In this Irish fiddle tutorial we are going to learn a popular Irish session jig The Trip to Athlone, a great Irish session tune.
The full tutorial on this tune will be part of my Complete Irish Fiddler course (coming soon!). Find out more at Irish Fiddle Courses.
The Trip to Athlone jig, which also goes by the name of The Newport Lass (or Gearrchaile Bhaile Uí bhFiacháin in Irish), was first recorded in 1937, but is probably older than that. Athlone is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath. It is named in Irish Baile Átha Luain meaning ‘the Town of the ford of Luain’, the ford in this case being of the River Shannon, on which Athlone sits.
Newport, where the lass taking the trip to Athlone presumably came from, is on the West coast of Ireland, in County Mayo.
There are lots of tunes in the Irish traditional called “The Trip to….”. The Trip to Dingle, The Trip to Kinvara, The Trip to Sligo, The Trip to Dublin, Paddy’s Trip to Scotland, The Trip to Nenagh — that’s just off the top of head, I’m sure there are hundreds of otheres!
Which makes sense, since walking or riding the 80 miles between Newport and Athlone would have taken some time – plenty of time indeed to write an excellent little jig.
In this tutorial we are just learning the melody, but there is lots more that we can do with this fun Irish jig. As part of my Complete Irish Fiddler course, I also discuss
how we can use ornaments, such as crans and bowed triplets, in this tune
using chords and drones
the interesting harmonic progression of the first phrase
the possibilities for phrasing that distinctive second phrase
bowing patterns and emphasis
melodic variations
The Trip to Athlone is a popular tune in sessions, so it’s a good jig to know. I hope you enjoy learning it.
Farewell to Whalley Range is a popular slipjig by Michael McGoldrick, in F# minor. This is a slightly unusual key for fiddle tunes, so may take a little getting used to. But don’t worry – I’ll take you through the whole tune on the fiddle, phrase by phrase.
The name of this tune – Farewell to Whalley Range – comes from an area of Manchester, where McGoldrick had been living. He was moving away from the area, and wrote this tune as he was leaving, and so it got its name.
Although th
It’s a really fun tune to learn, and has become a very popular session tune.
It doesn’t matter here what style of fiddle playing we are talking about. Irish fiddle or Scottish fiddle (sometime lumped together as Celtic fiddle). Bluegrass or Old Time. English folk style; Shetland, Orkney, Cape Breton.
The basic principles remain pretty much the same. So here is my guide to what you need to know to learn how to play the fiddle.
What follows here is based on my experience teaching people how to play the fiddle. In the past 4 years alone, I’ve taught 2000+ fiddle lessons. I’ve taught beginner fiddle players from the ages of 5 to 75 years old.
I’ve taught professional and semi-professional classical violinists, who wanted to learn how to play Irish fiddle with that authentic sound. And I’ve taught people who have never picked up a fiddle before.
No matter where you are starting from, I can help you with some of the fundamentals of how to play the fiddle.
What is a fiddle?
The first question you might have is, what makes a fiddle a fiddle? I’ve written a post to try to answer the questions ‘what is a fiddle?’. It turns out the answer is both complicated and simple!
On the one hand, we can think of the fiddle as any bowed stringed instrument. As such, it has a long and complex history, going back probably as far as the 7th Century in some form or other. But the fiddle has changed considerably over this time. Sometimes it has had 3 strings, sometimes 4 or 5. And it has had many variations in shape. It has normally been made of wood, but tin fiddles have also been popular, especially in Ireland, where they were cheap to make and easy to repair.
But more simply, the fiddle as we know it today is a violin. What is the difference between a fiddle and a violin? Nothing at all. The fiddle (at least in its modern version) is the same exact instrument as a violin.
It all comes down to the style of playing. A fiddle player and a violinist play in different styles. But a fiddler and violinist are playing the same instrument. I play the fiddle. But the instrument I play normally for performance is a violin made in Germany in about 1810, which would have been played as a classical violin most of its life (and still is, sometimes!).
