Tag: guitar chords

Fahy’s Reel – D dorian

Post author By Folk_Friend
Post date December 13, 2020

Basic chords

This tune is in the key of D dorian. Therefore the available chords are D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, B diminished and C major.

In the A part there are no sections which sound strongly like they need anything other than chord I. Consequently the whole part can be backed with chord I, with chord V in bars four and eight, resolving to chord I to mark the end of the section.

In the B part, the second bar contains the notes “C – G C E C G C”. As this is clearly outlining a C chord (chord VII), I have put one in.

Although it is customary to play chord V throughout the fourth bar in an Irish tune, this particular one sounds better with chord I for the second half of the bar. This is because the notes are “C B C D E D D -”. You can hear that the second half of the bar is very clearly finishing on a strong D, therefore I like to put a D minor chord here to match.

Basic substitutions

In this version to break up the huge chunk of D minor I have replaced the second bar with chord VII. In a chord I section you can more or less play whatever you want, and I like chord VII here as the second half of the bar contains a C note on a dominant beat, so sounds quite chord VII-y .

In bar seven I create a link from C down to A minor by using G/B, a G chord in the first inversion. This is a very common trick to link any chord to its related minor- play the first inversion of the chord below the related minor chord to create a nice descending bassline. For example, you could play D – A/C# – Bm or G – D/F# – Em. In this particular context G/B works well because it’s in a chord I section and you can always play chord IV (G) in a chord I section, so an inversion of said chord is also perfectly fine.

In bar three of the B part I have replaced chord I with chord IV. You can always replace chord I with chord IV in a chord I section.

I have re-used my link from C down to its related minor A minor as in the A part.

Jazzy substitutions

In this version I have replaced all chords with tetrads. The tetrads available in D dorian are the same as that in C ionian, except that now we begin on D minor7. The complete list is: D minor 7, E minor 7, F major 7, G (dominant) 7, A minor 7, B ½ diminished (we will avoid the diminished chord by playing the first inversion of chord V, aka G/B).

In bars three and seven, I have used B♭ major 7 as a substitute for D minor. This chord is borrowed from the mode of D aeolian. The dorian and aeolian modes are only differentiated from one another by the sixth note of the scale (which is flattened by a semitone in the aeolian mode) and Irish tunes in minor keys rarely feature the sixth note in their melodies. This means that if we wish to, we can “borrow” chords from the aeolian mode. B♭ major seven contains the notes B♭, D, F and A. The upper three notes form a D minor triad, so so long as the section in question doesn’t have a B♮ in the melody this will make a good dark substitute for a D minor chord.

In the B part I have used the standard trick of linking a minor chord to its related major using the first inversion of the chord whose root is one below the starting chord. In this case I am linking D minor up to F major, so I use C major (chord VII) in its first inversion, aka C/E.

You will notice that in bar four I have committed the ultimate folky sacriledge and missed out the chord V bar! You can sometimes get away with playing chord IV instead of chord V in the dorian mode- it can give a cool optimistic ending to a phrase of a tune. Just bear in mind that you HAVE to go V-I at the end of a section to make the section sound finished. In other words it is sometimes OK to play chord IV in the 4th, 12th, 20th or 28th bar of a tune in a dorian key, but not in the 8th, 16th, 24th or 32nd.

In the fifth bar I have borrowed B♭ major 7 from the aeolian mode again, which is fine as there is no B or B♭ note in the melody anywhere in this bar. I have followed this chord with Am7, even though it is not a chord V section, because it provides a nice conjunct set of chords dancing around the chord V and coming to rest on it in order to resolve back to chord I (the root notes being B♭ – A – G – A – D).

A part jazzy chords

B part jazzy chords

Tags 4/4, chords, fahys, guitar, guitar chords, irish, reel

Playalongs Polkas

John Ryan’s – D ionian

Post author By Folk_Friend
Post date December 13, 2020

Basic chords

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.

Tags chords, guitar chords, irish, john, polka, ryan, ryan's

Playalongs Slip jigs

The Butterfly – E aeolian

Basic chords

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

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.

