typical chord progressions for irish music?

typical chord progressions for irish music?

For irish ballads eg I IV V

For Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes, slip jigs, eg I V


Typical keys? G A D?

Every tune either Irish or anything else has a harmonic architecture that may be unique to that piece or not. There are no short cuts. You have to train your ear.

One thing Irish music does a lot that doesn’t appear as often elsewhere is I (i) bVII I (i). This is especially common in minor, or more accurately what’s called minor in Irish music but is actually Dorian. That’s another discussion though.

You are correct about the keys, but otherwise as Yhaalhouse said.

Highlanderq, Irish Music is very unique when it comes to “chord progressions” per say. I wouldn’t even call them chord progressions, I would call them chord lines. It’s because of the rich and dense melodies the chords have to keep up with. They’re also very much open to interpretation. One musician may back a tune quite differently from another, but both of their styles be appropriate; Just as well, there are many ways to really screw up a tune.

I meet guitarists on the regular basis, usually a few times a year. Me being a fiddle player, they always like to give something a try with me. I ask them if they can play Irish music, and many of them assume they can. Some have even boasted “I can play ANYTHING.”. I can only start the tune and listen to their silence as they attempt to figure out what’s going on.

Some try to throw in a simple 4-Chord “cheat” progression(Like the I, V, VI, IV) which never works. Sometimes it *almost works at the A-part, but then fails at the B-part. In between the Double-Jigs, Single-Jigs, Slip-Jigs and Slides, and the Single Reels and Double Reels, “circle” progressions just won’t work. 9 times out of 10, we end up playing a different style of music. Something they know.

Learning how to back is quite a task. I’ve been learning a little bit about backing over the last few years, and have even attempted teaching a few of my musical peers from other styles. One very talented young lady actually caught on quite well, though she struggled with the rhythms. When she figured out the rhythms, she struggled with the phrasing. The hardest bit for her was learning the phrasing and I personally believe it’s the phrasing that throws off many of them.

"When chords are freed from the four bar chains,
As free as the melodies the instruments sing,
The untrained ears fail to tame.
Only the ones who know can set them back under reins."

It doesn’t matter how well one can play their instrument in this case, they have to know the phrasing and structure of the music to back properly. There are no cheats.

Go learn the pieces as individuals. Trying to rely on something like “For irish ballads eg I IV V” is a sure road to trainwreckville.

Haha!

Agreed!

Although, I have backed irish jigs etc with proper irish trad piano vamping and sometimes the I IV, I V, I IV, I V I fitted a lot of the tunes -maybe 30% of the tunes or parts of the tunes. Rest of the time completely unique chord progressions.

Minor key tunes are so unpredictable

Hmm. To my ears, major and minor tunes are pretty predictable, but still somewhat unique. You really can’t apply a certain pattern to all of the tunes. It may work for a couple of bars, then something else happens. Why play something you think might work while you can do your homework and listen how the tunes go, and which chords really work?

What’s the thing with chords in Irish music? What is it that aspiring backers don’t get? This is the third (fourth?) thread on the same topic in less than a week. Oh, the humanity.

It ain’t the Blues.
An experienced Irish guitarist would know far better than I, but I’ve written out chords to hundreds of Irish tunes for my “book”, airs, pub songs, and dance tunes, and there’s no one pattern that ever jumped out to me as being “typical”.

Most familiar I suppose would be the straightforward Major tunes I > IV > V and so forth.

Many of the Mixolydian and Minor tunes have I > VII > I.

Oddest are the large number of Highland Lydian tunes that go I > II > I (the II chord being Major of course).

Don’t just stop with chords. Try listening for different strumming patterns, too.

And learn to let the tune come through. You are only the backing.
Leave holes in the music.

Highlanderq, If you click on my user name, and look in my profile, there is some basic discussion of common modes in Irish music, and chords that are often associated with them. It won’t map out the entire journey of finding the right chords for the right places, but it should give you a nudge in the right direction.