Welcome — How this book works

You used to play. Guitar, concertina, mandolin, whistle, conga, bodhrán, kit. Then life happened. Then a kid happened. Now you're seven years into being someone's parent, and the campfire crowd you've fallen in with is good — too good — and the only songs you can dredge up are the ones you'd rather forget. This book exists to fix that.

It's organised as a graded climb:

Foundations — get the right hand and left hand back into shape on guitar, then mandolin.
The Okee Dokee canon — Grammy-winning trail folk, all in beginner-friendly keys. Wholesome, hike-themed, and your kid will start singing along by week two.
Canadiana — the through-line from Okee Dokee to the shanty stuff. Wade Hemsworth, Ian Tyson, Stan Rogers, Lightfoot.
Sea shanties — getting back into shape for the band. Capstan tunes, halyard pulls, forecastle ballads.
Duets — traditional and Americana songs that sit nicely for two voices, ready for when your partner picks up a mic.
Hearthside — modern indie-folk duets, Once-shaped and Lumineers-shaped. Built for two voices around a microphone in a room. For when the kid's asleep and you and your partner are still up with the guitar.
Kid section — the seven-year-old's pathway from harmonica into guitar and drums.
Fiddle on-ramp — what you (guitar/mando) need to know to back up a fiddler well.

Skip around. None of this is sequential after the foundations chapters.

How to use the song pages

Every song lives at /song/<name>. On each song page you can:

Transpose up or down — hit the + / − buttons. Mando-friendly keys (G, D, A) and shanty-friendly keys (D, G, A, Em) are one click away from any starting key.
Print a clean one-page chart for the dry-bag.
Download the raw .cho file — these are ChordPro format, the same one used by the Obsidian Chord Sheets and Music Code plugins. You can keep your master copy in Obsidian and paste straight into this app.

The 12-week plan

This is the regimen if you do 20 minutes a day, five days a week. If you do more, you'll move faster. If you do less, you'll move slower; that's fine — the campfire isn't going anywhere.

Guitar foundations. Re-callus. Drill G–C–D–Em–Am changes until they're effortless. Strumming pattern: D–DU–UDU. Practice song: Down by the Bay.
The Okee Dokee starter pack. Learn Can You Canoe? in E (capo 4 if you want to play it as A-shape chords). Add Through the Woods.
Travis-style alternating bass. Thumb-on-bass-string fingerpicking. Apply to Echo and Walking with Spring.
First mandolin chords. Two-finger G, three-finger D, two-finger A, two-finger Em. Same Okee Dokee songs, mando version.
Canadiana, easy tier. Four Strong Winds, The Black Fly Song. Both two-chord verses.
Canadiana, mid tier. The Log Driver's Waltz. Three-quarter time finally enters the rotation.
Stan Rogers gateway. Northwest Passage — chorus is a cappella, then full band. Memorise all four verses; this is the test song for whether you've still got it.
Shanty foundations. Haul Away Joe, Roll the Old Chariot. Master the call-and-response feel.
Halyard shanties. Bully in the Alley, Leave Her Johnny. Heavier groove, simpler chord set.
Maritime ballad. Rolling Down to Old Maui. Long-form storytelling shanty.
Mandolin chop. The percussive backbeat that makes a shanty pulse. Apply to all of weeks 8–10.
Repertoire night. Run a 45-minute set front to back, around an actual campfire, with at least two other voices. This is graduation.

What you need

Guitar — anything decent and in tune. A capo. New strings if your current ones are over a year old.
Mandolin — F-hole or A-style is fine. Get it set up by a luthier if it hasn't been touched in years; mando action is fussy.
A clip-on tuner — Snark or D'Addario.
A way to record yourself — your phone is fine. Listening back is the single fastest way to improve.
A capo — you'll use it constantly.

That's it. No amp, no pedals, no software needed. This is firelight music.