GDAEB - An Irish Banjo High B Workaround

High B

I've been playing 4-string tenor banjo tuned GDAE long enough to know that tunes with that high B note are always going to be an issue (for me). Maid Behind the Bar, Ships Are Sailing, Star of Munster, Mug of Brown Ale, Connaughtman's Rambles...sometimes it seems like every other tune has that 7th-fret high B note in it. Well, now I have a solution: an open B string. I surrender.

One of my tenor banjos is a Gold Tone AC-4 tenor banjo, which is a surprisingly good banjo for the money. Being my 3rd of 3 banjos, I don't play it much so I decided to tune it up DAEB. I used the DAE strings from a regular Deering Irish tenor banjo string set and then used a .008 gauge string for the high B string. The scale length of this banjo is 22.5" so that was really pushing it but it didn't break!

In DAEB tuning I can play an open note B on the highest string instead of having to reach or jump up to 7th fret of the E-string. The fingerings required to play tunes in the same keys that I already know them in can remain the same in DAEB tuning when compared to GDAE tuning. I simply have to move everything down a string since the DAE strings have shifted. The only thing you give up is not having a low G string. The lowest note on a tin whistle is D so it's not that big of a deal.

Nonetheless, I've been working with banjo maker Zach Hoyt to create 5 string tenor banjo that can be tuned GDAEB, low to high. The scale length will be shorter, around 19.75 inches to accommodate the two extremes: a very light gauge like an .009 for the high B string and a quite heavy gauge string like a .046w for the low G string. This will offer the best of both worlds. I think the musician Michael Kang of the band String Cheese Incident uses this tuning for his 5-string electric baritone mandolin.

Even though I've only been playing in DAEB for a week, it has already helped with my ear. On a GDAE tuned tenor banjo, I never quite got the fingers and the ear to sync up on sections involving the high B note. With DAEB tuning I can now effortlessly play through sections that had always tripped me up and can now finally play those sections more by ear since I don't have fingering difficulties to get in the way.

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. 

Make Your Practice More Effective

Last summer my goal was to familiarize myself with the local Irish tune repertoire so that I could play along at sessions. For the most part, I have met that goal. Starting now, my goal is to take that one step farther and be able to actually start (lead?) sets at the session and play a set of three tunes all the way through without stopping. The mistake I made over the last year, if you can call it that, was to spend most of my practice time playing along with recordings rather than trying to recall the tune from memory. As a result, I "know" dozens of tunes well enough that I can join in at the session if hear them being played, but left to my own devices there are several murky sections that remain in these tunes. Here's now I plan to fix that.

View sets as one entire piece of music. Practice the transitions between tunes. Don't waste time practicing what you've already learned well, but focus on the tunes, or sections of tunes, within a set that still need work. Ultimately being able to play the entire set from memory without stopping.

Struggle to recall before looking at the music. I don't think looking at the sheet music for an Irish tune is such a bad thing, especially if you're stuck on one section that you can't figure out by ear. What I don't like though is being completely dependent on the notation or using it as a crux. To help deplete that even further, I have started doing something that I didn't do at all last year and that is just play a tune without having the audio or notation handy. If it's a tune that I'm already quite familiar with the sound of, struggling to find and re-find those notes on your instrument can be a good thing. Practice completely from memory. Don't constantly check the music.

If/when looking at the music, try and make note of things for the purpose of not having to look next time. Get your eyes off the sheet music as soon as possible and limit your return looks. When looking at the music, try to recognize something memorable about every single measure if possible. Notice things like the structure of the tune, patterns within the music, scalar runs, arpeggiated sections, familiar note sequences that show up in a lot of tunes, and repeated measures or sections. TAke note of quirky things about the tune, like a section starting from a note that is not part of the tonal center chord. When recalling the tune later, bring to mind these things you noticed about it in the first place.

Record yourself playing a tune slowly and cleanly. After you learn a tune, record yourself playing a good version of it and then upload that recording to an app like the Amazing Slow Downer. Create a playlist of these recordings. Use the app to speed up the recording so that you can "hear" yourself playing cleanly at speeds faster than your current ability. Then visualize making that increased speed a reality. This will teach your brain to process faster speeds and possibly trick your brain into believing you can play this fast. If it helps you to look at the music or tab while making this recording that is fine, but put the tab away as soon as you make the recording and use the audio sound as your "visual" source.

Practice playing from anywhere in the tune. Don't always start a tune at the beginning. Maybe start at the end and work your way backwards. Give equal time to all parts of the tune. Learn the B-part as well as the A-part. If one part of the tune is weaker than another, focus on that weaker area until it is your strongest part of the tune. Focus on areas of weakness until they become areas of strength.

Practice improv and variations. Can you play the tune differently each time through? Can you play each measure a little differently each time through? How far can you purposefully vary from the melody (while still hearing the melody in your head) and still get back on track? Not only is this great preparation for "owning" the tune, but it's also a lot of fun!

Visualize yourself playing through the tune while away from your instrument. "Hear" the melody in your mind as you imagine yourself playing. This allows the brain to build associations between the sounds you imagine in your head and the movement of your hands. Could you write out the tune for someone completely from memory with no instrument handy? Can you recite all the notes of the tune?

Practice Spaced Repetition. Revisit a tune right before you're going to forget it. This means that even when you're learning a tune you don't have to play it every single day. Take a three day break and see if you still remember it. Take a 7 day break and see if you remember it. If you can't remember it after 7 days go back to every 3 days. If you can remember it after 7, go to 14 days between playing it.

Divide practice time. Don't just sit there and play one tune for 30 minutes. Play it for a few minutes then switch to something else for five minutes. Then go back to the tune you were playing before. And so on. Break it up into little mini chunks.

Create flash cards and group them into categories. In my case, I spent the last two days writing the names of all the sets that get played at the TrailJams session onto little notecards. One set per card. This gets back to my first item above, which is to view a set of three tunes as one piece of music. I am now going to break these sets into one of five different categories: 1) sets I don't know at all (none of the three tunes are familiar yet), 2) sets where I know 1 of the 3 tunes, 3) sets where I know 2 of the 3 tunes, 4) sets where I can fake my way through playing all three tunes but maybe not at speed and/or not without hearing the music, and 5) fully memorized sets that I can play through from memory at speed with or without a backing track or drum beat. Obviously sets I don't know at all or where I can only play 1 of the tunes need the most attention, whereas sets that I am close to being able to play all the way through at speed just need a little periodic polishing or refreshing.

