Below is the lesson for “St. Anne’s Reel”.

Helpful Tips

This traditional Irish folk song has a trick up its sleeve! It’s performed with a rhythmic backbeat AND a triple pick right hand technique. First, let’s tackle what this ‘triple pick right hand technique’ is…

If you’ve studied the triplet strum before, you know that it’s usually performed with the index down, followed by the thumb down, and finally the index up. BUT, what if I told you that you could use this exact motion to perform single note melody lines! That’s right, we can TRANSFORM this strumming technique into a picking technique!

Pretty cool, right? So keep this thought in mind, because we’ll come back to it in a second. But for now, let’s talk about the ‘rhythmic backbeat’.

To add this backbeat, we’ll place an index down strum on ‘clapped’ beats – i.e. the beats you clap your hands to the music with. In this case, beats 2 & 4. This creates a constant, driving rhythm. This leaves us with every other beat being a single note melody played via the triple pick technique.

As you work through this arrangement, focus on keeping the tempo steady. Start slow and steadily boost the tempo as you grow more confident with the piece. The rhythmic backbeat that we’re striving to achieve sounds best when we’re able to play the piece continuously and steadily at a brisk to quick tempo. Therefore, your goal for this piece is to be able to play it at 150 BPM.

Learning the Triple Pick Technique

This song is part of our new course titled: Triplet Strum Magic. As you’ve probably adduced from above, part of the “magic” is in the ability to take the triplet strum technique and transform it into a triple pick technique, as well as, using it in a different rhythmic context and as a self-contained right hand playing style.

While this Irish song can be performed with traditional fingerpicking technique, as Andrew points out in the intro of the lesson, using the triple pick and strum method of playing produces a highly rhythmic and fluid sound. If you’ve been looking for a technique that breathes new life into your playing, then definitely check out the course!