Dear List; What are your favorite session tune books?
I don’t want to start a debate between learning by ear vs using tunebooks…I’m just curious which tunebooks people enjoy the most . Some of the tunebooks to me anyway have much better sounding settings than others…
I’m a big fan of the following books:
Blarney Stone Pub…Irish Session Tunes
2.Traditional Irish Music by Shaskeen
3.First Collection of Traditional Irish Music by Martin Mulvihill
Midwestern Session Tunes… Phil Rubenzer
Music from Ireland Vol 1 thru 4… Bulmer & Sharpley
Mr. Fandango
Hi Fandango,
I like that Blarney Stone one too. Price is right. This one is on the Internet too: “The County Champaign Irish Tune Collections on Line”. And yesterday I printed from the Internet “The New Century Collection” of bagpipe music by Scott Kortegaard. Can’t vouch for that one yet.
This is MY favorite tune book, even though it doesn’t strictly qualify as a “session” book. But you will have heard Trad players doing tunes found in here–Bus Stop (Kevin Burke plays it), Tommy’s Tarbukas (Alisdair Frasier composed and plays it), some Liz Carroll tunes, and many traditional tunes.
From that web site: The Portland Collection Contra Dance Music in the Pacific Northwest
This spiral-bound book contains 318 jigs and reels from the Portland, Oregon contra dance repertoire. Irish, Scottish, Québecois, Appalachian, and New England genres are represented. Both traditional and recently composed tunes are included, from local treasures to national contra dance standards. Chord suggestions are provided. The collection is compiled by Susan Songer with extensive commentary on each tune by Clyde Curley. You will find stories about the tunes from their composers, discography, bibliography, and more. The tunes and their histories were collected from many local musicians who generously gave of their time and talent to help create this comprehensive musical resource.
Here’s a bit of heresy. The book that I’m enjoying most right now is Cole’s 1000 Fiddle Tunes. There are all kinds of interesting tunes there that are nowhere else as far as I know. I’ve just been playing some clogs on the flute. Many of them exceed the range of the flute and others are too difficult for me but there a few that are pretty neat and not too hard. There are lots of standard reels-sometimes in better versions than I’ve gotten elsewhere. Bonnie Kate is one. There are some other tunes like Witch of the Wave that are not hard but are just plain fun to play. I think that Cole’s was originally released in the 19th C under the name of Ryan’s Mammoth Somethingorother.
I have two tunebooks by Ossian, both entitled “Ceolta Seisiuin na hEireann,” one red and one green, each with 100 tunes.
I have really enjoyed these.
Also there is an “Irish Session Tune Book” by Cari Fuchs, which although some of the settings are a little overornamented for my taste, is also quite good, and has over 300 tunes.
James and List:
I’ve got that Cari Fuchs book and have found the settings alittle …well just not the way a whistle or Flute player would play… the ornamentation and choice of tripletts just don’t feel right…maybe the settings are more fiddle-friendly
Mr. F