I’m a fairly industrious buyer of tune books, as much for variations on tunes I know as for new tunes to play around with. I have everything from the ‘Fiddlers Fakebook’ to O’Neil’s, Mel Bay books, tutorials and books of contradance tunes.
Yesterday I got two new books, one a general tune book, and the other specific to the whistle. To my annoyance, the whistle-specific one ‘goes below D’. This doesn’t annoy me if I’m looking through a fiddler’s book. I will fuss around with a tune, or transpose it, or drop or move notes. But in a book for whistlers this really has bugged me.
Anyway, I was hoping to get other peoples ideas on their favorite and least favorite tune books.
My favorite is still O’Neills. Talk about never getting bored! Another is the Portland Collection for contradance. The tunes are written very basically there, and clearly, leaving room for interpretation.
On 2002-08-11 11:03, tyghress wrote:
My favorite is still O’Neills. Talk about never getting bored! Another is the Portland Collection for contradance. The tunes are written very basically there, and clearly, leaving room for interpretation.
Which of the several O’Neill’s available do you prefer?
my ‘teach’ lent me his copy of Bulmer and Sharpley’s ‘Music from Ireland’ part 1.
Great tunes and settings.
I think there are 4 volumes.
don’t know it they are still available though, the prining was from 1974…
cheerio
Jeroen
.edited to correct spelling of name.mental note:never upset a feline.
[ This Message was edited by: pixyy on 2002-08-20 03:49 ]
I usually just get the common piano/vocal/guitar books. First, I work out the chords on the guitar and sing the melody (much to the dismay of my wife), then I attempt the melody on the whistle (much to the dismay of my wife AND cats).
I do have the O’Carolan harp tune book for lap dulcimer (Mel Bay), which has most tunes written in D. This is probably my favorite now.
On 2002-08-19 23:21, CDon wrote:Which of the several O’Neill’s available do you prefer?
CDon, I wasn’t aware until a day or two ago that there were multiple books of this name. I got mine about 20 years ago (my first gift from Tyghre, as a matter of fact!) and it is a mammoth book, falling apart now, yellow cover, and covers double-jig, slip jig, reels, hornpipes, airs, marches, O’Carolan. . .it is a great resource! There are many tunes that seem to be pretty obscure, and many that are old faves, sometimes a little different from what I know.
Pixxy. . .you KNOW you can never get this Cat upset! I still treasure my Kerry D! You didn’t spell it with the H in the wrong position now, did you???
BrassBlower, I’m looking for an O’Carolan piece called Mr Conor, I believe. It isn’t any of the Connor, Conor, O’Connor Planxties I have, but it is on a DeDannan recording. If you have images or ABC’s I’d love to see it!
My current favourite is the Comhaltas publication Fionn Seisiún. It has 116 Irish traditional tunes arranged in 39 sets, for most instruments.
I also like the ‘Music of Ireland’ books, arranged by David J Taylor. There are 5 volumes, with about 120 tunes in each, nicely arranged for most melody instruments.
Oh, Tygress? did you get my e-mail about The Mountain Road?
On 2002-08-20 09:36, tyghress wrote:
CDon, I wasn’t aware until a day or two ago that there were multiple books of this name. I got mine about 20 years ago (my first gift from Tyghre, as a matter of fact!) and it is a mammoth book, falling apart now, yellow cover, and covers double-jig, slip jig, reels, hornpipes, airs, marches, O’Carolan. . .it is a great resource! There are many tunes that seem to be pretty obscure, and many that are old faves, sometimes a little different from what I know.
So that would be the one entitled “O’Neill’s Music of Ireland: Eighteen Hundred and Fifty Melodies” as opposed to the “O’Neill’s 1001” which is essentially restriced to the dance music of Ireland, as I understand it?
CDon, Yes, I have it in front of me. It is the O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, published by Rock Chapel Press. Mine has a date of 1979.
Steve, I haven’t checked…going to do that now!
I think I’ll put together a want list. My instrumental needs (and wants) are pretty satisfied right now, though I’d like to give a Copeland a try, I’m not willing to drop a lot more money on instruments this year. As anyone who knows me will vouch, I’ve really outdone myself on purchases. But the books… I really need more books, including histories and scholarly looks at the traditions.
I to am a tune book junkie. I just purchased from Mel Bay a book titled: Howes 1,000 Jigs and reels, clog dances, hornpipes, strathspeys, breakdowns, irish dances, scotch dances and more and Ethopians.
Howe was a profilic producer of music books in the mid 1800 in the USA. And this book is a compilation of most of the music he published in his life time. Interesting history of him and the music he collected and a great bibliography.
