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The Cup of Tea
The Cup of Tea is a three-part tune. The first part is in E minor but the key changes to D major in the second and third parts. The D modal chord in the fourth and eighth bars isn’t quite as drone-like as before because the A string doesn’t become a D. I occasionally use my 4th finger to play a high A note on the E string (5th fret) to fill out this chord some more. This might take practice.
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The Cup of Tea with substitutions
I slide from the first to the second fret on beat 1 of the first bar. This really adds to the rhythmic drive of the tune. The rhythm for the first two bars places the accents on 1, the + of 2, 4/ the + of 1, 3: this is a popular syncopated motif that is heard quite a bit in Irish music accompaniment today. Syncopation occurs when the articulation of weak beats creates a tension against the underlying pulse.
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The second two-bar phrase resolves with a strong first and third beat, having begun the same as the first phrase. The third two-bar phrase is the same as the first while the fourth phrase has the same accents - 1, + of 2, 4 - in both bars (this is because the music stops here for demonstration purposes); also notice in the eighth bar that I slide up one fret to the Bminor7th chord thus adding to the harmonic and rhythmic interest. All of the accents are accentuated with both hands.
I am beginning to broaden the scope of the fingerboard movement now and this opens up other possibilities, particularly the sliding technique. Varying the voices also adds greatly to the texture of the music and the overall feeling of movement. I start the slide to the high D from E on the low D string. In bar twelve I move to the A4 chord on the + of 2; this is the first time that I have changed chord on an up beat. The slide from the E to D starts on beat 4 this time, but there is a little slide from the A down to E on the up beat before that. Notice in bar fifteen that the G chord is pretty much the same as in bar ten but the little finger is now on the fifth fret of the A string, not middle D string. In bar sixteen I move from the A suspended chord to the A major on + of 2 and quickly from that to the D major on beat 4. In the full tune example you will see that when I am playing the high D chord I am juxtaposing a D suspended chord (an added G played with the little finger on the G string) and a D major chord.
At the beginning of the second four-bar phrase in the third part I use two substitute chords, B minor, the relative minor of D and F# minor, the third chord in the key of D major. Note that both of these chords have two notes in common with the D major chord. I play a quick D chord from the + of 2 in the following bar; this comprises the three bottom strings only.
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