Years ago, before sheet music was handy and before there were audio recordings, you had to use your own memory, imagination and creativity to recall a tune and make it your own. Maybe simulating that inconvenience can lead to being able to play more tunes from memory!

That should do it. This list is mostly for my benefit in case I get stuck! 

Irish Tunes Are Like Bob Ross Paintings

Remember Bob Ross? He was the guy with the big hair who had a PBS show where he would do paintings of landscapes with mountains, trees, ponds and skies. Bob Ross would paint from his mind. He wasn't looking at anything. He wasn't looking at tab or sheet music. Could he paint that exact same painting again? Probably not an exact copy, but he could paint one very similar if he wanted to. Or he could paint a completely different one in that same style if that was his goal.

An Irish tune is like one of those paintings. You play from your mind just like how Bob Ross paints from his mind. You hear the tune in your head and then play it. Fortunately it takes us about 30 seconds to play the tune once through, whereas Bob Ross took 30 minutes to paint his. 

When you play that same tune again next week, it's like painting that same painting all over again, maybe with a few variations from last time but not so much to make it a completely new painting. Each tune is like that. When you move on to play a different tune, it's like Bob Ross painting a different painting than that other one. But when you play that tune again, it's like painting that painting again. Perhaps it comes out a little better than last time you played it at the session.

My first attempts to pick out simple melodies by ear were similar to what I would have gone through had I tried to forge a Bob Ross painting. I had no skill in this regard, so the melody I came up with didn't bear much resemblance to the original version. These were very bad paintings when compared to what Bob Ross would have done. They ended up being "original" compositions instead of a transcription of a pre-existing tune. Which isn't such a bad thing!

Eventually I got better at it, to the point where instead of painting a different painting than the one that I was trying to mimic, I was actually painting a similar painting to the one Bob Ross did. If you are trying to learn Maids of Ardagh and you are getting 90% of the notes correct, and the other 10% are just a result of misunderstood notes or not having the motor skills to pull it off, then technically that's still Maids of Ardagh. Just an amateur version of it.

Anyway, this "Irish tunes are like Bob Ross" paintings thing made a lot of sense to me last night as I was going to sleep. I waited 18 hours to write about it and now I don't really know if I understand the comparison. Ha! 

In Appreciation of Jonathan Lay's Trailjams Site

I've dedicated the past 12 months to reacquainting myself with Irish session tunes, with the goal of being able to participate in sessions, and a big part of that has been Portland, Oregon musician Jonathan Lay's TrailJams.org site.

There are now over 150 tunes on the site with both the notation and the audio at different speeds. All the tune types are represented: reels, jigs, hornpipes, polkas, slides, slip jigs, and more. The audio is very clean and clear and exactly matches the score, which ironically I think is great for ear training and ridding yourself of tab dependency. 

You can try playing the tune by ear based on the audio and then compare your version to the sheet music. It's like having a cheat sheet. In addition, there are links to recordings and other resources for each tune. The idea is not to simply learn the basic Trailjams version and stop there, but to use these bare bones versions as a stage in your learning toward building your own interpretations and variations.

I also like that he does a Tune of the Week, with the Tune of the Week being part of a Featured Set where it is either the first, second or third tune in a medley. At any given time, TrailJams has 10 of these featured sets. About every third week one of the sets comes off the featured list, while a new one comes on. At that rate, every six months or so there's a completely new group of 10 featured sets, with it taking about 25 to 30 weeks for any one set to go from new to old and then rotate out. If you've been keeping track, by the time a set drops off it should, hopefully, be in your long-term memory. The old sets remain available on a master list even after rotating out of featured status.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to participate in-person at one of the sessions Jonathan hosts in the Portland metro area, then the work you put into learning any of the featured sets (or individual tunes within the featured sets) will pay off because there's a strongish likelihood of these being played. There's no hard and fast rule about that, but the idea is for the featured sets to be in heavier rotation than others. The repetition helps with learning. At the in-person session tunes and sets are not drawn exclusively from the TrailJams list, but it forms the basis for the repertoire. Often, the reason that a tune makes it onto the site in the first place is because it was already being played a lot and therefore earned the TrailJams treatment. Other times, more obscure tunes are brought in that are new to a lot of us.

Some naysayers might think that having predetermined sets takes aways some of the spontaneity that is inherent in an Irish session, the not knowing what tune is coming next part of the experience. There's some truth to that, but Jonathan's approach is arguably more welcoming to intermediate level trad musicians who might be intimidated by a more fly by the seat of the pants approach.

Trailjams.org is completely free, although for a small monthly fee as low as $6, Jonathan offers a Patreon > Soundslice version which allows you to slow down or increase the speed of a tune, loop sections, hide the notation or change it to mandolin tab, play along with a backing track, and more. You can even transpose the audio playback to other keys/modes. Only minutes ago, I used this feature to move Lilting Banshee over to G-dorian instead of A-dorian to see if I could play it that way. What a great brain teaser! 

All in all, TrailJams.org is quite a service to anyone interested in learning Irish session tunes! Just imagine the amount of work Jonathan has put into this. Not long ago you would have had to purchase Irish tune books with play along CDs to have both the audio track and the matching notation. Here it is now, all in one place online. Bravo!

Envision Yourself Playing Faster

Learning to play Irish traditional music as an adult is funny. As soon as you start to feel confident or think that you're making progress, you're made to feel like you don't know anything. Two steps forward, one step back. This happened to me the other night. I went to a session that I've been to at least a half dozen times before, but this time everything felt too fast for me. I couldn't get my fingers - or brain - to keep up. 

Granted, everything was speeded way up this night, and as a result I struggled through most of it and was often embarrassed by the offensive sounds coming out of my instrument. When I got home later that evening, I noticed that my arm and wrist were sore and fatigued from all the extra tension and exertion I must have been going through.

