Cooley's Reel

Forward to Exercise 2

Here are some exercises to help you in your understanding of how a Reel is both structured and played. We will start with a Reel called Cooley’s Reel in which we will only use the chords of Em and D.

Let us begin with the first eight bars of the tune written out in chord tablature. Most of the tunes we will be dealing with are divided into two parts called the A part and the B part. The A and B parts of these tunes are generally played over 16 bars. In the tune, Cooley’s Reel, the A part is made up of two repeated 8 bar structures so we will concentrate on learning the first section of the A part i.e. the first 8 bars. Reels are played in the time signature 4/4 which means there are 4 beats to every bar counted as 1 – 2 – 3 – 4.

To emulate the natural swing of the reel, the chord in each bar is emphasised on beat 1 and 3. To show this more effectively, we will represent the chord tablature in half bar measures. This means that a full bar of the Em chord will be shown as

displayed over two cells of the table while a full bar of the D chord will be shown as

displayed in the same way over two cells of the table. We will be using this style of notation throughout the book so make sure you are familiar with this format before you move on.

Remember to strum the Em chord using the full six strings starting on the bottom E (6th) string and the D chord using only the top four strings, starting on the D (4th) string. Using only down strokes, play through the first 8 bars of the tune to determine the overall structure of the chord accompaniment.

A Part x 1

Practice this until you are sure where the chords change across the tune. Pay particular attention to how the chords and the melody work together. When learning a new tune for the first time, it is important to develop an ear for the melody and a memory for the accompanying chord structure. Every tune has a distinctive and individual melody line although many can share similar chord accompaniments. The above chord structure to Cooley’s Reel, for instance, is a useful template for playing other Reels in Em. This is also true for other tunes in the different keys. As your ear for Irish Traditional Music develops along with your ability to accompany the tunes, this will become clearer and you will begin to notice how specific patterns work with different tunes. We will cover this at a later stage in The Tune Directory.

Exercise 2