For those who read music, what do you think the “essential” tune books to have are?
I’ll start the list with the venerable O’Neill’s 1800.
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
I’d have to say the Ceol Rince Na hEireann Series by Breathnach and Dance Music of Willie Clancy by Mitchell, for starters.
Teri
Oops that was a double post.
Teri below is right, some of the ABC collections can be very useful too and they are free.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-20 10:57 ]
Ceol Rinnce indeed especially the first three volumes, you can’t be without them. Willie Clancy too, O’Neill’s 1001 [the MOI 1850 edition has a lot of tunes you won’t want to play anyhow]although the Krassen edition in spite of the way he ‘re-arranged’ the music has things to offer as well. The Johnny Leary collection by Terry Moylan has good tunes for those inclined towards Sliabh Luachra.
There are several collections of newly composed tunes: Paddy O Brien’s compositions [and I don’t mean the US based POB], Sean Ryan’s Hidden Ireland [and I don’t mean whistler Sean Ryan], a second collection of his tunes recently issued has not as many good tunes in it I think. Paddy Donohue’s collection has nicely composed tunes, very playable. Charlie Lennon’s Musical Memories is a bit much for me but some of his tunes get played and if you want them this if the book they’re in. Vinccent Broderick’s Turoe stone has a few, if not many good tunes, Breandan Tonra was recently awarded for his compositions, I think there’s only one good tune in his collection but who am I. The Chris Langan book is a great tribute to the man although I never got on with his tunes very well but his settings of trad tunes are fine. Reavey composed nice ones too. Josephine Keegans has her own voice but is a bit off the mainstream and a lot of her tunes sit best on the fiddle.
I can’t say how essential every collection is, it depends on your own phase of musical development and interest, what you want with it etc. I keep most as a reference collection to look at different versions, more academic than practical I suppose, if you go that way you could include Tunes of the Munster pipers, The Darley and McCall collection, Ryan’s Mammoth, O’ Farrell’s Pocket Companion, the Roche collection maybe,
even Petrie and Bunting [although I find those last two too antiquarian for any practical use]. The upcoming Seamus Ennis collection will be a massive ‘must have’.
I don’t care at all for collections ‘of one gazillion must play seisiun tunes’ ‘the sound of the happy shamrock’ and crap like that.
David J. Taylor though has a series with good tunes in that vein, Michael Tubridy did a few collections for CCE that are useful too if you go for those type of books. Pat McNulty did a few as well. I never got Bulmer and Sharpley but they can be handy too if you can still get them.
Tommy Peoples fiddle book has some nice tunes even though there are a few typos in the music settings, and there are very nice tunes in David Lyth’s book on bowing styles, even for the non fiddlers.
Then there are the collections trying to capture the music of a specific area, The Northern Fiddler is one that was not well received for some of it’s musical content but is worth having for the photographs alone and the stories. Bernard Flaherty’s Trip to Sligo gives short biographies of musicians from the Sligo/Mayo area with some tunes played by every individual. Again a nice little collection although rigourous editing of the music, and giving proper names to some of the tunes would have made it a far better book.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-20 10:10 ]
Something I’ve found to be very convenient are ABC collections. I’ve downloaded Norbek’s, Northern Fiddler, John Walsh’s, Bernie Stock’s, Robinson’s, Reavy’s, Playford’s, and miscellaneous other collections. My computer probably holds 3-4,000 tunes right now. There are duplications, but it lets me see numerous variations and settings of the same tune. I still have an enormous stack of books, but having an electronic searchable source is handy. The downside is the lack of commentary and sometimes the transcriber’s interpretation.
Teri
Teri,
where is the best place to get Brendan Breathnac’s books? I wanted to start with book one, b/c I hear from Peter that it’s essential for the tune material. Did you buy it here, statesside?
Also, is that the one with the rolls written out, so G{B}G{f}G ?
Thanks.
Bloomfield:
I got mine locally and paid far too much. I’d suggest Andy’s Front Hall http://www.andysfronthall.com. The prices are reasonable and he’s in your neck of the woods. Ornaments are included in the transcriptions, or the abbreviations, but there’s a chart in the introduction showing how to execute the ornaments.
