All blog posts, articles and tune tutorials
I learned this beautiful lament — the Lament for MacGregor of Rora — from the fiddle playing of Lauren MacColl. Her version is of the melody is simpler than many other versions you will find out there. I love this lower key too. It is much more common to hear this played in the mode … Read more
Here’s a really fun Irish polka, called Riding on a Bale of Hay. Sometimes also called ‘Riding on a Load of Hay’, this is a West Kerry polka. The renowned West Kerry fiddler Denis Murphy (1910-1974) was known to play it. Dennis Murphy was born in Lisheen, Gneeveguilla, County Kerry. Both he and his sister … Read more
In this lesson, I will teach you how to play a key ornament on the Irish fiddle – rolls. “This is one of the best detailed approaches in playing and practicing rolls out there! Thank You so much!” WEdHarris on Youtube Rolls are a crucial piece of Irish fiddle ornamentation. They are such an important … Read more
My Darling Asleep is a really popular Irish tune to learn on the fiddle. In fact, it’s often one of the first Irish tunes that new fiddle players look to learn. If you’d like to learn My Darling Asleep on the fiddle, take a look at my video below. My Darling Asleep in an Irish … Read more
I often find that fiddle players looking for tunes to learn turn to the Foinn Seisiun recordings. These are really useful resources for finding recordings of well know Irish session tunes. But for a fiddle player starting out with playing in sessions, they may also have their limitations, which I’ll discuss below. I hope that … Read more
One of Ed Reavy’s most well known tunes — The Hunter’s House — fiddle players play this tune in sessions all over the world. In this tutorial I’ll teach you the Hunter’s House on the fiddle. It is a very well known reel, though it is not often attributed to Ed Reavy, its composer. Ed … Read more
In this fiddle lesson I will teach you the Banshee reel on the Irish fiddle. It is a really well known Irish session tune. It is in the key of G major. The Banshee was composed by the flute player James McMahon, from Fermanagh in Ulster, probably in the 1950s. McMahon was known for playing … Read more
Here is a fiddle tune, a Swedish reel, that I learned from the Anglo-Scandinavian group Doggerland. It was written I think by the Swedish fiddler Jenny Gustafsson. It is from Doggerland’s lovely album, No Sadness of Farewell. I have recorded it here in two keys, D minor and G minor. Although it is slightly more … Read more
Something a little different here. This isn’t a fiddle lesson as such, but I want to show you the possibilities of using a very (very) low fiddle tuning. In the video below I am playing using Octave strings on an old fiddle to play Irish fiddle. Octave strings allow us to play very low fiddle … Read more
On a site called Learn to Play the Fiddle, the question ‘What is a fiddle?’ may seem a little odd! But it is important to know something about the history of the fiddle, how it is different from a violin, and how it ended up with such an important role in Irish music. Fiddle vs … Read more