For a complete beginner fiddle player, I would advise renting a fiddle, if you can find somewhere that offers rentals. This allows you to try out playing and learning before committing to buying an instrument. As a rough figure, I rent out student fiddles for around £15-20/month.
How to play the fiddle – holding the fiddle
To start out with, as you are working out how to play the fiddle, I suggest you start off holding the fiddle by the body (the shoulder) of the instrument, rather than the neck.
Sit, or stand, upright and comfortable. Your shoulders are side-to-side, your eyes are looking forwards. When you put the fiddle on your shoulder, it will be somewhere (roughly 45 degrees) between the line of your shoulders, and your eyes.
The fiddle rests on the top and front of your left shoulder, on your collarbone. The button on the end of the body of the fiddle rests into the side of your neck, and your jawline under your cheek rests gently on the chinrest of the fiddle.
Most people find it useful to use a shoulder rest of some kind, but you can you use a rolled up cloth or a large sponge. This can help you to hold the fiddle between your shoulder and your cheek. You don’t need to be able to hold the fiddle up just using your shoulder (i.e. without holding it with your left hand). But it is useful to be able to support it with your shoulder, so you aren’t holding on to the neck tightly with your left hand.
If you can hold the fiddle comfortably without a shoulder rest, you don’t need to use one.
How to play the fiddle – the bow hold
When I teach people how to play the fiddle, I start out suggesting they use a ‘standard’ bow hold. At least at first. It’s useful to start off with this bow hold and then you can adapt it further down the line. (Many fiddlers hold the bow higher up the stick, for example).
So let’s learn how to hold the bow.
Make a circle with your thumb and middle finger of your right hand. The tips of this finger and thumb meet between the stick and the hair of the bow just above the notch at the bottom of the bow.
Then tip, or lean, your whole hand over towards the tip of the bow (pointy end) until the side of your index finger touches the stick of the bow. Gently wrap the finger around the stick. It ends up lying more along, and around, than across the stick.
The side of the 2nd knuckle rests on top of stick. ‘Leaning’ on the finger on the top of the bow creates any pressure or power required by the fiddle player.
Notice how the fingers are now lying at about a 45degree angle to the stick of the bow, and loosely curled, not straight, or rigid.
The 4th (ring) finger drops down alongside the 3rd finger, with its tip resting somewhere on or towards the frog of the bow. (See my Part of a violin bow page.) It’s tip is pointed towards the inlaid ‘dot’ on the frog but doesn’t need to lie on top of it.
The little finger’s tip rests, completely relaxed, on the flat top (on most bows) of the bow. Gently curled, not pressing down.
The bow is quite deep in the fingers. Cradled, rather then held – and certainly never gripped. It weighs about 62 grams, so you don’t need to hold tight! The fingers are loose, relaxed; the wrist relaxed too.
That’s how you hold your fiddle bow!
How to play the fiddle – Left hand position
The left hand holds the neck of the fiddle. When you are learning how to play the fiddle there are some common mistakes beginners fall into. So let’s make sure you know how to hold the fiddle properly!
The left thumb goes on one side of the neck, touching the neck with the side of the middle knuckle of the thumb.
The base of the forefinger goes on the other side, touching the neck with the bony part at the bottom of the finger. The neck rests on these two bony parts – not in the ‘crook’ of the thumb, and not on the palm of the hand.
See the little bit of a gap under the neck of the fiddle in the photo below.
Keep your wrist relaxed and away from the neck of the fiddle. The arm should be loose, and near enough straight all the way from the back of the hand to the tip of the elbow. Don’t cock your wrist either in or out.
A slight bend as below is OK, but not too much – stay loose!
Don’t grip the neck, it rests on those bony bits, or is very gently pinched between them. Try to keep your thumb in particular relaxed – wobble it about to check that it’s loose.
The finger go up first, curl over and come down on the strings. They should come down from above — not flat, but pointy. Use the very tip of the finger on the string. Try to bring down the final knuckle as vertically as possible.
Don’t press down hard! Use minimal pressure. Keep your fingers light!
Part 2….
Part 2 coming soon. Check back, or sign up to my mailing list to be notified when I put out new articles or videos.
