Recently, we have been trialling running a short tune-learning workshop at the beginning of each session.
This involves spending 30-40 minutes learning a new tune by ear. The idea is to increase the confidence
of the sessioners for playing tunes by ear and relying less on the music. After we have learned a tune,
we will post notes about the tune we learned here.
The tunes here should all be shown as scores. If they're not then it could be your browser doesn't support
the library used to draw the music. You can probably see the ABC notation used to generate the music. I'm
trying to add PDFs to all the music so you can download that to see the score. Alternatively, use a new browser!
Lucy Farr's is a nice slow barndance that's really quick and easy to learn. That's why we
chose it for the first learn-by-ear workshop. It's in G major.
It's a dance tune, so make sure you get a nice swing into those long notes. You can try using a cut
to separate the long notes.
Chord-wise you can stick to a simple 3-chord trick; that is, G, C and D. In fact,
with this tune you can get away with just G and D. In the video below I play the first time through
the tune using a simple 3-chord trick (you can hear I throw a C in quickly on the E in 6th bar. The second time through I use some alternate chords. Note that I play these alternate chords on the second-half of
the B part. I'm using Em, Bm (Bm7 on the last time through) and Am.
Martin Hayes plays a really nice version of this tune on his album Under the Moon.