Description
Live Mentored Course
Weekly live mentoring. Personal feedback. Lifetime access.
You can play the tunes, but you want more control, clearer phrasing and a rhythm that feels right. Perhaps one passage keeps catching you out. Perhaps you can hear the difference in my playing, but you’re unsure how to achieve it yourself. This is your opportunity to work on it with me.
My complete 10-week Irish fiddle programme, plus weekly live sessions with me. Everything in the Self Guided Course is included here. On top of that, you get a live session with me every week, where I play, introduce that week’s material and answer your questions in real time. It’s the difference between working from a recording and getting my direct input on what you’re actually doing.
What’s included
- Everything in the Self Guided Course
- A weekly 30 to 40 minute live session with me
- Me playing live, introducing the material and taking your questions in real time
- Direct feedback on your technique and playing
- Priority email support, usually same day or within a few hours
- Only 6 places available, to keep the group small enough for proper attention
Why learn with me
I’m from Dundalk, County Louth, and grew up in a musical family, my mother taught me the fiddle. I went on to study under the Sligo fiddler John Joe Gardiner and have spent my career specialising in the traditional music of Oriel and South Ulster.
I lectured in Traditional Music Performance at Dundalk Institute of Technology for five years, and my research there became my book The Rose in the Gap, a study of Luke Donnellan’s dance music collection. In 2018, Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann presented me with the Gradam award for lifetime services to traditional arts, and I’ve picked up numerous All-Ireland titles along the way. My album Brighid’s Kiss was named Album of the Year by Irish Music Magazine readers, and Journeyman made The Irish Times’ top five albums of that year.
I’ve played alongside Planxty, the Bothy Band, De Danann and The Chieftains, and toured North America with The Irish Rovers. I teach every year at the Willie Clancy Summer School, run masterclasses across Europe, and travel regularly to the US, workshops at UCLA, tours up and down the East and West Coasts, and sessions with Irish communities along the way.
How the live sessions work
Each week you study a recorded lesson in your own time, watching my demonstrations, following the sheet music and practising the passages before your live session. Then you bring your questions to me. With no more than six participants in the group, you’ll get the chance to play the passages you find difficult, talk through your bowing and get individual guidance within the shared session, as well as learn from the questions other players are asking. You don’t need to turn up with a polished performance, these sessions are for working through the parts you haven’t mastered yet.
Your 10-week programme
- Week 1, Let’s Get Started with Your Bowing: building awareness of bow position, control and phrasing through exercises, jigs and waltzes.
- Week 2, Finding the Flow in Your Jigs: slurring into the beat, single bowing, rolls and string crossings.
- Week 3, Exploring the Slip Jig: its distinctive rhythm, plus slurs, cuts and rolls.
- Week 4, Moving into Reels: repeating bowing patterns and string changes, with hornpipes supporting your practice.
- Week 5, Building Your Reel Bowing: phrasing and ornamentation through The Heathery Breeze and Scotch Mary.
- Week 6, Recognising the Patterns: recurring movements in Walter Sammon’s Grandmother and The Laurel Tree.
- Week 7, Bringing Your Bowing into Session Reels: applying your technique to familiar tunes, including The Mountain Road, Drowsy Maggie and The Galway Rambler.
- Week 8, Music from The Rose in the Gap: repertoire connected with my own research into Oriel and South Ulster.
- Week 9, Giving the Music Space to Breathe: slow airs and Highland music, drones, cuts and selective vibrato.
- Week 10, Bringing It All Together: revisiting the techniques and learning how to apply them to tunes beyond the course.
What you’ll work on
Bow control and phrasing. Ornamentation, the cuts, rolls and slurs that give Irish fiddle its character. Rhythm and timing that feels right rather than just counted out correctly. The regional styles that separate someone playing notes from someone playing music, with me watching and correcting as you go.
Is this for you?
You should already be playing fiddle or violin at an intermediate level. This isn’t a beginner course. From week one you’re working from notation and technique-focused material that assumes you can hold a bow and read some music. It suits players who want direct input, faster progress and personal guidance from me each week, not just the materials on their own.