This did knock me back a rung or two. Fortunately though, I'm at a point in my development where instead of getting discouraged, I get motivated after an experience like this. Last night I was reading through Josh Turknett's The Laws of Brainjo book and came across a tip that I adapted into a practice technique this morning, which I think is going help. That is to envision yourself playing faster.

Take a tune that you are learning but don't have completely down yet. Record yourself playing a slow version of this tune. Play it slow enough so that you can get through it smoothly; slow enough so that maybe you can even add in some triplets. It's OK to look at the sheet music or tab when making this recording if that helps. 

Then put down your instrument and simply listen to the recording you made. As you listen, visualize yourself playing it, matching sound to movement and movement to sound. Think about the movement required to play this tune. How it felt. How those movements made that sound. This visualization practice + muscle memory practice + auditory practice combined. 

The next step is to transfer that recording to an app such as the Amazing Slow Downer that allows you to speed it up. Speed it up by 150% or 170% or 180% or 200% (200% = twice as fast) and listen to the recording now. Visualize yourself playing it smoothly at this speed. That's you playing on the recording, and now as you listen that's still you playing it this fast. It might be difficult to visualize it this way at first, because your brain may not able to process the tune being played at this advanced speed. Give your mind time to catch up!

In your imagination, visualize the pick strokes and fingerings you used to make this recording, and now visualize those movements at this increased speed. For me, this is different from "seeing" the score/notation/tab in your mind. What I'm picturing is the perspective of myself looking at the fretboard as I play the tune. Where my fingers have to go to play it. Keep that in mind as the speed increases.

When you're ready, turn off the recording and continue this exercise silently and internally, hearing the sound of the tune in your mind and feeling the movements required to play it. When you later pick up your instrument to play this tune, do you not only have it memorized better but can you now play it faster as well?

Oregon Move - One Year Update

It's officially been one year since Laura and I made the move to Oregon. We bought a townhouse last fall in a quiet neighborhood that happens to be directly adjacent to the apartment we had rented. It takes a few minutes longer, but we can still walk to the MAX light rail stop at Orenco Station. And we're still only about five miles from where Laura's sister and her family live so we get to see them a lot. We even child sat for our ten year old nibling recently. We just watched a Disney show and ate snacks and pizza so it was pretty easy.

Laura and me at the Celtic Fantasy Faire

Laura has been able to continue working for the same parent company as in Virginia, and basically just transferred to a new veterinary hospital owned by that company in Beaverton, OR about 8 miles from where we live. It's an all new staff but she's adjusted well. After one year she's no longer a newbie and is probably a veteran there now! I was able to keep my east coast job and work entirely remote, which has worked out great, although I miss not being there in person some of the time. I sold my car before we left Virginia and so far we've managed to get by with just one vehicle.

Trees in the neighborhood this spring

I've gotten involved in the Irish traditional music community here. I had taken about 5 or 6 years off from playing Irish music, so it's been a challenge getting back up to speed, but it's been fun. It's really well organized here, which I like. I try to practice every day and there are opportunities to play in sessions each Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes Saturdays here. I can't go to all of them all the time but I get around and the people seem to like me even though I'm struggling to keep my head above water.

Skittles enjoying sun on the patio

Laura enjoys gardening in the small back patio space we have, and she recently got a Weber Q series grill and has been grilling out every chance she gets, which I get to reap the benefits of! She is also enjoying having her sister nearby so that they can get together for breakfast or just to hang out. Laura and I both continue to be avid readers, with Laura consuming fantasy novels, while I like the mystery fiction of writers such as Robert B. Parker, Richard Stark, Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block and Max Allan Collins. I can't tell you how many times I've been to the local library this past year.

Skittles is doing well. She turned eleven this year. I take her on daily walks around the neighborhood, and we often take her to local trails or paths that allow dogs. Not all parks allow dogs here because they say that the presence of dogs distresses the local wildlife. Even friendly pups like Skittles! There's a pet store I walk Skittles to about every other week to stock up on locally made treats, which is her favorite recurring thing to do by far.

Skittles in chair

For actual hiking, we learned that the northern terminus of Portland's famed Forest Park Wildwood Trail is at a trailhead only about a 15 minute, mostly rural, drive from our house. We don't get there as often as I'd like, but there is some great hiking nearby. There's also a brewery about a ten minute walk from our house called Vertigo that we like to go to. It's about the closest thing we have to the community that was built up around Origin Beer Lab in Ashland, VA.

We've gotten into local sports and have been going to one game a month, either for the minor league hockey team The Portland Winterhawks or the minor league baseball team The Hillsboro Hops. When one season ends the other begins, so there is never a break in the action. We can take the MAX right to Veterans Memorial Coliseum where the Winterhawks play, whereas the Hops' stadium is only a couple miles from our house. So it's either a short drive or Uber, or we can even take the bus there and have in fact done that.

Hillsboro Hops baseball game, 6/13/25

We love visiting the Oregon Coast and have done excursions to favorite towns such as Yachats to the south and Astoria to the north. We've also ventured into Washington state to check out the McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge, which is beautifully positioned on the banks of the Columbia River. And we've done some some day trips to nearby Oregon towns, including Silverton and St. Helens. 

Last month we did our first real week-long vacation since moving here and went to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state, near Victoria British Columbia. That was a great trip and I can't wait to go back. This fall I am planning a local "European" vacation for us. There's a Norwegian themed town (Poulso, WA) and a Bavarian themed town (Leavenworth, WA) that we're going to visit. Leavenworth looks like a German mix of Deadwood, SD and Telluride, CO. Should be fun!

Moran State Park - Orcas Island, Washington

As far as live music performances and concerts, I'm not going to as much of that as I used to, but that's OK. We saw Leftover Salmon on New Year's Eve at Revolution Hall and Phish when they came to the Moda Center in April, plus Irish guitarist John Doyle at a jazz club in Portland, and The Murphy Beds (Jefferson Hamer and Eamon O'Leary) at a house concert in Portland last January. There's a local Phish cover band called Shafty that is really good. Upcoming, we have tickets for Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.

Local Irish group Kate and Lads performing at McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern

Our first winter here was a fairly mild one, the locals tell us. With lots of rain from November through March as expected, and one day of snow. It stays dark a lot during the winter, but that didn't bother me. Spring took a while to get here with lots of false starts, but now it's starting to feel like summer. If this year is like last year, there will be all sun, blue skies and almost no rain from now into October.

