Category: Tune Tutorials

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.

And for more online fiddle lessons, take a look at Irish fiddle lessons online.

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.

In this Irish fiddle lesson, I’ll teach you a lovely hornpipe called the Lone Bush.

The Lone Bush is an Ed Reavy composition, a really fine Irish 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 music. He wrote some absolutely cracking tunes, many of which are often played in the Irish session scene. His reels are especially well known. But his other types of tune are also excellent, including this great hornpipe.

Fiddle player and composer Ed Reavy was born in County Cavan in Ireland, but moved to the United States at the age of 14 and lived in the Philadelphia area for the rest of his life. He was a prolific composer – 126 tunes of his survive, and we are grateful to his brother Joseph Reavy for transcribing them, as Ed himself never wrote any of his tunes down.

The Lone Bush is not a well-known Irish session tune – but maybe it should be! In this lesson I play the whole tune through first on the fiddle, then I play it through slowly and in close up so that you can work out the melody.

I’ll break down a passage in the B part that is slightly tricky on the fiddle and give you some ideas about how to learn to play it well.

I also take you through some different fiddle bowing to get that Irish hornpipe sound. I really hope that you enjoy learning this great tune for Irish fiddle. Hornpipes aren’t played often enough, so take it away to your Irish sessions and play it! I would like to spread the word about Ed Reavy’s fine hornpipes!

Ed Reavy said of the title to this tune, that he would often look out at the little Hawthorn bush that stood outside his farmhouse. “Many times he wondered about that bush and why it surviced when all it perished. It has meant many things to him and has always been a life-sustaining thought”.

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.

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 music for Jimmy Ward’s jig below, if you find that helpful.

Jim Ward, or Jimmy Ward, was a well-known banjo player from County Clare.

He was one of the members of the important ceili band, the Kilfenora Céilí Band. Jimmy Ward originally played the flute, piccolo and the whistle, but switched to the banjo in the 1940s, and it became his main instrument. He won the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil with the Kilfenora Céilí Band three years in a row, in 1954, 1955 and 1956.

Jim Ward’s, or Jimmy Ward’s jig is his most well known tune. (Although some contest that it may have not been written by him, but merely a tune associated with him).

If you would like to learn this traditional Irish jig on the fiddle with me, then please do let me know — I am planning on making a full tutorial on this tune soon.

For those that read sheet music here is the score for the setting of this tune that I generally play. The sheet music for Jimmy Ward’s jig below doesn’t include any of the ornamentation or variations I am playing in the video – this is just the melody. In this tune, I typically use lots of long rolls, cuts, bowed triplets and chords and drones.

Nor does the sheet music include any of the slurs or bowing patterns I use in playing this jig. If you would like to learn more about bowing patterns, slurs, and bowed emphasis for playing jigs, do check out my Complete Fiddler Course.

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 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 rhythmic syncopation, which can be tricky. I think the best way to approach it is just to learn the notes of the melody carefully, get them confident under the fingers of the left hand, then think about the bow and the string crossing, and then gradually speed up the tune.

I really hope you enjoy learning Frank’s reel — Fiddle players, if you would like to take your playing to the next level, take a look at my Irish fiddle courses, including a completely free course.

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 1995, was between Clare and Offaly. Clare won on a score line of 1-13 to 2-8. It was Clare’s first All-Ireland title since 1914.

The Clare Shout jig is a really fun tune to play on the fiddle. It has a slightly tricky passage in the B-part which is a good exercise in solid left-hand technique in combination with some string crossing with the bow. But we will break it down in detail and look out how we can learn and practice ‘tricky’ passages.

In this lesson, I go in to a load of detail on a few different techniques: double string crosses; block, bar (or invisible string!) chords. These will be really useful techniques not just in this tune, but in lots of other Irish fiddle tunes.

Once we’ve worked all that out, I’ll help you add in some simple fiddle ornamentation to this tune.

I hope you enjoy learning The Clare Shout jig. If you enjoyed this lesson, do take a look at my Irish fiddle courses, where I teach lots of other great tunes, bowing techniques and ornamentation, and let you in on my best practice tips and tricks.

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.

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.