The blind Irish harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan was born in 1670 and died in 1738. His music is a combination of Irish folk music and the Baroque music of the time, and many of his tunes are played by Irish traditional musicians today. They tend to be more complex structurally than most jigs and reels, so it’s important to learn the chord progression to each tune in advance. In this lesson you’ll learn to play a couple of his most popular tunes, both of which are in waltz time (3/4): “Planxty Irwin” in the key of G and “Sí Beag, Sí Mór” in the key of D. Flynn shows you the typical rolling strum used to play Irish waltzes and then walks you through the chord progressions for each tune, starting with “Planxty Irwin.”