A rainy spring day along the river in Portland!

😄

My Irish Names for Notes by Letter

Fretted instruments have twelve notes. In Irish session music, we commonly use only 8 of those notes, plus two others on occasion. The 8 notes we use most commonly are D E F# G A B C C# and D. Not coincidentally, these are the 8 notes on a D-whistle. The two other notes that are also used on occasion are G# (like for tunes in A-major) and F (like for tunes in D-dorian). Altogether these ten notes are D E F F# G G# A B C and C#. 

I was looking for a one-syllable phonetic name I could use for each of these ten different notes to create something like a letter based lilting mnemonic to help with memorization and ear training. D, E, G, A, B and C already have names: dee, ee, gee, ay, bee, see. Those are good to go. 

The letter F is also one syllable, but in Irish music my observation has been that F# (F-sharp) shows up in like 99% of the tunes, whereas F (F-natural) only makes it into about 1% of the tunes. So I prefer to call F# "eff" since it's the "F" note used in the vast majority of Irish session tunes. 

That leaves us needing one-syllable names for F-natural, G# and C#. I'll start with C# since it's a very common note to have to play. I can't call it C-sharp because that's two syllables. So I call it shee, which stands for "sharp C". The sh sound from sharp gets used in my made up name for this note. Shee sounds different enough from see to stand out.

For G-sharp, I think "gree" is the name that works best. This stands for "raised G". A raised note is one note sharper than it normally is. So that's why this is gree. I know that's a stretch, but you have to stretch to the 6th fret of the D string to reach that gree note, so it might just make sense. (I also considered geesh as this note's name but it doesn't have the same ring to it.)

In the case of F-natural, I'm already using "eff" to stand for the F# note, so I was thinking "feff" would be a good choice. It stands for "flat F". If F# is our normal F note, then F-natural is the flattened version. Hence feff.

In summary, here are the notes:

D = dee

E = ee

F = feff (or deff for diminished F)

F# = eff

G = gee

G# = gree

A = ay

B = bee

C = see

C# = shee

Now for a switcheroo. I'm also considering using numbers one, two, three, four, five, six and sev. That's "sev" for seven because it's one syllable. If I use a movable numbering system, then one would apply to the note D for two-sharp tunes, but one would become G for one-sharp tunes. For three-sharp tunes, one is the note A, and for zero sharp tunes 1 is the note C. That's basically just using a scale-based numbering method.

Even in a movable numbering system, I still need number-words for the "accidental" notes that show up in Irish tunes. In a one-sharp tune C would be note four, so a C-sharp note could be "roar" for raised four. However, a C-natural in a two-sharp tune could be "dev" for diminished sev. An F-natural accidental in a two-sharp tune like the F that appears in Chief O'Neill's Favorite could be "dee" since it's a diminished three, or "fee" since it's a flat three. Some tunes, like Rolling in the Ryegrass, may not want to conform to this structure since they are hard to pin down as having one or two sharps. 

That's why I'm also considering a Fixed numbering system, based around the D scale. Instead of basing it around C, which is what music theory would do, I would base a fixed numbering system around D since the D-scale (two sharps) and the D-note (most common tonal center?) are arguably the home base of Irish music.

Maybe these number assignements could work?

D = one

E = two

F = fee (for flat three)

F# = three

G = four

G# = roar (for raised four)

A = five

B = six

C = dev (for diminished sev)

C# = sev

Would it get confusing to always think of note G as four, even in tunes like Kesh Jig or Miss Mcleod's Reel where it is most definitely the tonal center? I dunno.

***

My 2002 Left-Handed Mid-Missouri Mandolin

Ironically, when I first started wanting to play a musical instrument as a 32 year old left-handed adult, one of the reasons I chose tenor banjo over mandolin is precisely because I could not name a single tenor banjo player. There was nothing in the way. Whereas for mandolin there was Jeff Austin, Sam Bush, Ronnie McCoury, Norman Blake, and David Grisman standing in the way. All of whom better than I would ever be so what's the point of even trying, right? 

Tenor banjo was a clean slate. There was no one to feel inferior to. Secretly, I also knew that learning GDAE tuned "Irish" tenor banjo was kind of a stealth way of learning mandolin since both instruments are tuned the same way. Of course I would later learn about 4-string banjo players such as Elmer Snowden, John Carty, Angelina Carberry, Kieran Hanrahan, Kevin Griffin, Don Vappie, Cynthia Sayer, Manny Sayles, and Eddy Davis. Not quite the same though as I hadn't spent countless hours listening to or going to see these musicians play.

I did eventually get it in my head that I wanted a mandolin. In fact, I've gotten this in my head off and on several times over the last 19 years. I've stupidly ordered and subsequently sold more instruments than I'd like to think about. One mandolin that I should have held on to was a 2014 Redline Traveler pancake, frying pan, Army/Navy style flat-top mandolin that I bought new from Steve Smith. I regret getting rid of it. So after years of not having a legit mandolin, I couldn't pass up buying a used, "vintage", actual left-handed, side-dots and everything, Mid-Missouri mandolin that I happened to see for sale online. 

Mid-Missouri mandolins are now called Big Muddy, but it's the same thing. These have always been made by luthier Mike Dulak, although I think now his son or nephew is starting to take over the build process. It's a simple flat-top, folk-style mandolin design that works well for Irish or old-time music and has remained mostly unchanged for many years. I reached out to Mr. Dulak and he confirmed that mine is from 2002, based on its serial number. It's an M-O model which I believe means it was made with mahogany wood back then.

To be honest, at first I didn't love it. It felt narrow, cramped, and hard to play, but that was because I was coming from the longer scaled tenor banjo and my fingers and brain just were accustomed to the shorter scale and double course strings. The intonation was off and I had a hard time getting the two A-strings to sound like each other. It also has some significant pick wear from the previous owner as well as a couple dry cracks. I almost re-sold it but decided to keep it and have a local instrument repair tech set it up for intonation, action, and a new set of tuners. I found out about Rubner tuners and bought the most inexpensive tuners they offer for A-style mandolins. That was the upgrade it needed.

