Timmy Clifford’s

Happy belated St. Paddy’s Day! My apologies for the delay getting Tuesday’s class recording posted. Played a whole bunch of tunes on Wed at Fellini’s as part of a BRIMS fundraiser and as part of our usual KGB St. Paddy’s celebration. Btw, there are some great shirts left over from the party… just let Jacie know you’d like one next time you stop by Fellini’s for dinner or a drink. We always have such a good time there… but I have to admit that my body can’t handle it like it used to. Anyway, here are the recordings of Timmy Clifford’s, one of my favorite jigs. Really glad Alex taught it. It was the first tune Katherine learned from Alex, so I’m sure that is one of the reasons I’m partial to it. Enjoy!

Listen to Timmy Clifford’s (fast)
Listen to Timmy Clifford’s (slow)

Scottish Fiddle

Hey, I just want to put a plug in for Bill Kittrell’s fiddle class offered by BRIMS starting on Thursday at 7pm at our current home at the Renaissance School. Bill’s been an instructor of Scottish fiddle for years, and a heck of a great guy, so I know you’ll enjoy this class. So, if you’re an Irish fiddler, consider crossing the sea for 6 weeks and see what those Burns reading, haggis eating bagpipers are up to!

P.S. If anyone from the beginning fiddle class is interested, I’m looking for a couple of volunteers to stick around after class tonight and play some tunes that my DADGAD guitarists can accompany. Good opportunity to have some fun and practice (if you can stay out that late!)

DADGAD Guitar – Week 5

So today we reviewed the minor progressions using the key of Emin and also recalled the new chord progression moving up the scale (Em, Bm, C, D).

After that we worked on two hornpipes. The first was “The Boys of Blue Hill” – a hornpipe in D major. You may remember the nice little scale up (D, A, D, G) at the end of the 2nd phrase. The second hornpipe we covered was “Off to California” in G major (capo 5th fret). You may recall the nice little Em / D / C walkdown followed by the Am, Bm, C, D walk up in the B part before returning to the dominant G.

Practice playing along with The Boys of Blue Hill

Finally, we talked about how to quickly find the root key of the tune and then we practiced picking out the root chord on some tunes.

Next week, we’ll hopefully be able to have a little session so you can practice in a more “live” environment. If I can’t round up some vict… er… volunteers, we’ll learn to pick out a tune on the guitar.