Irish jigs: tabs and sheet music
An Irish double jig is a dance tune in 6/8: two beats per bar, each divided into three quavers. Count “1 and a, 2 and a”. This library brings together jig settings with free tab, notation and playback for tenor banjo and mandolin.
Free printable notation and tab, with audio you can slow down. These settings work as Irish mandolin tabs and Irish tenor banjo tabs.
Three Irish jigs to start with
These are suggested practice choices from the settings in our library. Learn one short phrase at a time, using the player to slow it down.
- Out on the Ocean
Start with the descending D, C, B phrase. Leave the grace notes until the main melody is steady.
- Saddle the Pony
Practise the repeated As and the crossing back to E. This setting is in A Mixolydian, with G-natural.
- Haste to the Wedding
Listen to the first part, then learn its phrases in pairs. Keep the two-beat pulse through the longer notes.
The five-tune beginner guide gives a practice task for each of the first two. For the books behind these settings, see public-domain Irish tune collections.
- Time signature
- 6/8
- How you count it
- Two dotted-quarter beats per bar. Count “1 and a, 2 and a”.
- Session tempo
- 54 to 62 bars per minute (108 to 124 dotted quarter notes)
- Structure
- Often two 8-bar parts, played AABB
- Share of the tradition
- 18.1% of all tunes, 21.8% of tunes played at sessions
Hear and play the 6/8 jig rhythm
Count 1 and a, 2 and a. Each number starts a group of three quavers, and each group fills one dotted-quarter beat. Tap your foot twice per bar. Give the first note of each group a little weight while keeping all six notes moving.
This original two-bar exercise starts at 60 dotted-quarter beats per minute, or 30 bars per minute. Listen once, then play along. The tab works for GDAE tenor banjo and mandolin, sounding an octave apart.
Try the DUD DUD pattern above to place a downstroke on each beat. Players also use other patterns. The picking guide explains how to choose one and keep the pulse steady.
New jigs from players
Sent in by the people who play them, too new for the books this library is built from. Each one has notation, tab, playback and a metronome.
Every jig in the library
930 jigs, each with tab already written. Our 17 session favourites are first.
To learn by ear, open a tune, press Play and lower the Speed control. Learn a phrase at a time, then use Print for a sheet to keep on your music stand.
Showing all 930 jigs
Rhythm and playing advice for jigs
Where the jig came from
The jig has a longer lineage than the reel and a much shakier paper trail. The word probably comes from the French giguer, to jump, or the Italian giga. It was known as a dance in sixteenth century England, often in 12/8 rather than 6/8.
The usual claim that it arrived in Ireland in the mid sixteenth century rests on one letter from Sir Henry Sidney to Elizabeth I praising the jigs of Galway. That is thin evidence, and "jig" in sixteenth century English does not reliably mean the 6/8 tune an Irish player means today.
How a jig is built
Many double jigs have two 8-bar parts. Play the first part twice, then the second twice: AABB makes 32 bars. Some jigs have three or more parts, so follow the repeats in the setting you are learning.
Playing jigs on banjo and mandolin
This is the one thing teachers openly disagree about, and it is worth knowing that before you pick a side. Marla Fibish and Danny Carnahan both teach DUD DUD, a downstroke on every pulse, which puts the accent where the rhythm wants it. Carnahan says it stops a jig "galumphing like a misbehaving horse". Against that, Enda Scahill devotes lesson two of his free course to "Breaking the Picking Rules", and players on Chiff and Fipple argue that habitual DUD limits your options as the tempo rises. Tim Connell refuses to prescribe at all and builds the jig up from downstrokes only. Connell also names why jigs defeat people who can already play reels: almost everyone arrives with years of 4/4 behind them and no experience of 6/8 at all.
Questions about Irish jigs
A double jig is in 6/8: two dotted-quarter beats per bar, each divided into three quavers. The melody may use longer notes or rests within those beats. Slip jigs use 9/8.
Count “1 and a, 2 and a”. Tap on 1 and 2, giving two dotted-quarter beats to the bar. The playable example on this page begins at 60 of those beats per minute.
A jig has two groups of three notes per bar in 6/8. A slip jig has three groups of three in 9/8, so it feels like a jig with an extra group added, which gives it a lift and a slight sense of falling forward.
Both are in 6/8. A double jig plays three even eighth notes twice per bar. A single jig plays a quarter note followed by an eighth, twice per bar, so it has four notes to the bar rather than six. Single jigs are rare, around 1% of the tradition.
A typical session range is 54 to 62 bars per minute, or 108 to 124 dotted-quarter beats per minute. Beginners can start slower: this page’s exercise uses 60 dotted-quarter beats per minute. Choose a speed at which the phrase stays steady.
The other tune types
Each one counts differently and runs at a different speed.
Tempo research: Alan Ng’s Irish Traditional Music Tune Index.Read about the public-domain tune collections behind our historical settings.