Famous last words, but I don't think I want (or can afford) any other mandolins at this point. Mandolin is still a secondary instrument for me, as I want to always primarily identify as a tenor banjo player. But it's nice to have as an option to play at home and bring along to sessions. It's awesome to have found a used, made in the USA, real wood Mid-Missouri mandolin that was actually originally made to be left-handed, rather than a righty to lefty conversion. And after playing it a while, I don't think I would have wanted the custom wider neck that Mike offers as an option. The standard mandolin width is just fine. 

Something I might want in the future is a mandola that I could tune DAEB instead of CGDA. Speaking of instruments that I've had and stupidly gotten rid of, I once had a Sawchyn Beavertail mandola that I barely played and then sold off. If only it had occurred to me that these could be tuned DAEB. I also once had a custom made Fletcher tenor guitar but sold it as well. Dumb. Fortunately my Kala tenor guitars sounds almost as good to my ears for one-tenth the cost. But that's another story.

***

A Great Experience at the Tenor Guitar Gathering in Astoria, Oregon

Astoria is my favorite coastal town in Oregon, so now that I am a resident of the Beaver State I was excited to learn that there's an annual Tenor Guitar Gathering each spring in Astoria. Due to poor planning on my part, I was only able to attend for a few hours on Saturday, but I'm glad that I did.

Not the most flattering picture of Astoria, but the only one I took

 Astoria is a pleasant 100-minute drive from my house with the fastest route also being the most scenic and remote, through Clatsop State Forest. I arrived in time for Alison Helzer's workshop on the neuroscience of practice: what science teaches us about music, learning, and muscle memory. This was a very informative presentation where I learned how repetition, rest, isolation, smiling and visualization can help build myelin. However, the real highlight for me was the Irish "jam" that Alison co-hosted with Pat Mac Swyney immediately after this workshop.

Directly to my right at the Irish session was flatpicker, instructor and Nashville cat Tim May, who has toured with Patty Loveless and John Cowan, and is the author of several books including The Flatpicker’s Guide to Irish Music. Directly to my left was multi-instrumentalist Pat Mac Swyney from Los Angeles. Pat was making great Irishy sounds come out of his 1928 National Tricone resonator tenor guitar! Eugene, Oregon's own Alison Helzer sat across from me on tenor banjo. The only other participants were two fiddlers and one mandolin player. The pros almost outnumbered the amateurs!

With such high-caliber and multi-genre musicians/instructors/performers in attendance, I was worried that it might devolve into a flashy bluegrass style jam over Irish fiddle tunes, but it didn't. We stuck to the Irish session playbook and did common tunes that I know fairly well including Silver Spear, Out on the Ocean, Off to California, Kesh Jig, and Road to Lisdoonvarna. I had brought a tenor banjo just in case but played my Kala tenor guitar the entire time.

The pace was fast at times, but nothing I couldn't keep up with. My hard work over the last ten or so months really paid off. There's something about sitting in with exceptionally talented yet sympathetic musicians that can really lift you up and allow you to play beyond your normal abilities. I had a similar experience years ago at an Irish music camp in Elkins, WV when guitarist Dennis Cahill played backup accompaniment on a tune I was leading in a slow session. So I know the feeling.

The Irish jam went about 20 to 25 minutes beyond its allotted hour. Little did I know that during the latter half of the session mandolinist David "Dawg" Grisman was down below giving a workshop on transitioning to the tenor guitar. So that's where everyone was. I had to be in Beaverton by 5pm so as soon as the jam was over I made a quick exit and hit the road for another 100 to 105 minute drive. Unfortunately, I had no Dawg sightings while in Astoria!

***

Vertex: Irish tunes and GDAE tuning

For the last 8 months or so, I've been all-in on Irish music. Instead of branching out beyond that repertoire, I've focused exclusively on the Irish tunes played at local sessions in and around Portland, Oregon. Intersecting with that, I've limited this pursuit of Irish tunes to instruments with GDAE tuning: tenor banjo, tenor guitar, and (occasionally) mandolin. Some people will go all-in on Irish, but distribute that study among several differently played instruments within the tradition such as tin whistle, concertina, bouzouki, and fiddle for example. For now, I'm just sticking with one thing. 

This is a new approach for me. Never before have I done this. When I was living in Virginia, I was never 100% devoted to Irish music exclusively. For a few years I was dividing my time between Irish sessions and old-time fiddle tune jams, before later abandoning those pursuits altogether to go down wormholes into Jamaican mento or the Crucian Scratch music of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Plus a three year stint where I only played little melodies that I came up with myself. There have even been times when I tried and failed to learn how to play New Orleans style tenor banjo, or took lessons in music theory. None of that now.

As far as instruments go, yes I started on tenor banjo but over the years I have experimented with mallet instruments, starting with glockenspiel, then moving to xylophone, and eventually marimba. I also went through a stint where I taught myself how to play melodies in all fourths tuning on guitar. I think that helped advance my ear training. When I was writing my own melodies, I would sometimes use a cheap Casio keyboard as well. At the time it was beneficial to check out the layout of these other instruments to have that experience of seeing the notes in a totally different way. However, at the moment that's not part of my plan.

The benefit of this laser focus is that now I can more directly address deficiencies...things I am not very good at such as playing up to session speed, ornamentation (making it sound "Irish"), and continuing to advance my ear and understanding of the style so that I become less reliant on having to refer to a written version of the tune.

Lastly, one thing about banjo, especially the four string banjo, is that even if you are just plucking Irish tunes on it you can still feel a connection to the banjo's roots in the Caribbean. There's like an underlying theme or feel bubbling below the surface that links it to these rhythms and syncopation. And for tenor guitar, there are times when you really can almost fancy yourself as a flatpicker. A bluegrass guitar fantasy where, even if you are just playing an Irish reel in an Irish session, you can temporarily tap-into a "what would Tony Rice or Billy Strings do?" kind of vibe. So that makes it fun.