Tags 9/8, 98, butterfly, chords, guitar chords, irish, played slowly, slip jig, the butterfly

Playalongs Reels

Maid Behind The Bar – D ionian

Post author By Folk_Friend
Post date December 13, 2020
2 Comments on Maid Behind The Bar – D ionian

Basic chords

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.

Tags bar, behind, chords, d ionian, d major, guitar chords, irish, maid, maid behind the bar, reel, the

Playalongs Slip jigs

Reaping The Rye – E aeolian

Post author By Folk_Friend
Post date December 13, 2020

Basic chords

This is a very dark sounding slip jig in E aeolian. That means the chords available are E minor, F# diminished, G major, A minor, B minor, C major and D. This is because aeolian is the sixth mode, and therefore E aeolian contains the same chord options as G ionian (major) would. You can find out more about this in my first book, Backing Guitar Techniques for Traditional Celtic Music.

In the A part I have used only chords I (Em) and V (Bm). In a slip jig you can have up to three chords per bar, one chord for each block of three quavers (“8th beats” for Americans). You usually end the second bar with chord V and always end the fourth bar and multiples thereof with chord V going back to chord I. This is exactly what I have done here.

In the B part, I have replaced the B minor with its related major. This is a little easier to play and in my opinion sounds nicer in context. You can always replace a minor chord with its related major, the chord whose root is two notes above its own in the key scale. In this case we are starting from B, and two notes up the key scale of E aeolian we find D. Therefore we can replace B minor with D major.

Simple substitutions

In this version I have replaced the B minor at the end of the second bar with a D major. This works because D is B minor’s related major chord. I have played the D in the first inversion, with the F# note (the chord’s major 3rd) at the bottom. This sounds nicer than a normal D chord, because it is getting rid of the big jump in the bass notes. In order to understand this, think about an E minor and a D chord as two separate piles of notes, which create little melodies between themselves. Going from an E minor chord, which contains a low E note on the bottom string of the guitar, all the way up to the D string which is the lowest note in a standard D chord, is a huge leap for the ear. If you invert the D chord so that its lowest note is the F# on the bottom string’s second fret then you have made the jump a lot smaller. This will “glue” your chord progression together nicely. You can play D/F# with a standard D major shape- just loop your thumb round the back to that it depresses the second fret on the bottom string as shown below.

In bar four of the A part I have replaced an E minor with a G. G is Em’s related major (E – F# – G) so this is a valid substitution. It also follows the melody, which contains the notes “G – A B E D E – -”.

In the B part I have used D’s first inversion again in bar two. In the third bar, I have substituted C for E minor. This works because any chord can be substituted either for the chord whose root note is two above it OR two below it within the key scale. In this case our key scale, E aeolian, can make the chords E minor, F# diminished, G major, A minor, B minor, C major and D major. This means our E minor can be substituted to either G major or C major.

In the fourth bar of the B part I have flagrantly disregarded my own rule about chord V! Ending a section on chord IV gives it a deliberately unfinished feel, as if it’s day-dreaming about something that might happen down the line somewhere. In this context I thought it sounded rather nice- you can experiment with this in any tune in any mode. The second time through the A part however I do not end on chord IV as the tune would sound unfinished if I did so. Instead I go from chord V (Bm) back to chord I as usual.

Jazzy Substitutions

In this version I have more or less just converted each chord from the previous version into the relevant kind of tetrad. E aeolian contains the same notes as G ionian would. The list of tetrads available in G ionian would be:

G major 7

A minor 7

B minor 7

C major 7

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#)

The same list applies to E aeolian.

In the B part I have used a C major 9 chord. So long as you have started out with the right kind of tetrad, adding further notes from the key scale to any given chord will just make it sound jazzier. In this case I have taken a C major 7 chord (containing the notes C, E, G and B, the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of a C major scale) and added the 9th note as well, aka D. This works fine because a D note appears in the E aeolian scale so will not clash with the tune.