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 of A Dorian, but I’m playing it here in E Dorian. This key would be too low to play this lament on the pipes, of course, but it works beautifully on the fiddle.
With laments, it is common to take a fluid approach to the rhythm and the tempo, and to ornament heavily with cuts, double cuts, grace notes, chords and drones.
I have transcribed Lament for MacGregor of Rora for fiddle in the sheet music below. However, it doesn’t do justice to the tune, since this is just the skeleton of the melody. When playing slow airs or laments, the player must choose how to, interpret, embellish and vary the melody to create expression and emotion in the music.
Just playing the notes below won’t really bring out this beautiful lament. So listen to the recording — or find other players’ versions of this tune — so that you can start to work out your own interpretation of the Lament for MacGregor of Rora on the fiddle.
My online fiddle course — The COMPLETE IRISH FIDDLER – Essentials — is now launched.
Fiddle players, if you are looking to take your fiddle playing to the next level, come and see how I can help you transform your playing.
With modules on fiddle bowing technique and bowing patterns, ornamentation and where to use it, pulse and rhythm, the core Irish tune types, plus all my best exercises and practice tips. This course is guaranteed to take your fiddle playing further.
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 Julia Clifford were taught fiddle by the extremely influential fiddle and fiddle teacher Pádraig O’Keeffe.
Denis moved to the United States but visited Ireland often, and moved back to Lisheen in 1965. He played and recorded extensively with Johnny O’Leary and Julia Clifford, and recorded lots of music for the radio and reordings. His light but driving bowing style has influenced many fiddle players.
The Star above the Garter, recorded with Julia Clifford, is a classic album of the Sliabh Luachra style.
Dennis Murphy, of West Kerry
Like many Irish tunes, Riding on a Bale of Hay may be an adaptation of a Scottish tune, the strathspey ‘Miss Ramsay of Barnton’.
It’s not really a beginner’s tune, as it has a couple of slightly tricky phrases, and one note (D sharp) that doesn’t crop up in a lot of fiddle tunes, sothis is an intermediate tutorial.
Don’t let that put you off though – Riding on a Bale of Hay is a great polka, and excellent Irish fiddle tune. Plus, as with any slightly trickier tune, there are some really useful bits of fiddle technique that you can practice here.
I’ll take you through the whole polka phrase by phrase so you can learn the tune on the fiddle. Then we can talk about more advanced elements that you can add in.
My online fiddle course — The COMPLETE IRISH FIDDLER – Essentials — is now launched.
Fiddle players, if you are looking to take your fiddle playing to the next level, come and see how I can help you transform your playing.
With modules on fiddle bowing technique and bowing patterns, ornamentation and where to use it, pulse and rhythm, the core Irish tune types, plus all my best exercises and practice tips. This course is guaranteed to take your fiddle playing further.
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 part of making your fiddle playing sound authentically Irish. But it can be really difficult to learn to play good ornaments unless someone shows you how. In this video, I break down one of the most important pieces of the Irish fiddle ornamentation – the roll (or, to be more specific, the long roll).
In the video below, I show you two different ways of thinking about (long) rolls on the fiddle, and two different methods for learning to play them really well. This is a 20 minute video tutorial on how to play this important piece of Irish fiddle ornamentation.
I have taught hundreds of Irish fiddle players how to play rolls, and have thought carefully about how best to teach (and learn) to play rolls.
I’ll show you the method which is now my preferred way of teaching fiddle rolls.
“Wow. Brilliantly explained and so clearly demonstrated.”
ArfyF on Youtube
I’ll play them slowly, with closeups of my left hand so you can exactly what is going on. I show you how to play rolls on first finger, second finger and third finger notes. Then I suggest some ways that you can practice playing your Irish ornamentation on the fiddle.
Two ways of playing rolls on the fidde
Fiddle players often think about rolls as a series of five notes.
That is, the principal note. Then the note above. Then the principal note. Then the note below, and back to the principal note. If you have learned classical violin, you would call this a ‘turn’.
