Irish slip jigs: tabs and sheet music
Nine notes to the bar in three groups of three. A slip jig is a jig with an extra group bolted on, and that extra group is the whole difficulty. Learn one early or 9/8 stays alien.
Free printable notation and tab, with audio you can slow down. These settings work as Irish mandolin tabs and Irish tenor banjo tabs.
Slip jigs to try
- Time signature
- 9/8
- How you count it
- Three beats to the bar, three notes on each. Count 1 2 3, 2 2 3, 3 2 3.
- Competition tempo
- 37.7 to 41.3 bars per minute (113 to 124 dotted quarter notes)
- Structure
- 8 bars per part, AABB
- Share of the tradition
- 3.0% of all tunes, 3.3% of tunes played at sessions
New slip 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 slip jig in the library
113 slip jigs, each with tab already written. Our 2 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 113 slip jigs
Rhythm and playing advice for slip jigs
Where the slip jig came from
O'Neill filed these as "Hop or Slip Jigs" in 1907, which tells you the two names were interchangeable in Chicago at the time. They are still argued over. Some players reserve "hop jig" for the faster reading, one group per bar in the style of Michael Coleman, and "slip jig" for the slower step-dance reading of three groups per bar.
The claim that the slip jig came from England appears in general reference works and is weakly sourced. Treat it as unsettled.
How a slip jig is built
Two 8-bar parts, each repeated. Because the 9/8 bar is longer, competition dancers perform 40 bars where they would dance 48 of a reel.
Playing slip jigs on banjo and mandolin
No named teacher publishes a stroke pattern for 9/8, which is worth saying plainly rather than inventing one. The structural consequence is arithmetic: DUD DUD DUD gives nine strokes, so every bar starts on a downstroke, while strict alternate picking flips the start of each bar between down and up. Marla Fibish teaches the feel rather than the strokes, emphasising the slight secondary weight on the last group of three.
Questions about Irish slip jigs
An Irish tune in 9/8, three groups of three eighth notes to the bar. It is the only common Irish tune type in nine, and at around 3% of the tradition it is rare enough that many players know only a handful.
Three beats to the bar with three notes on each: 1 2 3, 2 2 3, 3 2 3. If you can already count a jig, it is the same pulse with a third group added.
The names are used interchangeably by many players and distinguished by others. O'Neill treated them as one category in 1907. Where players do distinguish them, "hop jig" means the faster reading with one group per bar and "slip jig" the slower step-dance reading with three.
The Butterfly is the one that appears on every published session list. Its notes are easy; the 9/8 feel is the work.
The other tune types
Each one counts differently and runs at a different speed.
The reel is the backbone of an Irish session.
An Irish double jig is a dance tune in 6/8: two beats per bar, each divided into three quavers.
A hornpipe is written like a reel and played nothing like one.
Set dances break the 8-bar rule on purpose.
An air has no strict metre.
Tempo research: Alan Ng’s Irish Traditional Music Tune Index.Read about the public-domain tune collections behind our historical settings.