The key of C isn’t nearly as common in Irish traditional music as tunes in the keys of D, G, or Am, but there are some great ones such as “My Maryanne,” which will be the basis of John’s lesson this month. Sometimes written as “My Marianne” or called “Boys of Galway,” this reel was ferreted out of the classic O’Neill’s Music of Ireland sheet-music collection and recorded by the Irish Tradition on their 1978 Corner House album. John recorded it in 1997 with Solas in a three-tune medley on their Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers disc. It’s a “single” reel in AB format, with each eight-bar part played just once. John shows you how to build all the chords you’ll need to accompany the tune—or any other C tunes you’re likely to encounter—and then shows you a couple of ways to structure an accompaniment pattern. In this video, John shows you how to harmonize and build chords for every note of the C-major scale (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) in the first five frets of the guitar by pairing some familiar chord shapes with different fingering for the low string to accommodate the dropped-D tuning. In addition to the usual I, IV, and V chords (C, F, and G), you’ll learn Dm, Em, Am, and an ambiguous B chord used mostly in passing in this context.
