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Class of 2015 @ Glengormley School of Traditional Music (GSOTM.ORG)

Tenor Banjo Lessons Introduction

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 teach privately 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 12 years now so browse around to see what has been going on with my past and present classes during this time.

I hope you like the new Pure Banjo website, the old site is still live if you wish to check back on the old stuff purebanjo.com

I’ve just begun the long process of building the old pages to the new site which is taking time, but I’ll get there. I will also be adding new videos and audio recordings that I’ll be recording from this year 2024 to help you on your journey.

If you are a complete newbie check out the beginner pages.

 

First steps

Learning the tenor banjo fret board notes

There has been an incredible interest in the past 10 or so years of people taking up tenor banjo and mandolin. Pure Banjo.com was setup back in 2012 to aid support from beginner to advanced tenor banjo and mandolin playing. I feel the best visual support for students was to record the tunes so as students could practice at home in between classes. So please enjoy the videos, I hope you gain something from them and any positive comments will be welcome.

Scales

Learning the G Major Scale

Best advice is to learn and practice your scales. It will help you with your fluency and accuracy in playing tunes. You muscle memory will get better day by day so try playing along to my video of the G Major scale.

A great tune to help you with easy scales

The Prelude Polka (Andy Reid’s Polka)

This is a great beginner polka that helps you familiarise the notes on the fretboard. This will also help your  muscle memory to play banjo without looking where your fingers are placed.

Egan’s Polka & The Britches Full of Stitches

Here’s another two nice and easy polka’s to learn and great to play in sessions.

Quick links to latest lessons

Jun 23, 2020
Some core tunes

Perfect tunes to play in sessions

Here we have some tunes that I taught at the GSOTM back in 2020. These tunes were played as part of a set together and most likely performed with the other instrument classes.

  1. The Leg of the Duck (Key of D Major) Jig
  2. The Humours of Glendart (Key of D Major) Jig
  3. Saddle the Pony (Key of G Major) Jig
  4. The Blackthorn Stick (Key of G Major) Jig

May 21, 2022

On Stage

Tunes for our Summer Concert 2022

Here you will find the tunes we are learning for the Spring / Summer term 2016

This term we are learning two jigs and also a tune from the School’s ‘Core Selection’. These are tunes that will be taught throughout the school and will be played by everyone at this years Summer concert. Check back to this page to download PDF documents and audio files to help you with your learning.