Chords for Red Haired Boy Mandolin Lesson!
Tempo:
98.95 bpm
Chords used:
A
D
G
E
F#
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[A] [G] [B]
[A]
[D] [A]
[D] [A] [G]
[E]
[G] [A] [E]
[A]
Boom ba da dum!
Howdy welcome to [G] BanjoVinClark.com.
I am Banjo Vin, your host here on the website to teach you how to play banjo, guitar, and
this week is mandolin week.
We're learning this age old fiddle tune which is one of my favorites for obvious reasons.
We're learning how to play Red Haired Boy.
This one, I don't know when it started, when it was written, but it's made its way across
the sea and it's found its way into parking lot picking circles all across the country.
So this is an important one to know.
We're going to learn a pretty straight ahead standard melody version for this one and a
little caveat here.
This is exactly the same melody, note for note, that I teach in my intermediate banjo
version when I teach it melodically in single string.
So it's kind of cool.
You can learn this and then learn that banjo version and you have a unison arrangement
for you there.
Alright, now if you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook, here in a moment I'll ask you
to come over to the website BanjoVinClark.com.
You can come over there, join as a Go Pick member, have access to hundreds of lessons,
tabs, mp3s.
The tab is exactly like I played it.
Then I have mp3 of the solo.
I have mp3 of Madeline playing it together with the banjo so you can kind of hear what
that sounds like.
And then three different speeds of jam tracks that goes through it three times.
So you can get plenty of practice on this Red Haired Boy.
Let's jump right into the A part of this one.
Let's learn Red Haired Boy.
This is an age old fiddle tune.
It's in the key of A.
This is going to be a pretty straight ahead melody lesson for
you but what's unique about the melody that I'm going to teach you here is that it's the
exact same melody that I teach in the intermediate banjo version.
In that version I play this exact same melody using a melodic style and then we work on
it using a single string style.
So grab a friend that plays banjo.
Have them learn that.
You can play your Madeline version.
Y'all can play it perfectly in unison which is a lot of fun to do.
I have an MP3 that lets you hear what that sounds like.
Now let's go ahead and throw up this first line of tab.
This is a typical fiddle tune structure that we see lots of fiddle tunes have.
That's where we have two A parts that are the same.
They're eight measures each and then it will go to a different chord progression for a
B part [F#] that's eight measures.
It will repeat that.
So we have two A's, two B's, total of 32 measures and then we're all the way through Red Haired Boy.
Now the first two measures here we have labeled as potatoes and all that is is just a little
kickoff that lets people know how fast we're going to be playing this sucker.
Right?
Sounds like this.
So that's to establish to folks around us, hey this is the tempo that we're going to play that.
That's up to you to establish if you were going to kick off this song and we're simply
sliding up to the A note, 6th to 7th [Am] fret and then playing this little shuffle pattern
on the second string.
[D] And when we get to measure two [G] we're just going to chromatically walk [D#] [C] down to the starting
melody note in the first A part there in measure three.
[G#] Now nothing is super duper tricky about this melody because as I said I stuck really close
to the melody.
I do have an advanced version on Mantlin that you can go check out that gets all kinds of
crazy but I built this one for speed.
Now I really want you to learn what the melody sounds like and get confident with it.
That's important as we begin to improvise on top of that later on.
So measure three is very straight ahead.
Just need to pay attention to our pick strokes and make sure we're playing the quarter notes
like we're supposed to.
[F#] So it sounds like this.
[D] Pretty simple, huh?
We get to [C#] measure four.
[D] [A] [E]
Now we have these quarter notes in measure five that really kind of tells us that we're
playing red haired boy.
We don't always have to play them as quarter notes but when I hear these I think, oh yeah,
this is red haired boy.
[B] And then especially when we get to measure six that's the real telltale because this
fiddle tune is going to go to the G chord.
[A] Now that's not typically in the key of A.
We don't [G] typically go to a G chord.
It's called the dominant seventh, the seventh chord.
[E] But this one does and what's really neat, you'll hear it in the MP3s, is that the rhythm
track doesn't play through that measure just like the other ones.
It's not [D] one, two, three, four, one, two, three, [C] four.
They will accent many times the G chord on the second and third beats.
So that really gives it this red haired boy feel that sets it apart from other fiddle tunes.
Let me play this line all the way through for you and then we'll do it much slower later on.
[Am] [D] [F] [F#]
[A]
[F#] [F] So just to give you an idea of what the rhythm sounds like, we have a video coming up where
I teach you the rhythm.
Starting at measure three I would play it like this.
One, two, ready, go.
[D]
[G] And accent those G chords on the second and third beat.
