“The Banshee” for Low G Ukulele – FREE TAB

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In Irish folklore, a banshee is a spirit who appears to mark the death of an individual, wailing (also known as “keening”) to indicate that a person of true Irish descent has passed.

Though the tradition died out centuries ago, it was at one time common for a formal Irish funeral to feature a “wailing woman,” an oftentimes hired performer who lamented the death of the individual in song, mimicking the cries of the banshee.

So why is the tune we know today as “The Banshee” such an upbeat dance number (albeit with a minor sound)? The song is attributed to Irish flute player James McMahon, and the song is often known simply a “McMahon’s” or “McMahon’s Reel.”

Some say the tune is called “The Banshee” because that’s just what McMahon wanted to call it. Others attribute it to a band announcer who didn’t like McMahon all that much and apparently wanted to compare his flute playing to the wails of the mythical creature.

“The Banshee” Playing Tips

“The Banshee” is a single reel, meaning it is made up of two four-bar sections that repeat. However, the B section has a lot of variation the second time through. Rather than cluttering the page with all of the notation necessary to show the repeats and variation, I’ve just written this tune out as a 16-bar reel with no repeats.

At first glance, the song looks harder to play than it actually is because of the density of notes on the page. But if you break it down, more than half of the notes on the page are open strings. You’ll have plenty of breathing room to fret all of the notes with your left hand in time. The real challenge is keeping your right hand moving to hit all of those open strings in rhythm.

Those Chords

The chord structure of “Banshee” is also fairly complex for a reel. While all of the chords are your run-of-the-mill C major shapes, there are a lot of measures that call for two chords.

If you are used to tunes that only change chords at the beginning of a measure, it can be a challenge to adjust to mid-measure chord changes. Don’t worry about a strum pattern for measures with two chords, at least at first. Just hit the chords with a single strum on the 1 and the 3 of the measure. The staccato accompaniment works really well with this tune, especially if you are playing at a higher tempo.

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“The Banshee” Low G Sheet Music Download