i have been playing in the pubs lately around Tampa, and the biggest and most famous is The Four Green Fields. there are some awesome musicians in there, and i got to play with them. my problem is that i dint know a whole lot of reels and jigs. i know some hornpipes, but mostly airs. what great traditional Irish pub songs that everybody knows would you recommend? it is time for me to start playing faster songs. what are some good songs that only the older ones would know? i am known as the mellow guy, because i start the slow songs a lot of the times, and fast music after awhile can get to you. so people sometimes like it when i come in and slow it down a bit. 
i would really appreciate any suggestions.
fast music after awhile can get to you
That’s basically the idea. It does get to you after a while and not too long a while. It prompts one, as Alasdair Fraser once put it, to “express your ethnicity”. First your toes wiggle, then your heel starts tapping, soon you are clapping your hands and the next thing you know you are dancing.
i would really appreciate any suggestions.
There are lots of ways to get going. First you might ask the players what tunes they are playing, favorite beverages may be exchanged. If you can record the session (ask first), take the recordings home and learn by ear. Or if one of the players is a whistle or flute player, ask if they teach or give lessons. If not, jot down the tune names and go find the ABCs and learn them. JC’s tune finder has many tunes on file.
Otherwise, several good collections exist and you can choose one based on your learning stlye. L. E. Mc Cullough’s 121 Favorite Irish Session Tunes is one. O’Neill’s is another and it is online somewhere. Search the archives for favorite session tunes. There have been many threads on this topic before. Going to workshops helps too. Basically get a few good tunes under your belt and go for it. I’ll bet you can’t learn just one tune!
There are probably a lot of other options which folks here will add too.
Feadoggie
whatever else you do, you might also start learning
jigs and reels. Sooner or later it does come to that,
and it takes a good while to get these, so sooner
is better than later.
i know a good handful of jigs and reels, but i want to learn some more that everyone knows.
I like this website http://www.blackflute.com/music/tunes.html
it has a bunch of tunes i’ve heard from others as well as seen on a bunch of other sites, so i’m guessing some are popular, just learn as many as you can, it will help you to pick up others later on, and i;m sure some one will know at least one of them
good luck!
thanks Tia, that is a helpful site.
Feadoggie’s advice is perfect for you: ask the folks who are playing at your local session, and record if they don’t mind, because those people are YOUR “everyone.” Everyone on C&F could give you lists of the 20 most popular tunes where they play, and there may or may not be much overlap. Typical tunes will vary between sessions (and probably also over time), and you’ll have the most fun if you start learning the jigs and reels that are getting played now at the place where you want to play. If you don’t play a lot of fast tunes yet, it might be easiest to start with some jigs – the notes don’t go by quite as fast as in reels, so it’s a little easier to get them up to speed.
Good luck, and have fun!
Sarah
One other nice thing about recording your local session is you can later play your whistle along with the recording. It’s a great way to learn the tunes that will make you more comfortable at your session.
If you go to www.thesession.org , click the Members link on the right side, then click the Tunbook tab at the top … you’ll get a list of the most popular session tunes on the site. Hardly scientific, but the first few pages are definitely all session standards that any Irish session player would know. Of course, you can also access the tune ABCs on the site.
Dave Mallinson (Mally) publishes a series of books – 100 Vital / Essential / Enduring Session Tunes – with a well thought-out selection of “greatest hits”. Click on any of the books, and you’ll get a list of the tunes in each book. Another great starting point.
http://www.mally.com/results.asp?CategoryID=1
Another good list is the Pub Scouts tune list, with downloadable ABCs:
http://rigel.csuchico.edu/pubscout/songs.html
The Bloomington Slow Session site (hosted by The Whistle Shop) has another page of standard tunes with sheet music and mp3:
http://www.thewhistleshop.com/slow/session.htm
I agree that recording your local session is a good way to go. I’d stay away from the O’Neill’s collection, though. It’s a good reference for experienced players, but both the selection and settings in O’Neill’s are a poor guide to what is played at sessions nowadays.
P.S. You might want to be careful with the terminology. At first, I really thought you were looking for songs to play in sessions. But now I gather that you’re really interested in session tunes.
http://www.whistlethis.com posts a tune a month for their user community to learn. All seem to be standard session tunes. Plus you get the added benefit of hearing other members versions and usually a slower mentor version.
thanks MTGuru, those are very helpful sites. just what i was looking for.