One, two, three, [C#] four and then go right back into measure seven.
Let's look at that.
So measure seven, measure eight is exactly a repeat of measure three and four.
[B] And then we have this answer, this final phrase.
This answer measures nine and ten that wraps up the first A part.
We're going to stretch it out a little bit, stretch our fingers out.
[E] Measure nine sounds like this.
So we're going to use our pinky up there.
Try to get those clear [B] and then come right back down the scale, measure ten.
[F#m] Now you don't [F#] have to play that last fourth fret in measure ten.
You could just end it on that A string.
And we are through the first A part.
The second A part is exactly the same except it's [F#] not going to play that last fourth fret.
It's going to actually, excuse me, I just burped during the middle of one of my lessons.
That's wonderful.
It's going to have a pickup note.
Let's check that out.
So when we go to measure eleven, measures eleven through fourteen are exactly like measures
three through six.
[A]
[B] Go to the next line, we see a lot of the same.
And then here in the last beat of measure eighteen, we're at the end of the second A
part, we have these two [F#] little eighth notes.
And that's walking us up into the melody of what the B part looks like.
And let's check that out now.
[G] [D] [A] [G] [A]
[E] [D] [A]
[A]
[D] [A]
[D] [A] [G]
[E]
[G] [A] [E]
[A]
Boom ba da dum!
Howdy welcome to [G] BanjoVinClark.com.
I am Banjo Vin, your host here on the website to teach you how to play banjo, guitar, and
this week is mandolin week.
We're learning this age old fiddle tune which is one of my favorites for obvious reasons.
We're learning how to play Red Haired Boy.
This one, I don't know when it started, when it was written, but it's made its way across
the sea and it's found its way into parking lot picking circles all across the country.
So this is an important one to know.
We're going to learn a pretty straight ahead standard melody version for this one and a
little caveat here.
This is exactly the same melody, note for note, that I teach in my intermediate banjo
version when I teach it melodically in single string.
So it's kind of cool.
You can learn this and then learn that banjo version and you have a unison arrangement
for you there.
Alright, now if you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook, here in a moment I'll ask you
to come over to the website BanjoVinClark.com.
You can come over there, join as a Go Pick member, have access to hundreds of lessons,
tabs, mp3s.
The tab is exactly like I played it.
Then I have mp3 of the solo.
I have mp3 of Madeline playing it together with the banjo so you can kind of hear what
that sounds like.
And then three different speeds of jam tracks that goes through it three times.
So you can get plenty of practice on this Red Haired Boy.
Let's jump right into the A part of this one.
Let's learn Red Haired Boy.
This is an age old fiddle tune.
It's in the key of A.
This is going to be a pretty straight ahead melody lesson for
you but what's unique about the melody that I'm going to teach you here is that it's the
exact same melody that I teach in the intermediate banjo version.
In that version I play this exact same melody using a melodic style and then we work on
it using a single string style.
So grab a friend that plays banjo.
Have them learn that.
You can play your Madeline version.
Y'all can play it perfectly in unison which is a lot of fun to do.
I have an MP3 that lets you hear what that sounds like.
Now let's go ahead and throw up this first line of tab.
This is a typical fiddle tune structure that we see lots of fiddle tunes have.
That's where we have two A parts that are the same.
They're eight measures each and then it will go to a different chord progression for a
B part [F#] that's eight measures.
It will repeat that.
So we have two A's, two B's, total of 32 measures and then we're all the way through Red Haired Boy.
Now the first two measures here we have labeled as potatoes and all that is is just a little
kickoff that lets people know how fast we're going to be playing this sucker.
Right?
Sounds like this.
So that's to establish to folks around us, hey this is the tempo that we're going to play that.
That's up to you to establish if you were going to kick off this song and we're simply
sliding up to the A note, 6th to 7th [Am] fret and then playing this little shuffle pattern
on the second string.
[D] And when we get to measure two [G] we're just going to chromatically walk [D#] [C] down to the starting
melody note in the first A part there in measure three.
[G#] Now nothing is super duper tricky about this melody because as I said I stuck really close
to the melody.
I do have an advanced version on Mantlin that you can go check out that gets all kinds of
crazy but I built this one for speed.
Now I really want you to learn what the melody sounds like and get confident with it.
That's important as we begin to improvise on top of that later on.
So measure three is very straight ahead.
Just need to pay attention to our pick strokes and make sure we're playing the quarter notes
like we're supposed to.
[F#] So it sounds like this.
[D] Pretty simple, huh?
We get to [C#] measure four.
