Valhalla Campfire Songbook

Resources, Tools & Further Listening

A consolidated reference of everything that's referenced piecemeal throughout the rest of the book.

Tutorials and instructional sites

Guitar

Mandolin

Harmonica

Drums (kid)

Fiddle

Chord chart sources

Per-artist

General-purpose chord chart aggregators

  • Ultimate Guitar — biggest. Quality varies widely; cross-check between versions.
  • Chordie — searches across many sources.
  • Songsterr — has the rhythm/timing notation built in. Best for getting a sense of when the chord changes.
  • Hymnary.org — for traditional and gospel material.
  • Mudcat Café — old-school folk lyrics archive, great for shanties and traditional ballads.
  • Contemplator's Folk Music Site — public-domain lyrics for sea songs, English/Irish/Scottish trad.

Software & apps

For chord-sheet management

  • This app. Hosted however you deploy it. ChordPro .cho files in /songs/, markdown chapters in /content/.
  • ChordPro Editor — desktop editor for .cho files. The format originated here.
  • ChordFiddle — online ChordPro editor by the same author who made ChordSheetJS (the library this app uses).
  • Obsidian + the Music Code plugin or Chord Sheets plugin — these are the Obsidian plugins you were thinking of. They render ChordPro inline in Obsidian notes and support transposition. Same format as this app — your .cho files are portable between the two.
  • Chordify — auto-detects chords from any audio. Quality is decent, especially as a starting point for songs that don't have published chord charts.

For tuning

  • Snark clip-on tuners — cheap, accurate, indestructible.
  • D'Addario PW-CT-15 — slightly more refined, ~$25.
  • Peterson StroboClip HD — ~$70, a precision tuner. Worth it if you're tuning mandolins (which never want to stay in tune).

For metronome / drone

  • Pro Metronome — phone app, free version is fine.
  • Drone Tone Tool — for practising over a drone. Especially useful for fiddle but also for bluegrass mandolin.

For recording / playing-along

  • GarageBand (Mac) or BandLab (cross-platform, free) — for capturing 90-second practice clips.
  • Spotify + a slow-down app like Anytune — slow Stan Rogers recordings down to half-speed without changing pitch. Essential for transcribing.

Books worth owning

  • Stan Hugill — Shanties from the Seven Seas (1961, reprinted 1994). The definitive scholarly shanty collection. 600+ songs with notation, history, and provenance.
  • Edith Fowke — Canada's Story in Song (1960). The foundational Canadian folk anthology.
  • Helen Creighton — Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia (1932). Nova Scotia maritime tradition; a primary source for songs Stan Rogers later adapted.
  • Fred Metcalf (ed.) — The Canadian Folk Music Bulletin archives at the Canadian Society for Traditional Music.
  • Justin Sandercoe — The Practical Guide to Modern Music Theory for Guitarists (2014). If you want to understand why the chords go where they go.
  • Pete Seeger — How to Play the 5-String Banjo (1948, still in print). Even if you don't play banjo, his philosophy on folk-music pedagogy is gold.

Listening list (just listen, don't try to learn)

  • Stan Rogers — Between the Breaks…Live! (1979) — the definitive Stan Rogers experience.
  • Stan Rogers — Northwest Passage (1981) — studio companion.
  • Great Big Sea — Up (1995) — the essential Newfoundland-trad-meets-rock breakout.
  • The Okee Dokee Brothers — Can You Canoe? (2012) — for the kid (and you).
  • Gillian Welch — Time (The Revelator) (2001) — the duet template.
  • Watchhouse — Watchhouse (2021) — modern indie-folk duet.
  • Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova — Once OST (2007) — the modern acoustic-duet template; see the Hearthside chapter.
  • The Lumineers — The Lumineers (2012) — stomp-clap folk-pop; Ho Hey lives here.
  • Of Monsters and Men — My Head Is an Animal (2011) — anthemic Icelandic indie folk; Little Talks lives here.
  • First Aid Kit — The Lion's Roar (2012) — Swedish sisters doing American duet-country in a Scandinavian register; Emmylou lives here.
  • Tony Rice — Manzanita (1979) — guitar reference, not folk per se but every flatpicker should know it.
  • The Wailin' Jennys — Bright Morning Stars (2011) — Canadian female trio harmony.
  • Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer — Child Ballads (2013) — traditional ballads, modern duet harmony.
  • The Longest Johns — Cures What Ails Ya (2020) — modern shanty revival; their arrangements are excellent reference.

Festivals to consider attending

These are the places to hear the tradition you're plugging back into:

  • Stan Rogers Folk Festival, Canso, Nova Scotia (early July). The annual gathering of the Canadiana folk tribe.
  • Mariposa Folk Festival, Orillia, Ontario (early July). The historic Canadian folk festival.
  • Vancouver Folk Music Festival (mid-July). On Jericho Beach. You're close-ish to this if you're on the southern Gulf Islands.
  • ArtsWells, Wells, BC (late July/early August). Quirky, beloved, BC-interior festival.
  • The Wickaninnish Folk Festival, Tofino, BC. Small, beachy, west-coast-vibe.
  • Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival, St. John's (early August). Where the Great Big Sea repertoire originated.
  • Cantwell Cliffs Sea Music Festival, Mystic Seaport, CT (June). Premier shanty/maritime gathering in North America.

Hardware recommendations (no upgrade needed unless you want)

  • Capo: Shubb C1 (steel-string) or Kyser Quick-Change. The Shubb is more elegant; the Kyser is faster.
  • Strap: Anything leather. A worn-in leather strap is the best $60 you'll spend on guitar.
  • Pick variety pack: Dunlop Tortex variety pack. Try a bunch, settle on one.
  • Strings: D'Addario EJ16 lights for steel-string acoustic; D'Addario J74 mediums for mandolin. Change them every 3–4 months if you play daily.