This tune is in the key of D ionian. Therefore the available chords are D major, E minor, F# minor, G major, A major, B minor and C# diminished.
If you listen to the tune my choices should be relatively self-explanatory. Notice that each section ends with a resolution from A D, aka chord V to chord I.
Basic substitutions
I have substituted the G in the second line for its related minor, Em. I have also substituted the D in the second half of the third line for its related minor, Bm and the G in the final line for Em.
In the second line of the B part I have replaced one D chord with a D in the first inversion (D/F#). This chord still contains the notes of a D major triad, D, F# and A, but has them piled up with the F# at the lowest pitch within the chord. This means that functionally it is exactly the same as a normal D major chord, but it’s altered bass note creates a nice bassline which adds a sense of movement to the progression, jumping from D to F# before dropping back down for the E at the bottom of the E minor chord which follows it. In the third line I have used a similar trick to link a G chord to it’s related minor E minor, passing through D/F# in order to make a nice descending bassline, G, F#, E.
Jazzy substitutions
Because of the excessive speed at which polkas roll along, I have kept my chord choices relatively simple for this one! If you’re feeling jazzy, you can replace any chord with the “right kind” of seven chord, by which I mean that in the ionian mode chords I and IV can become major 7 chords, chords II, III and VI become minor 7 chords and chord V becomes a dominant 7 chord (usually just referred to as a 7 chord). This is why my Em7, A7 (this is chord V so it has to be “A7” NOT “A major 7”) and Bm7 all work well.
In the B part I have added a C natural (♮) chord- this is decidedly cheeky. What I have actually done there is to borrow a chord from the mixolydian mode, which is only separated from the ionian mode by one note. If this tune were written in D mixolydian, its scale would contain a C♮ instead of C#, and therefore its VII chord would be C major instead of C# diminished. As the 7th note of the scale, C#, is not in the melody in this bar I can borrow the cheeky flattened VII chord from D mixolydian. So long as there is no C# in the tune it won’t clash but will just lend the tune a blues-y character for a moment instead!
Changing the third line from “D D G G” to “Bm7 A7 G D/F#” works because Bm is related to D (and therefore so is Bm7), A7 is a passing chord which creates a nice step-wise descent to G and then D/F# is chord I (D) but with a bass note which continues the little descending bass run, which then culminates in E minor in the final line.
This tune is in the key of E aeolian. This means that the chords available are E minor, F# diminished, G major, A minor, B minor, C major and D major. Because aeolian is the sixth mode, these are the same chords which would be available in G ionian (major). The main chords will be I, IV and V relative to E minor, aka E minor, A minor and B minor.
As the tune is in 9/8, each bear contains three blocks of three notes. You can pick one chord for each of the three blocks if you wish. When finding the chord I, chord IV and chord IV sections, bear in mind that a section may only last a third of a bar. The tune also has three parts rather than the more usual two. Some people would call this a “48 bar slip jig” (16 in the A part, 16 in the B part and 16 in the C part).
In the A part of the tune, the last block of three quavers in bar one contains one long F# note. For that reason this section could be seen as a chord V section, because of chord I, IV and V, only chord V contains an F#. For ease of playability I have used chord V’s related major. Every minor chord has a related major chord, which is two above it in the key scale, and these two can always be used interchangeably.In this case B is the fifth note in the scale of E aeolian, and two notes above it is D, so D major can always replace B minor.
The last three quaver block of bar two contains the notes “F# E D”. The notes of a D major chord are D, F# and A so this section is firmly a chord VII/ chord V (recall that these two are interchangeable) section.
In bar 4 I could have continued to play E minor, but I have replaced chord I with chord IV, A minor. This works because you can play chord IV in place of any chord I section.