[D] [A] [E]
Now we have these quarter notes in measure five that really kind of tells us that we're
playing red haired boy.
We don't always have to play them as quarter notes but when I hear these I think, oh yeah,
this is red haired boy.
[B] And then especially when we get to measure six that's the real telltale because this
fiddle tune is going to go to the G chord.
[A] Now that's not typically in the key of A.
We don't [G] typically go to a G chord.
It's called the dominant seventh, the seventh chord.
[E] But this one does and what's really neat, you'll hear it in the MP3s, is that the rhythm
track doesn't play through that measure just like the other ones.
It's not [D] one, two, three, four, one, two, three, [C] four.
They will accent many times the G chord on the second and third beats.
So that really gives it this red haired boy feel that sets it apart from other fiddle tunes.
Let me play this line all the way through for you and then we'll do it much slower later on.
[Am] [D] [F] [F#]
[A]
[F#] [F] So just to give you an idea of what the rhythm sounds like, we have a video coming up where
I teach you the rhythm.
Starting at measure three I would play it like this.
One, two, ready, go.
[D]
[G] And accent those G chords on the second and third beat.
One, two, three, [C#] four and then go right back into measure seven.
Let's look at that.
So measure seven, measure eight is exactly a repeat of measure three and four.
[B] And then we have this answer, this final phrase.
This answer measures nine and ten that wraps up the first A part.
We're going to stretch it out a little bit, stretch our fingers out.
[E] Measure nine sounds like this.
So we're going to use our pinky up there.
Try to get those clear [B] and then come right back down the scale, measure ten.
[F#m] Now you don't [F#] have to play that last fourth fret in measure ten.
You could just end it on that A string.
And we are through the first A part.
The second A part is exactly the same except it's [F#] not going to play that last fourth fret.
It's going to actually, excuse me, I just burped during the middle of one of my lessons.
That's wonderful.
It's going to have a pickup note.
Let's check that out.
So when we go to measure eleven, measures eleven through fourteen are exactly like measures
three through six.
[A]
[B] Go to the next line, we see a lot of the same.
And then here in the last beat of measure eighteen, we're at the end of the second A
part, we have these two [F#] little eighth notes.
And that's walking us up into the melody of what the B part looks like.
And let's check that out now.
[G] [D] [A] [G] [A]
[E] [D] [A]
Key:
A
D
G
E
F#
A
D
G
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
[G] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Boom ba da dum!
Howdy welcome to [G] BanjoVinClark.com.
I am Banjo Vin, your host here on the website to teach you how to play banjo, guitar, and
this week is mandolin week.
We're learning this age old fiddle tune which is one of my favorites for obvious reasons.
We're learning how to play Red Haired Boy.
This one, I don't know when it started, when it was written, but it's made its way across
the sea and it's found its way into parking lot picking circles all across the country.
So this is an important one to know.
We're going to learn a pretty straight ahead standard melody version for this one and a
little caveat here.
This is exactly the same melody, note for note, that I teach in my intermediate banjo
version when I teach it melodically in single string.
So it's kind of cool.
You can learn this and then learn that banjo version and you have a unison arrangement
for you there.
Alright, now if you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook, here in a moment I'll ask you
to come over to the website BanjoVinClark.com.
You can come over there, join as a Go Pick member, have access to hundreds of lessons,
tabs, mp3s.
The tab is exactly like I played it.
Then I have mp3 of the solo.
I have mp3 of Madeline playing it together with the banjo so you can kind of hear what
that sounds like.
And then three different speeds of jam tracks that goes through it three times.
So you can get plenty of practice on this Red Haired Boy.
Let's jump right into the A part of this one.
Let's learn Red Haired Boy.
This is an age old fiddle tune.
It's in the key of A.
This is going to be a pretty straight ahead melody lesson for
you but what's unique about the melody that I'm going to teach you here is that it's the
exact same melody that I teach in the intermediate banjo version.
In that version I play this exact same melody using a melodic style and then we work on
it using a single string style.
So grab a friend that plays banjo.
Have them learn that.
You can play your Madeline version.
Y'all can play it perfectly in unison which is a lot of fun to do.
I have an MP3 that lets you hear what that sounds like.
Now let's go ahead and throw up this first line of tab.
This is a typical fiddle tune structure that we see lots of fiddle tunes have.
That's where we have two A parts that are the same.
They're eight measures each and then it will go to a different chord progression for a
B part [F#] that's eight measures.
It will repeat that.
So we have two A's, two B's, total of 32 measures and then we're all the way through Red Haired Boy.
Now the first two measures here we have labeled as potatoes and all that is is just a little
kickoff that lets people know how fast we're going to be playing this sucker.
