Basic chords for folk music! How to find and use new chords for playing Irish folk tunes.

A basic introduction to scales and chords, how to find the diatonic chords for a scale and new ways to play them. The visual diagrams are mainly based around bouzouki (and piano because the note layout is more intuitive) but the concepts work for any instrument, including single-note instruments that might want to play accompaniment, like low brass or winds.
Learning theory might not be the most fun part of playing an instrument, but if you grasp these basics it will help a lot with being able to quickly communicate & understand concepts like chord choice and chord progressions, which will be used in later videos which look at accompanying folk tunes in practice.
#folkmusic #irishmusic #irishbouzouki #chords #musictheory

[@johnwilliamson6846]

Excellent explanation that makes sense to me. Thanks. 🤝

[@EamonCoughlan]

That's great! I think it can be really hard to explain this kind of thing, especially if you do it as a tangent in the middle of teaching a tune, so I thought I should dedicate a full video to it that I can refer people back to later!

[@robertadair9756]

Many thanks for this clear and concise lesson! Much appreciated! 👍

[@EamonCoughlan]

You're welcome!

[@alliboogaloo]

Whoa, that's awesome. I swapped from guitar and was kind of doing this on Irish bouzouki but seeing it explained as part of music theory just vindicated me and expanded what I can do in a session. Thank you so much.

[@EamonCoughlan]

Great, glad it was useful!

[@MGWAIKIDOJITSU]

Wow now that’s going to take while to get my head around it , but I’m sure I will understand very slowly lol …

[@EamonCoughlan]

It should make more sense when you start to use it! I will be referring to some things like chord numbers in some more practical videos so I thought I should do this explanation video first that people can go back to from the other videos if they don't understand.

[@MGWAIKIDOJITSU]

@@EamonCoughlan that’s just perfect 👍

[@Musicman431]

Great vid, any chance you could make a vid on passing chords.

[@EamonCoughlan]

I go slightly into that realm in this other video ruclips.net/video/KbJlAZCYjjo/видео.html in the 'adding melodic movement' section (and maybe a little in the 'following the melody' part). I don't really think in terms of passing chords so hard for me to do a whole video on it, maybe I can figure out a short.