This month you’ll get a chance to stretch your skills playing in the key of D with another popular seisiún tune. Named for a river in West Cork, Ireland, “The Banks of the Ilen” was once played more like a hornpipe, but is most commonly played as a peppy reel these days. There are numerous recordings of the tune, mostly in medleys with other reels. John takes the opportunity at the beginning of the lesson to review some of his suggested picking techniques and by-now-familiar chord shapes before delving into a basic accompaniment pattern for the tune. Once you have that under your fingers, you can follow him into a setting embellished with additional runs, alternative chords, and melody fragments in the second half of the lesson. In this video, John shows you a basic accompaniment pattern and demonstrates it by playing along with a recording of himself picking out the melody.