Brush up on your Gaeilge though 
Teri
On 2002-10-21 10:39, Teri-K wrote:
Brush up on your Gaeilge though >
Full translation by Paul de Grae of the introductions, tunetitles and notes are provided on
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/scottish/CRE/
Very useful to download that batch, a combined index for the five volumes is included which is even handier.
[edited to insert the link]
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-21 12:03 ]
Thanks for posting that info, Peter.
It could have been fun to withhold until Bloomfield had the books and came back screaming, what the #@!#??
T
It seems to be a bum link though Peter.
Try http://users.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/books/CRE/index.html
Bloom, it’s vol. II that has the ornaments written out.
Bulmer and Sharpley’s collection, btw, which dates from the 1970s and may be hard to find, is very good. Many of the tunes were what were current at the sessions in Leeds at that time and gathered from Irish-born musicians living there.
Those four volumes became a kind of standard for many who took up the music in the 1970s and I think it’s probably true to say that they had a strong influence on the “standard” session repertoire of non-native musicians around the world - certainly in Australia and Canada.
An old friend of mine was a music student in Leeds at the time and lived in the same house as either Bulmer or Sharpley. They had a printing press set up in the basement and used to set the entire house shaking at all hours, running off copies of their books.
[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2002-10-21 13:40 ]
The Ceol Rince Na hEireann Series by Breathnach is also in abc format. I downloaded the whole shebang on some site or other. If you can’t find it, email me and I’ll send the files.
Tony
Peter, you need to broaden your horizons. The Sounds of the Happy Shamrock sounds wonderful. Maybe you could do an analysis on Steve’s site. Or at least, post the abc’s.
Does anyone know what happened to the translation of Ceol Rince na hEireann, by Paul de Grae? I tried the links Peter & Steve mentioned above, but I get 404s.
If they are indeed gone, has someone downloaded a copy of the translation of Vol I, and the of the global index that they would be kind enough to email me?
Thanks
Bloom, try Ossian USA, they carry the Ceol Rince books. The first three are really good, they’ve been immensely helpful. I nabbed all three at The Living Tradition the last time I was in Cork.
The use of the Gaelic language in the Ceol Rince books is not a serious obstacle for a diligent anglophone. In more recent editions, there’s an index in the back with lists of translated names and common aliases for the tunes presented in each edition.
I have the CRE I (got it at Ossian, too), and I use the English index. I just got two great reels from CRE (no, I would never learn a tune from sheet music, not me), Thomas O’Dea and Mama’s Pet, and wanted to look up the notes on those tunes. Peter’s emailed me the translation by now, and there isn’t much in the notes for those tunes.
And the next person to call me a diligent anglophone is going to catch it on the nose. 
Can do with the CRE files. I have them, plus the x-index.
Another book source is the NPU Blue Book and Yellow Book that go with NPU’s “Music for the Sets”. These are very plain, straight forward versions of the tunes, with little or no ornamentation, but there is a very good choice of different types of tunes, here.
Available from Ossian USA or NPU.
djm
Terri… where did you find the Northern Fiddler online to download?
All five volumes arrived in the mail today. I found Peter’s link to the translation didn’t work for me but Steve’s did. A quick glance at volume two shows the introduction in English and French as well as Gaelic and tune titles in the index in English as well as Gaelic.
So many tunes, so little time…
Peter is doing his spoiled child number 
. I wouldn’t knock the essential session tunes type of publication, they are especially valuable to many of the people who hang out here who are often playing in relative or even total isolation from the living tradition, and want to build a repertoire of tunes that will enable them to join in a session whenever a rare opportunity presents itself;
BTW, the fact that Brendan Breathnach’s notes are in Irish should be explained. It wasn’t just a question of promoting the language or keeping the music in the family, it was rather that his deep cover for music collection was a position in the Irish-language publications branch of the Department of Education, and he had to have enough material in the books in Irish to justify this.
Roger, more to the point, no-one else would publish his collection except the Irish Publications branch, so he had to transcribe it all into Irish to meet their standards. I can live with that, as I wouldn’t want to have had this excellent collection to never have been published. Paul de Grae’s fine translations make up for any shortcomings in my command of the Irish language.
djm
You’re not kidding Roger. Funny, I looked for that particular tune but couldn’t find it in any of the five volumes. Is it a hornpipe?