Irish Guitar Podcast

The Garden Of Daisies is a set dance and is played in hornpipe time, but somewhat slower than your average hornpipe.

Note that the tempo on the recording of Marie Walsh is the correct tempo for tunes of this type.

Here we have a tune in Open A (although in the book you'll also find a version in regular tuning.)

The Open A tuning Tony uses is, from the lowest string to the highest:

E A C# E A E.

These two tunes are both in G Major and coincidentally have the same three notes at the beginning.

The first part of Castlebar Races is played in open position, the second part almost entirely in third position; that is the first finger is positioned at the third fret. It is also used to play any F# notes (2nd fret, 1st string). Where you have consecutive F# / G notes use your first finger for both.

For Mouse In The Mug you’ll find something similar. The first part of the tune is open position. For the second part of the tune Tony has written it out as a 16 bar section with no repeats. The first twelve bars of this section can be played in third position, using your first finger playing any notes occurring on the second fret of 1st string (F#) and 3rd string (A) and then reverting to open position for the last four bars. In fact the last four bars of the tune are identical to the last four bars of the first section.

McFadden’s Handsome Daughter is an A Major tune but for the guitar Tony plays it in G with capo on the 2nd fret.

The tune is a composition of John McFadden (1847-1913).

This slip jig moves between E Minor and G Major. The E Minor parts of the tune use the Natural Minor Scale rather than the Dorian Mode.

This tune is sometimes known as “The Funny Reel” and is played in D. On the guitar Tony plays it in C with the capo on the 2nd fret.

There is at least one other jig known as “Boys Of The Town”, starting on a high G (3rd fret, 1st string). But this “Boys of the Town” starts on a middle G (open 3rd string). The two tunes are quite different and in no way related.

“Athair” is the Irish word for “father”, and the Anglicized title “Fr. Jack

Walsh” is often used as the title for this tune, as is “Tatter Jack Walsh”.

The tune is played in the D mixolydian mode and thus contains the same

notes as a G Major scale. A cursory glance at the chords used in the sheet

music should alert you to this. The two main chords used are D and C and

this combination in a “D” tune invariably tells you it’s mixolydian. The key

signature is one sharp (F#). If I used two sharps (F# and C#) then there would

be natural signs used for the C notes occurring in the tune.

Some tune books incorrectly notate the tune this way. Tony’s old copy of that

excellent small collection “Allan’s Irish Fiddler” has it in D Major with

natural signs for the C. Although the transcription still ends up with the same

notes it is not very good “musical grammar”. There are two accidentals in the

tune, both in the last bar of each section. In fact the last three bars of each

section are identical.

The “Yellow Tinker” is a tune in the G mixolydian mode. In other words the scale used is a C Scale but played in the key of G.

The tune is associated with the playing of Galway accordionist Joe Burke , and perhaps because of Burke, it is very popular and widely played.

The first and third parts of the tune are almost pure mixolydian, whilst the second part of the tune is almost pure G Major, although Tony didn’t alter the key signature for the second part, despite there being an argument for doing so. Overall he just felt it was more convenient to leave t

A distinguishing feature of the Mixolydian mode is that the chord progression typically consists of G chords and F chords.

With the small exception of the C chord in bar 20, the entire tune is a three-chord wonder, but the chords are G, D, and F (not G, D, and C).

The “Swedish Jig", sometimes known as Arthur Darley’s, is a most unusual tune.

In the first part of the tune a time signature change occurs in bar 7 from the standard 6/8 to a 9/8, just for one bar, before reverting back to 6/8. In effect you play an extra half a bar.

Also the first part consists of 12 bars rather than the standard eight.

The A part is in D Major, but changes to D Minor for the second part, and then back to D Major for the third part. Both the second and third parts have 8 bars.

The chords are D, A, G, Dm, A7 and Gm.