Tags guitar chords, irish, reaping, reaping the rye, rye, slip jig

Playalongs Slip jigs

The Choice Wife – D mixolydian

Post author By Folk_Friend
Post date December 13, 2020

Basic chords

This slip jig is a five part-er in the key of D mixolydian. That means the complete list of chord options will be D major, E minor, F# diminished, G major, A minor, B minor and C major. As slip jigs contain bars of nine quavers (8th beats for American viewers) and those are subdivided into groups of three, this means that there are three potential chord slots per bar.

Compared to the other three “celtic” modes, the mixolydian is a bit less definite about HAVING to go from chord V to chord I to finish sections, and this tune is really rather vague in terms of which chords are outlined in the melody of which bars. For this reason my basic chord choices for this one might seem a bit unorthodox.

In the A part I have switched to a C chord for the last three quavers of the first bar. This is because the melody plays a long C note for the whole of this section. I have stuck with the C until resolving to D at the end of the second bar.

The B part actually ignores the first rule and follows the dominant G in the melody at the end of the second bar. It is common in mixolydian to end a section on chord IV- you can experiment with this with other mixolydian tunes.

The C, D and E parts exhibit a similar disregard for the first rule of folk tunes (chord V goes on every sixth foot tap) and so I have more or less followed the main dominant note in each three quaver section (aka three potential chords per bar), trying to keep the rate of harmonic change fairly slow to make life easy.

Basic substitutions

In this version I have broken up long sections of chords using substitutions. In many cases I have substituted major chords for their related minors (the chords whose roots are two below their own in the key scale, eg Am replaces C, Bm replaces D, Em replaces G etc), or minor chords for their related majors (the same but in reverse- C replaces Bm, D replaces Bm, G replaces Em etc).

I also use the first inversion of chord I to link to chord IV. In the B part for example I play D – D/F# – G. D/F# is a D major chord, inverted so that the lowest pitched note in the chord is its major 3rd, F#. This sets up a nice walking bassline, D – F# – G and links the D up to the G for a more fluid sounding chord progression.

Jazzy Substitutions

In this version I have taken an approach I like to play with in order to discover new chords. I have picked a note from the key scale, in this case E, the second note in the scale of D mixolydian, and left it ringing in pretty much every single chord in the tune. In this instance its easy to do by leaving the top E string unfretted. I have also kept my third (ring) finger on the D on the third fret of the B string as much as possible, as a handy pivot about which to change at speed. Again this gives some interesting and unusual jazzy chords, shown below.

In the third bar of the B part I link C major down to its related minor A minor by using the chord below the target minor chord in its first inversion. This is a very common trick to link a major chord to its related minor. In this instance I play a C (with extra notes) followed by G in the first inversion (aka G/B) and finally A minor.

At the end of the B part I have used a very cheeky F major 7 chord. This is borrowed from the dorian or aeolian modes and really shouldn’t be in a mixolydian tune at all… However as there is no F# note in this bar, the minor third note relative to the key centre D (F) doesn’t clash with anything and putting this chord at the end of the tune gives the progression a kind of blues-y throwaway feel which I really love in mixolydian tunes. You can experiment with this in other mixolydian tunes, but use it sparingly! If your ears tell you it doesn’t sound right then try it somewhere else.

The other substitutions in this version are standard tetrad additions- D mixolydian contains the same notes, and therefore the same potential tetrads as G major:

G major 7

A minor 7

B minor 7

C major 7

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#)

As we are in D mixolydian, the correct order would be:

E minor 7

F# ½ diminished or D/F#

G major 7

A minor 7

B minor 7

C (dominant) 7

Notice that in any mode other than ionian the VII chord ALWAYS becomes a dominant- in this instance our C major 7 from the key of G major has become a C7 in D mixolydian.

Please note that the “D/F#” shown below has the E string left in for continuity, so strictly speaking it should be called “D add 9/F#”. If you leave the E string in the B minor as shown below then it’s really a Bm11. Either that or a Bm7 would be fine, as adding extra notes from the key scale to a chord just gives you a jazzier sounding version of the same chord.

Tags choice wife, guitar chords, irish, slip jig, the choice wife