PlaysoloistStringsGuitarSongsI'll Tell Me Ma

guitar song · Strings

I'll Tell Me Ma Guitar Tab

Composer
Traditional
Year
Key
G
Time
4/4
Tempo
132 BPM
Difficulty
Beginner · ★
First note
D4

I'll Tell Me Ma on guitar

The full melody, rendered as six-string guitar tab in standard tuning you can read on screen or print for the stand — free, and never truncated.

Tuning: E A D G B e (standard) · Strum: D DU DU DU

eBGDAEVerseG12G12121212CG13121212D712101012G10121212eBGDAEG1212121212CG13121212D712101012G1088eBGDAEChorusG10101012Am13131314G12121212D71011012eBGDAEG10101012C131313GD71212121012G1088

Lyrics

Bar 1 — I'll tell me ma when I go home

Bar 4 — the boys won't leave the girls alone

Bar 6 — they pulled my hair and they stole my comb

Bar 8 — but that's all right till I go home

Bar 10 — She is handsome, she is pretty

Bar 12 — she's the belle of Belfast city

Bar 14 — she is courting, one two three

Bar 16 — please won't you tell me, who is she?

Trad. Irish children's song, 19th c. — public domain.

How to practise this on guitar

I'll Tell Me Ma is in G and the tab opens on D4 — find that fret, settle your hand there, and notice how little it has to move: the arrangement is worked out with a fret-hand position economy, so consecutive notes stay under your fingers instead of leaping up and down the neck. Read the numbers, not the note names: string line plus fret is the whole instruction, and an open string costs you nothing.

Play it well under around 132 BPM with a metronome and let each note ring into the next — the tails under the numbers show you how long. When your take review marks a bar, loop just that bar until the fret-hand shift inside it feels automatic, then rejoin the line. Speed is the last thing you add, never the first. By the numbers, this setting runs 64 notes across 17 bars, from D4 up to D5 in 4/4 time.

Also playable on

The same melody is graded across 6 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the I'll Tell Me Ma cross-instrument hub.

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Free on the App Store

Play I'll Tell Me Ma — and hear every note graded.

Soloist Guitar reads this six-string guitar tab in standard tuning under the notation and grades your take on-device, note by note — free on iPhone, no ads, no account.

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