A classical turn is quite different from a roll on Irish fiddle
But a roll is very different from a ‘turn’ in classical playing. Firstly, it is not a mainly (or only) a melodic effect at all really. For many players, rolls are used as a percussive, or rhythmic feature. (This is partly a matter of personal style, but the broad point remains).
Secondly, the rhythm is very different. The initial (principal, or melody) note is the one that is held long. Then the roll happens at the end. Again different players will have different exact timings to their long rolls (‘joint short rolls’, used not on a single note, but on two notes, and ‘short rolls’ are different agin, and are not the same ornament as ‘long rolls’).
A different approach to learning Irish fiddle rolls
As a result, I think learning to play Irish fiddle rolls as a series of melodic notes may not be the best way. I have come up with a different approach to teaching fiddle rolls.
Take a look at the video tutorial to find out how I now teach all of my students to play great Irish fiddle rolls.
In a follow-up video, I look at a tune, Paddy Fahey’s jig (#4), so you can understand where you might use rolls in a typical jig.
This video is also available on Youtube, along with lots of other video lesson on Irish fiddle.
My online fiddle course — The COMPLETE IRISH FIDDLER – Essentials — is now launched.
Fiddle players, if you are looking to take your fiddle playing to the next level, come and see how I can help you transform your playing.
With modules on fiddle bowing technique and bowing patterns, ornamentation and where to use it, pulse and rhythm, the core Irish tune types, plus all my best exercises and practice tips. This course is guaranteed to take your fiddle playing further.
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 jig, which means it is in 6/8 time. Say, DA-di-dee DA-di-dee for the rhythm. Or BA-con-and SAUce-a-ges, BA-con-and SAUce-a-ges.
In Irish sessions, you will often here it jokingly referred to as “My Darling’s a Sheep”. But it is a little known fact that even the ‘real’ title was made up.
When Chief Francis O’Neill — the great collector of Irish immigrant music to the US — collected the tune from Abram Beamish he was told the tune was called “My Darling in Bed”. He changed the title to My Darling Asleep when he published it to make it less suggestive! O’Neill wrote to a friend that:
A rare tune unknown to all of us named “My darling in bed” was noted down from theplaying of Abram S. Beamish (born within 5 miles of my birthplace in West Cork). Forobvious reasons the title was modified to “My Darling Asleep.”
In this video I play through the tune My Darling Asleep. Fiddle players who have some experience learning tunes by ear will be able to pick out the melody and any variations or ornamentation. If would like to learn this tune with me, or if you would like me to make a tutorial video please do let me know.
My online fiddle course — The COMPLETE IRISH FIDDLER – Essentials — is now launched.
Fiddle players, if you are looking to take your fiddle playing to the next level, come and see how I can help you transform your playing.
With modules on fiddle bowing technique and bowing patterns, ornamentation and where to use it, pulse and rhythm, the core Irish tune types, plus all my best exercises and practice tips. This course is guaranteed to take your fiddle playing further.
My Darling Asleep is a tune that has been very widely played and recorded by Irish fiddle players, and by a whole host of bands.
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 my tutorials listed at the bottom of the page will help.
Foinn Seisiún (pronounced ‘fween sesh-oon’) means ‘Session Tunes’ in Irish. The recordings and accompanying books) were made by Comhaltas, a group central to the preservation and promotion of Irish traditional music.
There are three books and recordings in the series. The first was released in 2001. Then Foinn Seisiun 2 followed in 2003 and finally Foinn Seisiún 3 in 2007.
A great learning resource…
The tunes on the Foinn Seisiun recordings are played by good musicians, at a nice even tempo. The playing on these recordings is deliberately at a ‘moderate tempo’ according to Comhaltas. (Some would say, ‘moderate to slow’!). So if you are already good at learning tunes by ear, you can probably work out the melody.
These recordings are especially good for getting familiar with some of the most commonly played sessions tunes. Listening to the Foinn Seisiun recordings will help your ear get used the sound of different types of tune, and get the melodies in your head. This will help when you come to learn the tune by ear. As Comhaltas say about the series, they were ‘created in order to give players of Irish Traditional Music a good grounding in standard session sets.’
