Cooley’s Reel

Reel, E Minor (E Dorian), Irish Traditional
TrailJams Tune of the Week for July 1, 2021

Cooley’s Reel is a traditional Irish tune named for Irish accordion player Joe Cooley. The tune is a very popular session tune, and became closely associated with Joe Cooley (1924-1973) from his playing of it in Ireland and the US.

Jeremy Kammerer and Cathie Whitesides recorded Joe Cooley’s playing of this and other tunes in the 1970s, and have made the recordings available on the website The Joe Cooley Tapes. That site also has photographs and biographical information on Joe Cooley.

Is the tune in E Minor or E Dorian? It could be either. The difference would be whether the tune uses C natural or C sharp as the seventh degree of the scale. Some settings of the tune (Kevin Burke’s, for example) do not include a C or C#, making it ambiguous whether the tune is E Minor or E Dorian. Other settings that do include the seventh scale degree make it a C#, which would make the key E minor. (The key signature for E Minor has one sharp; the key signature for E Dorian has two sharps.)

Recordings

• Video – PeakFiddler: Cooleys Reel on fiddle
• Video – Comhaltas: Joe Cooley’s from the album Foinn Seisiún Volume 1

Sheet Music

As always for traditional tunes, the musical notation and chords do not indicate the “right” way to play the tune, but are a useful reference.

Suggested Sets

Examples of sets that include this tune.

• Banshee Reel Set: The Banshee (G) / Cooley’s (E Dor) / Maid behind the Bar (D)

References and Resources

• More Recordings
  • Audio – Field audio recording – Cooley’s Reel played by Joe Cooley And Miliosa Lundy (nee McWeeney)
  • Video – Rapalje: Cooley’s – Maid Behind the Bar – Two Irish Reels
• Lessons
  • Lesson – PeakFiddler: Irish Fiddle Lesson – Cooley’s Reel Part 1 of 2;  Part 2 of 2 (ornamentation) – video lessons
  • Lesson – Kevin Burke: Cooley’s Reel: Trad Irish Fiddle Lesson – video lesson
  • Lesson – Shannon Heaton: Learning Irish Flute – Tune of the Month with Shannon Heaton – Joe Cooley’s [Reel]
  • Lesson – James Finnegan (The Banjo Buddy): Learn Cooley’s Reel – Trad Tutorial – tenor banjo lesson video with sheet music and tab in video
  • Lesson – Aodan Coyne (DADGAD): How To Play Cooley’s Reel – Full Guitar Tutorial (+ Accordion) – video tutorial for playing backing rhythm on DADGAD guitar
• Additional Resources
  • Website – Vashon Celtic Tunes
  • Web page – TheSession.org: Cooley’s Reel – crowdsourced sheet music and information.
  • Website – The Joe Cooley Tapes — website collection, field recordings of Joe Cooley.
  • Article – Wikipedia: Joe Cooley – a brief biography
  • Article – Dorian, Mixolydian, Oh My: Modes in a Nutshell, A brief guide to modes in Celtic, English, and American tunes. By Jonathan Lay.