In the B part there are no sections which sound particularly like they need a chord IV or V. In slip jigs, because each bar contains three block of three quavers, and hence three foot taps, the usual rule about playing chord V on every seventh foot tap (whch applies in all other time signatures) becomes “Play chord V at least on every sixth foot tap, potentially for the whole fourth bar”. It’s not as snappy a rule, but it does the job! In this case, bar two contains the notes “A B B B A B D B A”. Only the third of these three blocks sounds like a chord V section to me, so I have played chord VII, chord V’d related major (Bm, chord V, would also have been fine, but it’s harder to play at speed).
In bar four however we find the notes “B – D G – E D B A”. This is much more clearly a chord V section as chord V, Bm, contains the notes B, D and F# and most of the notes in this section are either B or D.
In the C part we find a different melody but with a similar harmonic structure to part A.
Basic substitutions
In this version’s A part I have used D and Bm interchangeably. You can always swap chord V to its related major in any mode other than ionian.
In bar four I have replaced an E minor (chord I) with C (chord VI). This works because as well as its related major, whose root is two above its own in the root scale, a minor chord can also be replaced with the major chord whose root is two BELOW it in the root scale. This works because a C chord contains C, E and G and an E minor chord contains E, G and B- the two common notes make these two chords a valid substitution pair.
In a slightly more unconventional move I have begun the B part on C instead of E minor. I usually say you should start sections on their key chord (unless the melody clearly dictates otherwise) so that the listener has a firm idea of what key they are in. However, when playing in minor keys it is often nice to build tension by beginning a part on the chord whose root note is two below chord I’s in the key scale. In this case I deliberately avoid playing chord I anywhere in the section, always substituting it to C. This creates tension which then adds energy when chord I kicks back in in part C.
In the C part I have again replaced Em with G. I have also ended the section on chord IV. This can be a nice way to end an Irish tune- finish on chord IV instead of chord I! If you are in any mode other than ionian this will add a kind of lift to the end (try it in dorian and mixolydian too). If you are in ionian on the other hand it will leave the listener with a kind of wistful “grass might be greener on the other side” flavour.
Jazzy substitutions
In this version I have replaced each of the available chords in the key with the “right kind of tetrad”. In the simpler versions I used the more common three note chords called triads. These contain just a root, 3rd and 5th. A tetrad is a four note “jazz” chord which contains a 7th as well.
E aeolian is related to G ionian. Therefore the tetrads available are the same in both modes, aka:
G major 7
A minor 7
B minor 7
C major 7
D7
E minor 7
F# ½ diminished (rarely used in folk music- we’ll replace it with chord V in the first inversion, aka D/F#)
So for our tune in E aeolian, the options are E minor 7, D/F#, G major 7, A minor 7, B minor 7, C major 7 and D (dominant) 7. These simply replace the equivalent triad from the old progression, so D becomes D7, G becomes G major 7 and so on. Bm11 is a B minor 7 chord with the 11th (4th) note from a B natural minor (aeolian) scale added to it. This works fine in the key of A aeolian because Bm’s 11th is E, which of course is a note from the E aeolian scale. Adding any note from the key scale to a chord will just give you a jazzier sounding version of the same chord, and Bm11 is much easier to play than Bm7! The same goes for C major 13.
In bar four of the B part I have used a chromatic link from C maj 13 up to D7. Any time you have two chords in a progression whose roots are separated by a tone, you can create an ascending chromatic link between them by using a diminished or ½ diminished chord whose root note is on the semitone between the two original chords. In this case my progression goes Cmaj13 – C#1/2dim. – D7.
In the C part I have used a slightly unusual technique to create a “shimmery” sounding version on the part’s repeat. I replace chord I (Em7 in tetrad land) with chord IV from E dorian instead of E aeolian, aka A7. In this case I have left the top two open strings in the chord, to give me A9. This works well because the top two strings are B and E, the 5th and root of my key scale and adding any notes from the key scale to a jazzy chord will just give you an even jazzier version of the same chord. If you are playing a tune in the aeolian mode, you can often borrow chords from the dorian mode in order to give a moment of optimism to the tune. This works because Irish tunes in minor keys very rarely contain the sixth note of the scale, and it is this note which differentiates the dorian mode from the aeolian. In this case E aeolian should contain A minor 7 as its fourth chord, but I have used chord IV from E dorian, A7, instead! In dorian or aeolian you can always experiment with replacing chord I with chord IV from the other minor mode in order to create tension. If you are in the aeolian mode then dorian’s chord IV will sound bright and shimmery. If you are in the dorian mode then the aeolian chord IV will sound dark and regretful.