Right?
Sounds like this.
_ _ _ So that's to establish to folks around us, hey this is the tempo that we're going to play that.
That's up to you to establish if you were going to kick off this song and we're simply
sliding up to the A note, 6th to 7th [Am] fret and then playing this little shuffle pattern
on the second string. _ _
[D] And when we get to measure two [G] we're just going to chromatically walk [D#] _ [C] down to the starting
melody note in the first A part there in measure three.
[G#] Now nothing is super duper tricky about this melody because as I said I stuck really close
to the melody.
I do have an advanced version on Mantlin that you can go check out that gets all kinds of
crazy but I built this one for speed.
Now I really want you to learn what the melody sounds like and get confident with it.
That's important as we begin to improvise on top of that later on.
So measure three is very straight ahead.
Just need to pay attention to our pick strokes and make sure we're playing the quarter notes
like we're supposed to.
[F#] So it sounds like this.
_ _ _ _ [D] Pretty simple, huh?
We get to [C#] measure four.
_ _ [D] _ [A] _ [E]
Now we have these quarter notes in measure five that _ really kind of tells us that we're
playing red haired boy.
We don't always have to play them as quarter notes but when I hear these I think, oh yeah,
this is red haired boy. _ _
[B] And then especially when we get to measure six that's the real telltale because this
fiddle tune is going to go to the G chord.
[A] Now that's not typically in the key of A.
We don't [G] typically go to a G chord.
It's called the dominant seventh, the seventh chord.
[E] But this one does and what's really neat, you'll hear it in the MP3s, is that the rhythm
track doesn't play through that measure just like the other ones.
It's not [D] one, two, three, four, one, two, three, [C] four.
They will accent many times the G chord on the second and third beats.
So that really gives it this red haired boy feel that sets it apart from other fiddle tunes.
Let me play this line all the way through for you and then we'll do it much slower later on.
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _ [F] _ [F#] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#] [F] So just to give you an idea of what the rhythm sounds like, we have a video coming up where
I teach you the rhythm.
Starting at measure three I would play it like this.
One, two, ready, go.
[D] _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ And accent those G chords on the second and third beat.
One, two, three, [C#] four and then go right back into measure seven.
Let's look at that.
So measure seven, measure eight is exactly a repeat of measure three and four.
[B] _ _ _ And then we have this answer, this final phrase.
This answer measures nine and ten that wraps up the first A part.
We're going to stretch it out a little bit, stretch our fingers out.
[E] Measure nine sounds like this. _
_ _ _ _ So we're going to use our pinky up there.
_ Try to get those clear [B] and then come right back down the scale, measure ten.
_ _ _ [F#m] _ Now you don't [F#] have to play that last fourth fret in measure ten.
You could just end it on that A string.
And we are through the first A part.
The second A part is exactly the same except it's [F#] not going to play that last fourth fret.
It's going to actually, excuse me, I just burped during the middle of one of my lessons.
That's wonderful.
It's going to have a pickup note.
Let's check that out.
So when we go to measure eleven, measures eleven through fourteen are exactly like measures
three through six.
[A] _ _ _ _ _
[B] Go to the next line, we see a lot of the same. _ _ _
_ _ And then here in the last beat of measure eighteen, we're at the end of the second A
part, we have these two [F#] little eighth notes.
And that's walking us up into the melody of what the B part looks like.
And let's check that out now.
_ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _ [G] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _
[A] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [B] _ _ _
_ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ [A] _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
[G] _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Boom ba da dum!
Howdy welcome to [G] BanjoVinClark.com.
I am Banjo Vin, your host here on the website to teach you how to play banjo, guitar, and
this week is mandolin week.
We're learning this age old fiddle tune which is one of my favorites for obvious reasons.
We're learning how to play Red Haired Boy.
This one, I don't know when it started, when it was written, but it's made its way across
the sea and it's found its way into parking lot picking circles all across the country.
So this is an important one to know.
We're going to learn a pretty straight ahead standard melody version for this one and a
little caveat here.
This is exactly the same melody, note for note, that I teach in my intermediate banjo
version when I teach it melodically in single string.
So it's kind of cool.
You can learn this and then learn that banjo version and you have a unison arrangement
for you there.
Alright, now if you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook, here in a moment I'll ask you
to come over to the website BanjoVinClark.com.
You can come over there, join as a Go Pick member, have access to hundreds of lessons,
tabs, mp3s.
The tab is exactly like I played it.
Then I have mp3 of the solo.
I have mp3 of Madeline playing it together with the banjo so you can kind of hear what
that sounds like.
