Mairi’s Wedding is a gorgeous folk song that is a real delight to sing and play. I chose it as one of the numbers that everyone would play together in my most recent Big Fat Music Party because of its beautifully easy chord structure. It consists of the following three chords which repeat throughout the song. We played it in D, which was a good key for all our instruments and voices.

(see an explanation of harmony writing here).

Here is the sheet music, tune line and chords-

Mairi’s Wedding

On the day we had two Guitars, two ukuleles, three people on the piano (one playing chords, two playing the melody) one fiddle, a few percussionists and lots of singers.
My great violin-playing students (I normally teach them piano) who are brother and sister couldn’t make the party, but when we were working on Mairi’s Wedding in their lesson, they came up with this brilliant easy double stopping accompaniment based on the rhythm of the first two bars. It sounded great when they played it together (one on tune, one on accompaniment, then swapping over).

Here it is-

I love that the D never alters even on the A chord, creating a compelling drone.

Before the party I videoed some of the lovely West London Folk Band (led by the brilliant Laurel Swift) playing the song so that my students could listen to it in the week.

Here is our rendition at the party-