The choice of tunes for the Foinn Seisiun recordings and books deliberately centres on common tunes. While there is no such thing as a ‘standard’ set of tunes in any one Irish session, certainly you won’t go far wrong with the tunes suggested on the Foinn Seisiun recordings.
As Comhaltas say, ‘Though we’d never claim that this list of tunes and sets is authoritative, learning these will be enough for you to sit in on many sessions around the world.’
…with some drawbacks
However, the recordings have their drawbacks. They are a little ‘fuzzy’ — this is a recording of a session after all! There is a certain amount of background noise, and the instruments are not clearly balanced. So you maybe not be able to catch all the notes clearly. And since there are a mix of many instruments playing, that can make it harder too.
In addition, listening to the tunes on the Foinn Seisiun recordings is unlikely to help you with with specific features of your instrument. For example, with Irish ornamentation or phrasing or bowing patterns on the fiddle.
So, I have started to list below some of the tunes on the Foinn Seisiun recordings that I have made tutorials for. In some cases these are full length video tutorials on tunes, breaking down each phrase. In others, it is a solo fiddle playthrough of a tune, where you will be able to hear more of the features of that tune for fiddle players.
Foinn Seisiun 1
From Foinn Seisiún 1 I have made tutorials on the following tunes:
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 Reavy was born in Barnagrove in County Cavan in 1897. He emigrated with his family to Philadelphia in 1912, only visited Ireland again twice, for nine months in 1922 and for three weeks in 1969. He lived in Philadelphia until his death in 1988.
Ed Reavy was a prodigious composer. He wrote hundreds of tunes, of which we have record of about 120, thanks in no small part to the work of his son, Joseph (Joe). Joe transcribed many of Ed’s tunes, which have been published in two tunebooks.
The title of this tune is sometimes written as The Hunters House, or The Hunters’ House; as in, the house of the Hunter Family. But of the title for this tune, The Hunter’s House, Ed, said: “”It would be furnished with every evidence of the prize game he caught. It would be a place where the best men would choose to gather and listen to Ireland’s finest players.” (Though, it is possible that this is another one of Reavy’s ‘odd lies’, used only in — as he wonderfully put it — ‘places where the truth won’t fit’.)
I’ll take you through tune slowly so that you can learn the melody, showing you up close the left hand fingering. I’ll also give you some ideas for how you can use chord shapes to help you play this fluently.
I’ll also show you where in The Hunter’s House fiddle players can use some classic Irish fiddle bowing techniques, such as cross bowing and circle bowing.
Keep an eye out for more videos coming soon on these bowing techniques, and other reel bowing patterns.
My online fiddle course — The COMPLETE IRISH FIDDLER – Essentials — is now launched.
Fiddle players, if you are looking to take your fiddle playing to the next level, come and see how I can help you transform your playing.
With modules on fiddle bowing technique and bowing patterns, ornamentation and where to use it, pulse and rhythm, the core Irish tune types, plus all my best exercises and practice tips. This course is guaranteed to take your fiddle playing further.
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 an ivory flute.
This tune was known as McMahon’s reel until a couple of recordings in the 1970s titled it The Banshee, which is now its more common name.
The Banshee is a great tune to play on the fiddle. In this lesson I’ll take you through learning the melody on the fiddle. First I play the tune at full speed so you can hear what it is meant to sound like.
The Banshee is sometime played as a single reel. It is possible that is how it was composed, and it certainly has the ‘feel’ or a single reel. However, the recordings made of it that popularised it are all as a double reel (or just, ‘a reel’, since most are double).
Then, I play the tune through slightly slower, with little or no ornamentation.
Finally, I play this reel through slowly, with a close-up on the fingerboard, so you can see the left hand.
My online fiddle course — The COMPLETE IRISH FIDDLER – Essentials — is now launched.
Fiddle players, if you are looking to take your fiddle playing to the next level, come and see how I can help you transform your playing.
With modules on fiddle bowing technique and bowing patterns, ornamentation and where to use it, pulse and rhythm, the core Irish tune types, plus all my best exercises and practice tips. This course is guaranteed to take your fiddle playing further.