***

Portland, OR 4/20/25 was my 70th Phish concert

When Laura and I were getting ready to move to the Portland area in 2024, there was a rumor that Phish might play Providence Park, home of the Timbers and Thorns soccer teams, that summer. It didn't pan out, so when rumors resurfaced of Phish playing The Moda Center this spring I didn't get my hopes up too much until it was officially announced. For once I didn't have to worry about booking accommodations because we can walk to the MAX light rail from our house and take it all the way to the Rose Quarter stop where the Moda Center be. 

I got a pair of tickets in the Phish lottery that weren't ideal, and being the greedy person that I am, I tried again the moment they went on sale through Ticketmaster and found two pretty darn good seats in a small mini-section on its own rail above the crowd looking diagonally at the stage. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the day to come.

I woke up on the day of the show with butterflies in my stomach. This was going to be a big deal: the first time Phish has played Portland, OR since 1999. And it was on a 4/20 - which is kind of like a hippie holiday - in a state where cannabis is legal, and on Easter which is some other kind of holiday. Songs such as Buried Alive, Makisupa Policeman, and Jesus Just Left Chicago were among our pre-show speculation.

I hung around the house that morning, played Irish tenor banjo, took the dog for a walk, and then when I couldn't take it any more I convinced Laura to leave an hour earlier than planned. Once we got on the train I checked my stats for the first time in a while and noticed that this was going to be my 70th show. I knew it was around that number but I wasn't sure that it was 70 until I checked.

We got off one stop shy of the Moda Center to have pizza at our favorite place in Old Town. Once we sat at the bar and I got a beer in me I could finally relax a bit. After a while we got back on the train with our next destination being Upright Brewing. I believe Upright Brewing is the closest brewery to the Moda Center. Each time we've been there to pre-game Winterhawks hockey games they were always playing Phish music on the speakers. This time it was more like a chill dub reggae mix but that's actually better than being directly on the nose. Upright wasn't crowded at all when we got there, but it was still not even 5:00pm yet.

Upright is named after the instrument played by upright bassist Charles Mingus, with pictues of Mingus and other jazz musicians such as Sun Ra and Rahsaan Roland Kirk for the eye to see. I like Upright's beers...they have styles like Irish red ales, bitters, and pale ales with a couple varieties always on cask. It quickly got crowded after we got there and soon the line was out the door.

In true Portland fashion, the weather this day was pretty classic. As chilly as you would expect and slightly overcast or partially sunny. Suddenly, it decided to rain while we were in the brewery. Portland gotta be Portland. It didn't last long though and soon we were walking toward the venue through a maze of nitrous balloon vendors. Not to be distracted, we went fairly straightly through one of the the Moda Center entrances.

Having scoped it out during a Trail Blazers game, I knew that cheap beer could be found in Section 303 at the Low Bar for $5.50 a can. Absolutely no line, so it was a good place to double fist it. Then we went back down to the 100's to be impressed by our seats. Nobody was going to be standing in front of our short selves today!

Time passed quickly. I was currently in a good mood, I had previously been in a good mood, and I remained in a good mood. Lights go down and here comes Phish. They opened with 46 Days and that was an instant highlight because it sounded to me like they were quickly taking it to new places and trying out new effects and sounds. 

Unlike Black-Eyed Katy, Moma Dance has historically been a meh song for me but I wasn't going to let it occupy that space on this evening. Cities was well received by the Portland crowd. Plasma seemed to be not as well received. Bouncin' is a song I can appreciate and on this occasion I did. Sigma Oasis went deep, vying with 46 Days for best jam of the set. Antelope came next and was intelligently designed to crush. I'm sorry but Say It To Me S.A.N.T.O.S. felt like a tacked on afterthought. Not that I didn't enjoy it though. Set break.

A Wave of Hope is not really an A-list song, at least not for me, but within the jam Phish did that thing where you lose track of what song it is. Twist was good and I enjoyed trying to wooh in both the right and wrong places. Scents and Subtle Sounds was a surprise and was probably my favorite song of the entire night. I kept my clothing on. Everything's Right gave me a moment to be critical for the first time of the evening, which I then quickly corrected myself. All was made good when it segued into Boogie on Reggae Woman. My previous show in Philadelphia in 2023 also had a well placed Boogie on Reggae Woman. 

Having seen some great 2001's in the 90's, I'm a bit of a 2001 skeptic, but I succumbed to its tension/release as always. Trey gave his all for A Life Beyond the Dream. Then it was time for the elephant in the room - Harry Hood. Portland got its Hood! 

A lot of things had combined into my mind by this point so the encore is a little hazy. It was Wilson and Slave to the Traffic Light. That could have been an encore in 1994 but here it is 2025. I have no complaints whatsoever. Do I have attendance bias??? Maybe. Although Phish is so good and so consistent these days there are no bad shows.

Getting out of the Moda Center didn't go as planned. Okay, we managed to find and bring with us our now empty water bottles. I think I was visualizing a different side of the building than where we came out on. For a few minutes we just walked with the flow of foot traffic, living in the moment. Then when it was time to find the train stop it wasn't where it was supposed to be, nor were we. I'm pretty sure the train had stopped running by that point in the evening anyway. No problem, part-time stand-up comic Dan the Uber man to the rescue. I have his number if you need it.

***

Kala tenor guitar for Irish music

I couldn't find much information about playing Irish tunes on a Kala Solid Spruce Top Pau Ferro tenor guitar, so I thought I would post something. This guitar does not come in left-handed but I am fortunate to know a local stringed instrument setup and repair person who set it up lefty for me by filling and re-cutting the saddle. It sounds great! This guitar features X-bracing, so at least in this case the belief that the bracing on a right-handed guitar won't sound as good when played as a left-handed guitar is unfounded.

I've been wanting a tenor guitar for playing Irish music, to use as an alternative to tenor banjo. I chose this Kala tenor guitar primarily because of its scale length (21.5 inches as opposed to 23 inches) and because of its price. I paid $250 for it with free shipping, and after the conversion to lefty the total cost was $370. It comes with a nice gig bag and the scale length is similar to a short-scale tenor banjo. I have it tuned GDAE. 

I haven't taken it to a session yet, so I don't know how it'll hold up in that environment. My guess is that it will not be as loud as a tenor banjo, but should be good for playing along in a group setting when you just want to blend in instead of stand out.  

Tenor guitar compared to tenor banjo:

-Less volume so good for practicing at home during quiet hours.

