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Thread: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

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    Default Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Howdy team, I was hoping someone on here wouldn't mind recommending some simple jigs to use to ease into jig picking. I am finding it stupid challenging, cant figure out why but my brain and hand are acting like stubborn members of Congress (too soon?) . Anyway I was hoping the trick was just to find the right simple jig to get the juices flowing and help me really dig into it.

    Thanks!

    M

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    The Swallowtail is pretty easy.
    Steve

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    Registered User harper's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Here are two jigs that are easy on mandolin: Leitrim Fancy and Geese in the Bog. elsewhere on this forum I also posted Old Favorite, which is also easy. The picking for Fanning is easy, but the high B may be trickier for the left hand if you are just starting.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails EJB Fanning treble II.pdf   EJB The Geese in the Bog 5 treble II.pdf   EJB Leitrim Fancy 3 Treble II.pdf  

    Harper (My other mandolin is a harp)

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Quote Originally Posted by sish View Post
    my brain and hand are acting like stubborn members of Congress
    You can play The Congress, but it's a reel

    My first jig was The Kesh Jig. Easy enough.
    But I gather it's the 6/8 time which presents the main problem - listening a lot and tapping your foot with it will help. Plus, a consistent picking pattern, like DUDDUD or DDUDDU.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Registered User zoukboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    My suggestion is that you not start with a tune but with a picking exercise. Start by playing a quarter note/eighth note repeating pattern in 6/8 with downstrokes only (example 1). Do this with a scale, like D major. Once you are comfortable with the rhythm then you can introduce the upstrokes (example 2).

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    Once the DUD-DUD pattern is second nature you can start applying it to tunes fairly easily.

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    you probably know "irish washer woman" terrible song But quite easy to start and you already can hum it right?
    Jean

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    String-Bending Heretic mandocrucian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    "Bill Harte's Jig"
    "The Kesh Jig"
    "The Walls Of Liscarrol"

    And three Shetland tunes played and recorded as a medley (on their first album, if I remember correctly) by The Boys of the Lough:

    "Da Shaalds of Foula"/"Da Brig"/"Garster's Dream"



    No weird or tricky note sequences on any of those six tunes, so it's easier to concentrate on the plectrum hand. They are all in either D or G.

    (For similar reasons, these were some of the first tunes I began playing when I started on flute.)

    Niles H

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Kesh Jig.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Haste to the Wedding

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Off She Goes is easy enough.

    Paul

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Off She Goes is a Single Jig and doesn't fully utilize the 3 DDU strokes each time

    Quote Originally Posted by citeog View Post
    Off She Goes is easy enough.

    Paul

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    I think The White Petticoat played at a waltz speed would be easy enough to work on the picking as the melody flows...

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Kerfunken Jig was the easiest for me to learn and practice good pick direction. Good luck!!
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    Registered User zoukboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Quote Originally Posted by Loretta Callahan View Post
    Kerfunken Jig was the easiest for me to learn and practice good pick direction. Good luck!!
    The Kerfunten?

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Quote Originally Posted by zoukboy View Post
    The Kerfunten?
    Same jig apparently. I've always known it as Kerfunken.
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Quote Originally Posted by Loretta Callahan View Post
    Same jig apparently. I've always known it as Kerfunken.
    Same here, Loretta - I called it Kerfunken until I came across an interview where Hammy Hamilton talked about it. I can't remember the link but I'd saved the interview in a file. Here's what he said:

    "Q: You have written some fine tunes, the most well-known being "The Woodcock" and "The Kerfunten," which many people simply call "Hammy Hamilton's Jigs," or ascribe to some long-forgotten traditional source. Can you tell us a bit about those tunes: e.g. when you made them up, how you came up with the titles?

    A: These two tunes, although normally played together, were actually written many years apart. The Kerfunten was the first and I wrote it while teaching at a workshop in Brittany. It was in a suburb of Quimper called Kerfunteun--hence the name. The spelling seems to have gotten a bit mixed up over the years, though! I think the spelling with the u is the correct one. There was a guitar player there, who was also teaching, and he was messing about one day, playing a chord sequence, I picked up a whistle, and began fitting a tune around them. Ten minutes later it had evolved into the Kerfunten Jig! The Woodcock I wrote some years later--I'm not exactly sure when, but it was sometime in the 1980s. I was looking for another tune to put with it and I remembered the other jig."

    Funny that he mentions confusion over the u. Well, no matter how you spell it, it's a fun jig!

    Fretless

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Quote Originally Posted by Bertram Henze View Post
    You can play The Congress, but it's a reel
    Sliabh Russell, however, is more or less a jig variant of the same tune, and a fairly easy tune.

    You probably know "irish washer woman" terrible song...
    I disagree - it's a good tune that's been overplayed, and long been used as the sterotypical 'Irish jig'. Good and simple.

    ...But quite easy to start and you already can hum it right?
    As regards difficulty, the fingering in the B-part may be a bit challenging, but the picking is pretty straightforward. Since it has a lot of repeated notes, it is a good one to practice a picking pattern with, without the distraction of lots of movement in the left hand.

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    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Humors of Glendart. It's got a nice swing to it.
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    Registered User zoukboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Click image for larger version. 

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    I had a question about the two pdfs I posted here last month. In case there is any doubt I was advocating starting the 6/8 jig pattern with only downstrokes in a cyclical quarter note/eighth note pattern, then moving on to Down-Up-Down for running eighth notes in scales. The next step would be to do scales in thirds and then scales in patterns (see attachments). This is a good way to get used to the pattern without associating it with any particular melody.

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    Peace. Love. Mandolin. Gelsenbury's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    I'm still struggling with the Kesh Jig, I don't find it all that easy. It may be a similar tune in my head interfering with my playing!

    I find "Rakes of Kildare" quite easy and fun to play. It doesn't have a lot of notes, so you can concentrate on the rhythm and pick direction.

    If you aren't specifically after Irish jigs, you may find that some English jigs are less frantic and easier to learn.

  23. #21

    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    When I was first learning Irish tunes, I didn't find Kesh all that easy as compared to others. Earl's Chair was another one that didn't (still doesn't) come easy for me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gelsenbury View Post
    I'm still struggling with the Kesh Jig, I don't find it all that easy. It may be a similar tune in my head interfering with my playing!
    Just visiting.

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    The easiest jig is always the one you already got down.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    I personally like the sound of the swallow-tail jig. I can't play it yet, but I'm thinking it'll be the next tune I tackle. Hopefully it clicks.

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    Registered User BinkWms's Avatar
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    Default Re: Looking for an easy jig to help me learn jig picking

    Glad to see you are working out of Evelyn's book. She is a true gem and her compositions and arrangements are top notch.
    Bink Williams

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