This tune is in the key of D ionian. That means that the available chords are D major, E minor, F# minor, G major, A major, B minor and C# diminished.
The third bar of the A part contains the notes “F# B B A B C# D B”. This sounds like a chord IV section to me, as G major contains G, B and D and two of the dominant beats in this bar are on B notes, which do not appear in chord I (D, F# A).
In the B part I have used an E minor (chord II) in the third bar. This is because the bar is basically running up the D major scale beginning from E, which is the same thing as saying “running up the scale of E dorian”. Of course an E minor chord fits nicely with an E minor scale!
Basic substitutions
In this version I have used D/F#, aka the first inversion of D major, to provide a nice linking bassline from D up to G. You can play this chord by looping your thumb round the back of the neck so that it frets the second fret of the bottom E string.
In bar three, instead of going directly to chord V, A major, I have resolved to it from the chord which is a fifth above it within the key scale. You can always do this- if you have a whole bar or more of a given chord you can play the chord whose root is a fifth above it before the original chord. I have also replaced half of bar seven, which previously just contained G major, with its related minor E minor. A major chord’s related minor is always the one whose root note is two below its own in the key scale (in this case G – F# – E minor).
In the B part I have replaced G with its related minor, Em and D with its related minor, Bm. It is always acceptable to switch chords I and IV in any key to their related minors for variation. I have also used the first inversion of chord I, D/F#, in several places. This chord sounds like it wants to move up to G, so it can be a good way to add a sense of movement to your chord progressions.
Jazzy substitutions
In this version’s A part, I have used D in the first inversion, or D/F#, as a linking chord to create a sense of movement between chords I and IV (D and G). The G major in the second bar works because you can always replace a chord I section with chord IV if you wish to.
In bar three I have replaced G major with its related minor, E minor. The related minor of any major chord can be found by going two steps down in the key scale from any major chord- in this case G – F# – E (minor). I proceed up the chord scale from Em – D/F# (a substitute for the F# diminished chord) – G – A, in order to arrive at chord V for the second half of the chord V section in the fourth bar. Remember that bars 4, 8, 12, 16 etc (multiples of four) all take chord V!
In bar 5 I have used both of the minor substitutions available for a D major chord- B minor and F# minor. B minor is the related minor of D major, and F# minor is the chord whose root note is two above D in the key scale. You can always substitute a chord for either the chord whose root note is two below it in the key scale, or the chord whose root note is two above it in the key scale. Both of these chords will have two notes in common with the original chord and so both will make good substitutes.
In bars seven and eight I have missed out the D/F# from my ascending chord run. This is because I have to get back to A in time to go from V – I at the end of the section. If I played the full ascending progression from the end of the first line, I would end the B part on chord V (A) instead of going from V back to I (D) to make it sound finished.
In place of A major I have used A7 as my chord V. You can always replace chord V in a major key with a dominant 7 chord, or any other dominant chord like a 9 or 13.
In the B part, just to show that it CAN be done, I thought I’d stick an actual chord VII in. I have used the tetrad (four note chord) form, C# ½ diminished in bar two. This chord contains the notes C#, E and G. An E minor chord would work well in this section, and this chord contains two of the same notes so it’s theoretically an acceptable option. You will probably find in practice that it doesn’t sound that great though- you could replace it with G, Em, D, Bm or loads of others!
In bar six I have slid my F#m chord down one fret for the second half of the bar. This creates a nice chromatic link down to the E minor chord in the following bar. Any time you have two chords whose roots are separated by a tone, you can slide between them in this way using barre chords.
