Belfast Trad & Glengormley School of Traditional Music

Great to see the interest in learning to play traditional Irish Music on both tenor banjo and mandolin continues.

Welcome to the Pure Banjo website, if this is your first visit hopefully it will not be your last. The tunes and skills that I will teach you in class will continue here. I built this site for you to encourage your learning capabilities and development of skills on tenor banjo and mandolin. The traditional music schools recommend informal music learning within the classes, basically learning by ear. So if you are new to traditional Irish music then listen to as much as you can as it will help you to develop rhythm and timing. Pure Banjo has been live for approximately two years now so browse around to see what has been going on in the classes during this time.

I look forward to meeting and getting to know everyone individually and over the next few months I will be adding new videos and audio recordings to help you on your way. If you are a complete newbie check out the beginner pages.

Information on Tenor Banjo / Mandolin Hire

The Belfast Trad classes which are held in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast still have 2 mandolins and possibly 2 tenor banjos for hire for this term. The cost is £25 for the 12 week duration, please click this link for details…instrument hire

The Glengormley School of Traditional Music have 1 or 2 banjo’s for hire, please contact the traditional school manager Ray Morgan.

If you are looking for advice on buying a new or second hand banjo or mandolin please contact me by email and I will be happy to advise you. Also you can click here for some advice on vintage banjos.

(Key D Major) F=F# C=C#

I have hi-lighted the triplets in orange text, as noted above the F and C notes are sharps. This is to keep the text area less cluttered. You can also view and print the page of this tune along with the Fairy Dance Reel which I taught at the recent Columbanus Music Festival in Bangor.

first part

• D F F   C E E | D E F   G’ F E | D F F    C E E | D F E    D B A
• D F F   C E E | D E F   G’ F E | F A’ F   G’ F E | D F E   D B A

second part

• A A∼ B B∼ | G’ F E   F D B | A A∼    B B∼ | D F E   D C B
• A A∼ B B∼ | E F E    E F G’ | F A’ F   G’ F E | D F E   D B A

third part

• F A A   E A A | D E F   G’ F E | F A A   E A A | D F E   D B A
• F A A   E A A | D E F   G’ G’∼ | F A’ F   G’ F E | D F E   D B A