And then three different speeds of jam tracks that goes through it three times.
So you can get plenty of practice on this Red Haired Boy.
Let's jump right into the A part of this one.
Let's learn Red Haired Boy.
This is an age old fiddle tune.
It's in the key of A.
This is going to be a pretty straight ahead melody lesson for
you but what's unique about the melody that I'm going to teach you here is that it's the
exact same melody that I teach in the intermediate banjo version.
In that version I play this exact same melody using a melodic style and then we work on
it using a single string style.
So grab a friend that plays banjo.
Have them learn that.
You can play your Madeline version.
Y'all can play it perfectly in unison which is a lot of fun to do.
I have an MP3 that lets you hear what that sounds like.
Now let's go ahead and throw up this first line of tab.
This is a typical fiddle tune structure that we see lots of fiddle tunes have.
That's where we have two A parts that are the same.
They're eight measures each and then it will go to a different chord progression for a
B part [F#] that's eight measures.
It will repeat that.
So we have two A's, two B's, total of 32 measures and then we're all the way through Red Haired Boy.
Now the first two measures here we have labeled as potatoes and all that is is just a little
kickoff that lets people know how fast we're going to be playing this sucker.
Right?
Sounds like this.
_ _ _ So that's to establish to folks around us, hey this is the tempo that we're going to play that.
That's up to you to establish if you were going to kick off this song and we're simply
sliding up to the A note, 6th to 7th [Am] fret and then playing this little shuffle pattern
on the second string. _ _
[D] And when we get to measure two [G] we're just going to chromatically walk [D#] _ [C] down to the starting
melody note in the first A part there in measure three.
[G#] Now nothing is super duper tricky about this melody because as I said I stuck really close
to the melody.
I do have an advanced version on Mantlin that you can go check out that gets all kinds of
crazy but I built this one for speed.
Now I really want you to learn what the melody sounds like and get confident with it.
That's important as we begin to improvise on top of that later on.
So measure three is very straight ahead.
Just need to pay attention to our pick strokes and make sure we're playing the quarter notes
like we're supposed to.
[F#] So it sounds like this.
_ _ _ _ [D] Pretty simple, huh?
We get to [C#] measure four.
_ _ [D] _ [A] _ [E]
Now we have these quarter notes in measure five that _ really kind of tells us that we're
playing red haired boy.
We don't always have to play them as quarter notes but when I hear these I think, oh yeah,
this is red haired boy. _ _
[B] And then especially when we get to measure six that's the real telltale because this
fiddle tune is going to go to the G chord.
[A] Now that's not typically in the key of A.
We don't [G] typically go to a G chord.
It's called the dominant seventh, the seventh chord.
[E] But this one does and what's really neat, you'll hear it in the MP3s, is that the rhythm
track doesn't play through that measure just like the other ones.
It's not [D] one, two, three, four, one, two, three, [C] four.
They will accent many times the G chord on the second and third beats.
So that really gives it this red haired boy feel that sets it apart from other fiddle tunes.
Let me play this line all the way through for you and then we'll do it much slower later on.
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ [D] _ [F] _ [F#] _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [F#] [F] So just to give you an idea of what the rhythm sounds like, we have a video coming up where
I teach you the rhythm.
Starting at measure three I would play it like this.
One, two, ready, go.
[D] _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ And accent those G chords on the second and third beat.
One, two, three, [C#] four and then go right back into measure seven.
Let's look at that.
So measure seven, measure eight is exactly a repeat of measure three and four.
[B] _ _ _ And then we have this answer, this final phrase.
This answer measures nine and ten that wraps up the first A part.
We're going to stretch it out a little bit, stretch our fingers out.
[E] Measure nine sounds like this. _
_ _ _ _ So we're going to use our pinky up there.
_ Try to get those clear [B] and then come right back down the scale, measure ten.
_ _ _ [F#m] _ Now you don't [F#] have to play that last fourth fret in measure ten.
You could just end it on that A string.
And we are through the first A part.
The second A part is exactly the same except it's [F#] not going to play that last fourth fret.
It's going to actually, excuse me, I just burped during the middle of one of my lessons.
That's wonderful.
It's going to have a pickup note.
Let's check that out.
So when we go to measure eleven, measures eleven through fourteen are exactly like measures
three through six.
[A] _ _ _ _ _
[B] Go to the next line, we see a lot of the same. _ _ _
_ _ And then here in the last beat of measure eighteen, we're at the end of the second A
part, we have these two [F#] little eighth notes.
And that's walking us up into the melody of what the B part looks like.
And let's check that out now.
_ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _ [G] _ _ [A] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _