How to Not Suck (at Irish rhythm guitar) 

So concise and useful. I'm crash coursing for my first Celtic music gig and this video provided the best advice.

Brilliant lesson!

Great tutorial. Thanks.

Hi Matt! Always a delight to enjoy your lessons ☺️👍🏻

very very useful, thank you very much!

Awesome! Thanks! ✌️😎🌞🎻

I'm so glad I found this series of instruction. If I can't find a decent backing track, I have to provide my own. Now, my guitar and mandolin playing will be sooooo much better. Thanks Matt!

Very nicely and concisely explained. Thank you. ;-)

I've been searching the right chords for years. Thanks a lot for those lovely sounds!

Good video, love your guitar playing , keep on it 😊

Good selection of the fundamentals vividly put over with imaginative examples, comparisons of style and sounds effects. Very engaging. Thanks Matt.

Love this video! Thank you! 🙏 🎶 👏

This is So helpful, thank you!

That’s a great intro to Irish music accompaniment. Well done

Thanks for those great tips. Working on the rhythms and new chords, it like discovering a new guitar language

Thanks for a great lesson 👍

Matt, this playlist is so helpful. Please keep adding to it! You've really changed my backing. Thanks a million from co. Clare

You guys are the best. Just teaching what matter in direct fashion.The part of keeping it smooth and making everyone happy, cracked me up. 😂 This video is exactly what I needed for my backing tracks.

At least I have the exact same pick, that‘s a good start. Off to cure my elephants. Really useful concise guide, thanks Matt!

Very helpful thank you very much ☺️

Great, thanks.

I've been looking for an Irish guitar video and was pleasantly surprised to find this. Coincidentally, I worked at KAFM Radio Room in Grand Junction for a few Siucra shows many moons ago and had the pleasure of meeting you and Shannon. I look forward to getting more into Irish guitar stuff. Loving your videos!

Well explained sir Thankyou ❤

That’s a cool guitar man!

This is a brilliant video! You broke all the concepts down into very understandable bites--I think the hardest bit is going to be getting in enough practice to bring all those elements to life on my guitar! Thanks so much for the de-mystification!

Ciao Matt, what a great quick start guide to Irish guitar...I will try the pink elephant parade rhythm for sure :)

How good is this? Just fantastic thank you so much! As a singer songwriter and specialist acoustic guitar finger picker for many years. This has always been a mystery to me . Best guitar lesson I have ever had!

Hi from Australia,thanks so much Matt i just turned 75 and have bought small body guitar made in Northern Ireland as i love Celtic music and would like to learn some simple Jigs and Reels.This video is great,you explain everything clearly and simply.After seeing this i think i can manage this so thanks so much for excellent tutorial.You have motivated me to start regular 30 minutes a day this very morning🎸

OK, so this is the playlist I'm looking for!! Great!! Thank you ahead of time for the massive dive I'm about to take through your videos 😂

Thank you for such a great video. My daughter has been playing classical violin for 4 years now. We found an old ceilidh fiddle book with accompaniment chords in a charity shop……took it home and within minutes she had the bug. I couldn’t get her to put the violin down. I’ve played guitar for years but have neglected it for several years…..so here I am, watching your amazing advice. Thank you so much!

Love the Ear Trumpet mic! I’m just getting started with my Edwina. :-)

I'm digging this video and think it's really good, Shannon! Love what he has to say and how he says it. As an old-style player, both on piano and guitar, I have never adopted the contemporary (as in what's been going on in Irish music for 30+ years--I'm showing my age. . . ) style of strumming and chords that Matt is showing. I feel I'm successful at playing a very gentle boom-chuck along with bass lines, throwing in some variations on standard chords. Just wanted to say that it can be done and one won't necessarily suck if they do that!

Bravo! Great lesson! I flat pick Irish melodies on mandolin and guitar but when I back up my fiddler buddy on rhythm, I suck-too much bluegrass background. Thanks for the great pointers.

I love the description of the Jig rhythm as " Jiggity, Jiggity" the faster ya say it the faster ya play it. 😂😂

Thank you Matt! My wife and I play Irish trad as a duo (her: concertina and fiddle, me: mandolin and octave mandolin). We'd love to find a local guitar player to sit in with us, but cant find anyone who already plays ITM. I'm going to show this video to a friend who plays guitar to get him started down the right path to ITM accompaniment. I'm upping my game on accompaniment with the Octave and would love to see more vids, esp. on connecting chords with runs and passing chords. Best regards from Key West, Jeff and Rachel

"go out there and avoid sucking" 😀 Thanks!!!! Simple but super-effective

Thank you thank you thank you! I hope this reaches the sucky players! Especially to the ones that loudly play not knowing that they are sucky!

Here's the advice I try to give to guitarists that are new to Celtic styles: uh... please don't play like bluegrass... Don't get me wrong, bluegrass is great, but it ain't Irish in any shape or form. Old time is closer to Irish, but even that ain't it. People will finish their beer and go home early if a loud bluegrass guitar crashes the Irish party. Lol

I could really have used this video about twenty five years ago. Someone mistook me for a competent guitarist and asked me along to a fiddle class to provide accompaniment. How difficult can it be to sit and strum two chords all night? It was a crash course in getting the rhythm for the jigs for sure. I could really have done with these tips on chord voicing. Thinking back it must have been pretty awful sounding. Wouldn't have helped that I was using a classical guitar either. It was an experience though. I'm getting into playing folk tunes myself now playing melody instead on tenor ukulele after discovering fifths tuning. I'm being drawn towards maybe getting a mandola (same tuning and similar scale length) so I shall be looking for videos on how not to suck at that now. 🙂

Hi Matt, I came upon your videos 2 weeks ago and think they are great. I'm trying to enhance my guitar playing to make some back tracks for my fiddling. I'm doing this because I could not find a source for trad guitar backing tracks. Have you given any thought to producing guitar back tracks that people like me could purchase. It seems like there is a market for it. Thanks for producing the lessons and for donating your work to the trad community. John

Remember to think Dorian

Coke a cola coke a cola coke a cola (reel) - jigity jigity jigity jigity jitigy (jig).

Can't just play the first position of each chord?

Really requires transitioning off the Bodhrán

Lots of 9s and suspensions

Merci. Class. Not " TchaKaPunk ", ok ;)

The best is to use an Irish Bouzouki and not a guitar. :p

This guy is greek tho

Lovely explained Matt. But if you don´t have time to learn don´t play! Fiddlers and flutists will kill you :)

Try to learn melodies. Not to play them, but simply to know them. It makes you a better rhythm player for Irish

So no ..... DADGAD tuning

Yeah just because your playing fast doesn't make it irish you wont hear anything like this in any of the pubs over here

learn to play the Irish drum and transfer the rhythms to guitar