All blog posts, articles and tune tutorials
In this Irish hornpipe fiddle lesson, I’ll teach you a lovely hornpipe called the Lone Bush. The Lone Bush is an Ed Reavy composition, a really fine hornpipe. Fiddle players will enjoy the slightly challenging B part, which will test your left hand technique. Ed Reavy is one of my favourite composers of Irish traditional … Read more
Jim Ward’s, or Jimmy Ward’s, jig is a traditional Irish jig, which I’m playing here on the fiddle. Jimmy Ward’s jig is a really popular session tune, played in Irish trad sessions all over the world. In the video below you can hear me playing my setting of this tune. I have also included sheet … Read more
In this free fiddle lesson video, I’ll teach you this great tune — Frank’s Reel. Fiddle player, John McCusker, wrote this tune and it has become a really popular tune in Irish and Scottish sessions. This is a really fun tune to play on the fiddle. But the B part has a little bit of … Read more
In this irish jig fiddle tutorial, I’ll teach you a lovely Irish tune called The Clare Shout jig. I believe this tune was written by Bobby Gardiner in 1995 to celebrate Clare’s win in the 1995 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship final.on button accordian. It’s a great fiddle tune too though! The match, on 3 September … Read more
In my short Irish fiddle course, you will find FREE Irish fiddle lessons, covering a range of Irish fiddle tunes, techniques and playing advice. I hope you will enjoy the lessons in this course, and that they will help you take your fiddle further. In the first lessons in my Free Irish Fiddle Course, we … Read more
One of the things I occasionally get asked by those interested in playing Irish fiddle, is: ‘What is the normal Irish fiddle tuning?’. I think this can sometimes cause some confusion. Perhaps because people aren’t always sure about the difference between a fiddle and a violin. (Spoiler – there is no difference between a violin … Read more
If you’d like to learn a traditional Irish jig on the fiddle, here is a great tune to learn. The Hag with the Money is a very old song, which you can still hear sung in Ireland today. It is also a well known Irish session tune, and a common tune to hear played on … Read more
Here is one of my top tips for practising Irish fiddle ornaments. This is a trick that I suggest to many of my students for building up confidence and speed in playing Irish fiddle ornaments, but it can also be used for practising all sorts of other techniques that you are working on. Watch the … Read more
This is a video lesson for intermediate players, who would like to learn and Irish jig on the fiddle, ‘by ear’. This slow playthrough of an Irish jig, Timmy Clifford’s jig, is a good chance to practice learning tunes by ear.
Here I’m playing a really popular Irish jig, Garrett Barry’s jig — fiddle players will really enjoy learning this tune! In this video I am just playing through my version of the tune, but if this tune video proves popular then I will make a full tutorial of this tune with my suggestions for ornamentation, … Read more