of other genres to join in the fun that is an Irish traditional music session.
This course is for beginner guitarists who are new to Irish traditional music and would like to learn how to accompany it as well as established musicians who want to get an insight into this music. It will also be a great help to guitarists who have good experience of Irish music accompaniment and wish to go further in the development of their style.
By the end of the course you will have a repertoire of eleven popular Irish session tunes that you will be able to accompany in style. You will have learned chords, structure and rhythms of some of the most typical tunes types and keys in Irish music, such as reels, jigs, slip jigs, hornpipes and waltzes. The course has 15 lessons in total which are broken into 3 to 4 tutorials per lesson.
Course Structure
First you will learn how to tune a guitar and how to read chord charts. Then you will move into a progressive study of techniques that focus on how to play accompaniment using simple chords, simple 4/4, 6/8, 3/4 or 9/8 rhythms, as well as syncopated rhythms and more complex chords. The tutor uses a broad selection of well-known tunes to demonstrate the skills taught. Mp3 files of each tune are included for download in the course content as are pdf’s of the chords, in both standard and ABC notation.
Here’s a list of the tunes taught in this course:
The Mountain Road
The Bag Of Spuds
Gallagher’s Frolics
Out On The Ocean
The Kid On The Mountain
Give Us A Drink Of Water
The Bag Of Spuds
Gallagher’s Frolics
Out On The Ocean
The Kid On The Mountain
Give Us A Drink Of Water
The Rights Of Man
The Reel Of Sceachog
Fanny Power
The Hag At The Churn
The Man Of The House
The Reel Of Sceachog
Fanny Power
The Hag At The Churn
The Man Of The House
Sample Sheet Music
Download The Mountain Road Chord Chart.
Download The Mountain Road Standard Notation Sheet Music.
Sample mp3 of The Mountain Road
Advice Starting Out with Guitar Accompaniment
Enjoy the journey. It is highly recommended to be familiar with any tune you are learning before learning how to play accompaniment, so download the mp3 file and listen to it frequently first before picking up the guitar to learn to play accompaniment.
The Play Along Backing Tracks feature for paying members is an accompanist’s dream. In it are over 150 tunes that have the option of being played back at three different speeds 50/75/100%. You can choose to play back only the melody so that you can play your own accompaniment, or you can also select to play back both melody and accompaniment so that you can join in and feel part of the session and learn as you go. All tracks come with the guitar chords for accompaniment, that alone is worth the membership fee!
Your Tutor
Jean Damei, was born in Grenoble, France and started to play the guitar at the age of 16. After meeting a number of Irish musicians touring and teaching music in the Alps he discovered a passion for this music. At the age of 18, he left Ardeche, his childhood home, to study guitar and flute on the Irish Music & Dance degree course at the University of Limerick. On his return to France, to Lyon in 2011, he decided to explore jazz and funk. He has found much inspiration from these two musical universes, allowing him to accompany Irish melodies in a rich and varied way, and to work with new angles and approaches to the tradition. He is now back in Limerick, studying the MA in Irish Traditional Music Performance at the University of Limerick. Read more.
Find detailed questions and discussion on the course in the Community Forum, available to paying members only.