-More sustain, more responsive.

-Needs a strap, whereas tenor banjo can just sit in your lap.

-Lighter weight.

-Similar neck feel.

-Same tuning, CGDA or GDAE or DGBE.

-Similar scale length.

Irish Music by Process of Elimination

Here are some prerequisites or characteristics of the type of music I am capable of playing and/or am interested in playing:

• You can play all-melody, all-the-time and not have to worry about anything else.
• Where my chosen primary instrument - the tenor banjo - is generally accepted.
• Instrumental; no singing required.
• Where there is a local, inclusive community of fellow hobbyist/amateur musicians who play and know a certain repertoire.
• All acoustic: no electric or amplification needed.
• Is non-performance oriented but the sessions/jams can take place in pubs, breweries and coffee shops where folks sit around a table and play tunes whether customers are listening or not.
• Where a lot of the music is available online for free in sheet music notation if you need it.
• Accessible to beginners but no limit to how far you can take it.

As far as I know, the only music that checks all of these boxes for me is Irish traditional music.

On that note, it's time to get back to halfway familiarizing myself with more tunes!

Hanging on at a Fast Irish Session

Hanging on at a Fast Irish Session

My fast is moderate. My moderate is slow. If left to my own devices, I wouldn't exceed 80 bpm for a reel or 90 bpm for a jig. So an Irish session that runs 20% over my comfort zone can be a shock to the system. If I were to try to play every single note as I might have them memorized, in the sequence that I know them, I’d fall behind very quickly. So I have to make adjustments on the spot.

In an effort to stay in sync and not lag behind, I might only grab about 75% of the notes I would normally play when trying to keep up at a fast-for-me Irish session. You’ve just got to know which notes to leave in and which notes to take out, and the more familiar you are with the sound of the tune, the easier that may be. I don't actually practice or rehearse this. It's just something I improvise in the moment based on what I am feeling capable of.

If I were to actually practice this at home, a good first step would be to remove everything but the quarter notes. In other words, remove the notes that are pick-direction “up strokes”. Then once you have it stripped down to those bare essentials, you can add back in whatever up-stroke notes you feel are necessary to make the tune sound more like itself. Pretty much every tune can be simplified in this manner.

Another way to do it is to take the full sheet music version of the tune and then whittle away at it by identifying places in each measure or two where you can make adjustments. Places where you are like “nope my fingers aren’t going to do that” when playing fast. The sequence of triplets in Harvest Home comes to mind, as does the little end-tag thing at the end of each part of Rakes of Mallow. There are less "notey" ways to play those sections. 

The more that a tune is under your fingers, the more equipped you are to make variations to that tune when you need to or want to. In a beginner-level slow session this might mean going hog wild with attempting triplets or other ornaments, but in a high-speed setting where you are pushed beyond your normal limits, it might mean getting rid of everything but the basic melodic line so that you can still play in the sandbox.

***

Key Signature in Irish Music

Key Signature in Irish Music

When looking at the sheet music for a garden variety Irish session tune, seeing one sharp in the key signature does not tell me that the tune is in G, just like seeing two sharps does not inform me that the tune is in D. What one sharp can tell me is that some or all of the following notes are expected to be in the tune: D, E, F#, G, A, B and C. What two sharps lets me know is that some or all of the following notes should be present: D, E, F#, G, A, B and C#. 

The notes D, E, F#, G, A and B are pretty much expected to be there, so what I’m really looking for is whether the sheet music thinks the tune is more reliant on a C or a C# note within its melody. You might even observe C natural accidentals within the notated music when there are two sharps in the key signature, since it’s not unusual for a tune to have both a C and a C#. 

On the rare occasion that the key signature shows three sharps, I check the notation to see if that’s really true. Does the tune really use the notes D, E, F#, G#, A, B and C# or are there G-natural “accidentals” present? If you see three sharps in the key signature but then G-natural “accidentals” throughout the tune itself, it might just mean that the person writing the score was trying to convey an A modality. 

Another thing the key signature does not explicitly tell you is what drone note is going to sound the most correct for the duration of the tune, and this is important for understanding the modal aspect of Irish music. This is more of an ear thing. Generally speaking, the tonal center could be either D, G, A or E.  I recommend separately playing each of those four home notes - D, G, A and E - over a recording of the tune to decide for yourself which one resonates the best. 

One sharp could mean D-Mixolydian, G-Ionian, A-Dorian or E-Aeolian and each of these have different feels despite having the same key-signature. Two sharps could mean D-Ionian, A-Mixolydian, or E-Dorian. You can kind of rule out G as a home base when the key signature has two sharps because, you know, there ain’t gonna be no Lydian up in there. This is Irish music we’re talking about, not the Disco Biscuits!

Another thing I’d like to mention is that Irish tunes can be hexatonic, which means a six-note scale. (I had to look up what a six note scale is called). And the funny thing is, when only six different notes are required to play the basic tune, the note which gets omitted is often C/C# or F/F#! Think on that for a minute. This is another indication that the key signature chosen by the transcriber/arranger doesn’t tell the whole story.

el fin

Where to add Triplets and Double Stops in Irish Tunes on Mandolin or Tenor Banjo

First off, I'm not really qualified to be commenting on where to add triplets or double stops in Irish tunes. But I do have a theoretical idea of where they could go. So this post is to help document what I am in the process of figuring out.

Where to Add Triplets

There are lots of places to add triplets, but here are two that are probably the most simple or obvious. 

Triplet Rule Number One: Any time there's a quarter note/long note/crotchet you can add a triplet. By quarter note or long note I simply mean a note that has a brief pause after it. For example, look at the G note at the beginning of measure one of The Sally Gardens, or the D note at the beginning of measure 3. Those are quarter notes and a perfect place to add a triplet. You can just do GGG in place of that G. Or DDD in place of that D. That's going to sound OK. You don't have to get any fancier than that at first.

Triplet Rule Number Two: Any time there's a 3rd interval on one string, you can add a triplet, whether you are going up or down. There's an interval like that in measure two of The Sally Gardens. The first two notes of that measure are D and B, fret 5 to fret 2. So you could make that a triplet by playing D-C-B, frets 5-3-2. Or take a look at measure three. You could do it going the other direction by adding a C note between B and D for a B-C-D triplet. Or if you miss that one, there's another chance at the end of that measure where the last two notes are (3rd fret) G and (open) E. You could do G-F#-E as a triplet.  

