“The Blarney Pilgrim” for Low G Ukulele – FREE TAB

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Yesterday I updated the “John Ryan’s Polka” post with a performance video. Today, I’m posting a TAB for “They Blarney Pilgrim,” another traditional Irish tune that, at least in my mind, fits with “John Ryan’s” perfectly. That’s probably because Gaelic Storm performed the two back-to-back during the steerage dance scene in Titanic.

While the origins of the tune are uncertain, the title is a reference to the Blarney Stone, a stone embedded in the wall of Blarney Castle in (you’ll never guess) Blarney Village in the South of Ireland. The stone is said to grant people the the gift of eloquent speech – if you kiss it by dangling upside down over the side of the castle.

A “Blarney pilgrim,” then, is someone who makes the journey to the castle to kiss the stone and gain the “gift of gab.” I’m guessing the trip isn’t quite as lively as the tune. I’d also bet that learning how to play this classic is a lot more satisfying than kissing and old stone. But to each their own, I suppose.

“The Blarney Pilgrim” Playing Tips

“Pilgrim” is a jig that seems to have quite a bit to learn at first as it has three eight-measure sections. BUT there are a lot of repeating elements within those sections, and the tune only strays outside of the home octave for one measure. You’ve got a lot of patterns to learn, but the good news is that they’re all in first position.

If you are new to jigs and playing in 6/8 time (Read up on 6/8 time if you aren’t familiar.), this is a great tune to learn because, while there are a lot of unbroken strings of triplets, the patterns are straightforward. And because I’ve arranged this version in the key of C, there are also a LOT of open strings.

In fact, there are so many open strings, I decided to challenge you and not create a “simplified” version of this tune. More than half of the notes you’ll be playing are open strings, so your left hand should have no trouble keeping up. Consider this tune a workout for your right hand.

Proper Jig Picking

Speaking of a right-hand workout, let’s take a minute and go over proper jig picking technique. It’s key to making a jig sound authentic, and it really isn’t that hard to master.

Jigs are in 6/8, and most of the measures contain two full triplets:

When playing a jig, you always put emphasis on the first note of each triplet, pounding out the ONE-TWO beat that the dancers follow. The rhythm syllables look like this, with the capital letters showing where to put your emphasis:

TRI-o-la TRI-o-la

To make sure this emphasis comes through in your playing, you should always hit the first note of a triplet with a strong downstroke. You can do this with a pick (DOWN-up-down DOWN-up-down), and you also do it with fingerstyle, alternating between your thumb and index finger:

THUMB-index-thumb THUMB-index-thumb

If you have a measure with incomplete triplets, keep the downstrokes and fingers in the same place relative to the beat. Take measure 2 as an example:

To play this properly and keep the emphasis and general feel the same as the rest of the tune, you would pick this as:

DOWN-down DOWN-up-down

Or, fingerstyle:

THUMB-thumb Thumbs-index-thumb

Keep practicing this technique, slowly at first and then gradually increasing your tempo. I find it helpful to set a metronome at a fairly slow speed (think 60bpm or slower to start) and then time the beats as the first note of each triplet. You’ll start to “hear” the emphasized beats better after your practice like this for a while.

Click the Download button below if the embedded PDF doesn’t display properly. Happy picking!

“The Blarney Pilgrim” Low G Sheet Music Download