That's all I'm going to say about triplets for now! On to double stops.

Where to Add Double Stops

I think of a double stop as being a two note mini-chord. Basically, you still play the same melody note as you would normally but you find a note on the next lower string that harmonizes with it. I've been thinking about some choices you can make that the odds should be in favor of. I'll go string-by-string since it's not always the same. Note: sometimes there are two choices that can be used interchangeably. Other times it may be one or the other depending on the harmony of the moment.

D String/3rd String Melody (Double Stop on G String/4th String)

Open D. Double stop on 2nd fret A (D chord) or 4th fret B (G chord / B minor chord).

2nd fret E. Double stop on open G (C major chord / E minor chord) or 4th fret B (E minor chord).

4th fret F#. Harmonize with 2nd fret A (D chord) or 4th fret B (B minor chord).

5th fret G. The obvious choice that will always work is the octave 4th string open G. Another good choice is the 4th fret B (G chord).

A String/2nd String (Double Stop on 3rd String / D String)

Open A. Double stop on 2nd fret E (A chord) or 4th fret F# (D chord).

2nd fret B. Harmonize with open D (G chord) or 4th fret F# (B minor chord).

3rd fret C. Double stop on 2nd fret E (C chord / A minor chord).

4th fret C#. Double stop on 2nd fret E (A chord).

5th fret D. Octave with open D or double stop on 4th fret F# (D chord).

E String / 1st String (Double Stop on 2nd String / A String)

Open E. Harmonize with 2nd fret B (E minor chord), or 3rd fret C (C chord or A minor), or 4th fret C# (A chord). The choice of C and C# is not an either/or. You have to know which of those notes is part of the mode the tune is in.

2nd fret F#. Double stop on open A (D chord).

3rd fret G. Double stop on 2nd fret B (G chord).

5th fret A. Octave with open A or double stop on 3rd fret C (A minor chord) or 4th fret C# (A chord). Once again, C vs. C# depends on the tune.

You may notice there are some common shapes or patterns. 

With any of these, use sparingly until you figure out what sounds good. If it's adding to the music great! If it's taking away from it then don't.

***

The Modes and Scales of Irish Tunes

One thing I’ve noticed about Irish session tunes, at least those played at intermediate level sessions in both Oregon and Virginia, is that over 90% of the tunes use notes from either the D scale or the G scale, including the various modal variations of those scales (D mixolydian, E dorian, E aeolian, A dorian, A mixolydian). This means the the majority of the tunes require only the notes D E F# G A B plus either C or C#. I think this is because some of the common instruments used by hobbyists of Irish music, such as tin whistle, aren’t entirely chromatic and can only play certain notes, with the notes in the key of D being the most accessible.

This observation has me feeling empowered to make broad generalizations about the scales and modes commonly heard in Irish sessions! As categorized below.

D through D with a C#

This is your standard D major scale. D Ionian. The notes used are D E F# G A B C#. Tons of reels have this: Lady Anne Montgomery, Maid Behind the Bar, Merry Blacksmith, Silver Spear, Wind that Shakes the Barley, Wise Maid.

D through D with a C

This is what they call a “modal” scale, although it’s one with a major sound. It uses the same notes as the G major scale but with D as the tonal center. Also known as D Mixolydian. The notes used are D E F# G A B C. Common in jigs such as Banish Misfortune, Blarney Pilgrim and I Buried My Wife. 

G through G with a C

This is your standard G major scale. G Ionian. The notes used are G A B C D E F#. Examples include Father Kelly’s, Kesh Jig, and Miss Mcleod’s Reel. Sometimes these dip into a minor feel as heard in Temperance Reel or maybe even Out on the Ocean. E minor is the relative minor of G, after all!

A through A with a C

This is another modal scale but it has a minor sound. In Irish music, it’s often referred to as simply “A minor”, but to be more exact it’s usually A Dorian. The notes of that being A B C D E F# G, although sometimes the F# (or implied F natural?) is not present, which means it could pass for either A Dorian or A Aeolian since it omits the note which would distinguish it as one or the other. “A Minor” is a catch-all term that works either way. Check out Geese in the Bog, Lilting Banshee, Star of Munster, and so on. The Ballydesmond polkas as well.

A through A with a C#

You could easily mistake these types of tunes as being in D major because they use the same notes as the D major scale: D E F# G A B C#. However, they like to center around the note A of that scale so that with that tonal world in mind, the notes of the mode are A B C# D E F# G. Same notes, just starting at a different part of the clock or the wheel. This is called A mixolydian. You might hear it in reels such as Dinky’s, the High Reel, Monaghan Twig, and the jig Atholl Highlanders.

E through E with a C or E through E with a C#

Unlike A through A with a C and A through A with a C#, which sound very different, the two E through E scales used in Irish music both sound pretty similar. For one thing, they are always going to have an E-minor sound. Sometimes an E minor tune will eschew having either a C or a C# note, making the difference between E Dorian and E Aeolian open to interpretation. With the exception of E minor hornpipes which seem to have a C note, I tend to assume these are in E Dorian which would make the notes E F# G A B C# D. Although it could also be E F# G A B C D. There’s a long list of E minor tunes including Road to Lisdoonvarna, Cooley’s Reel, Drowsy Maggie, The Butterfly, A Fig for a Kiss, King of the Fairies, Jacky Tar and more.

Some other observations:

Some tunes could go either way. Star Above the Garter is one that I hear as having D as its tonal center, so I put it in the D through D with a C category, while others might say it’s just in the key of G.

On the rare occasion that a tune does have an F natural note built-in, it stands out. Like in Chief O’Neill’s hornpipe or the errant D-Dorian reel. It brings an F-chord or D-minor chord into the options.

In Virginia I would hear Irish tunes in A major sometimes as well, but I think this is because the instruments that could play in A major like fiddle and accordion were alpha in the session. Boys of Malin for example. I would call this A through A with a C# and a G# instead of a G.

Some tunes toggle between C and C#.

***