I’m planning a trip to Ireland summer 2016 so I have a little more than a year to work on some tunes. I doubt I’ll be brave enough to attempt to sit in anywhere but I thought I’d ask a question here. For easy to medium pieces, what are your suggestions for a handful of tunes to have well under my belt if I should develop the courage to pull out a whistle?
I know I’ll likely get as many answers as folks who read and it tune popularity is based on all kinds of variables but it can’t hurt to ask. Thanks in advance.
If you mean playing in a pub session in Ireland, as you know there’s a subtle complex etiquette that we Americans never seem to get quite right… the “ugly American” and all that.
Here’s an interesting discussion from the Irish perspective
Basically, go with the intention of listening, and play only when asked, though the specific “rules” vary from session to session.
As for “popular tunes” the repertoire of each session varies, though there are Old Standards.
There’s a series of books that has a load of those, with a long title. Here it is as it appears on my copy
Irish Traditional Music
A selection of popular tunes for all instruments
Jigs Reels Hornpipes Slides Polkas Airs & Carolan tunes Session Tunes
by Anthony Sullivan
I think your recommendations show your age a bit there Richard. Or at least when you started playing .
Seriously though, books of ‘popular session tunes’ will always be a few years behind the wave of popularity and those books are by now decades old. They will surely provide a solid repertoire to get you started but for the tune du jour, the flavour of the month ones that can truly be called ‘popular’ (although that depends to an extend on where you are and who you fall in with) will be lifted off recent popular recordings or from the radio or tellie.
Like many things in Ireland, it’s possibly better not to have too many expectations of how things are going to be. Just bring the tunes you have, be able to play them solid enough when put on the spot and from there on play it by ear, see what happens and go with the flow. That’s really the best way to go about it.
flavour of the month ones that can truly be called ‘popular’ (although that depends to an extend on where you are and who you fall in with) will be lifted off recent popular recordings or from the radio or tellie.
Yes, keep in mind that not everyone in Ireland is into Irish Traditional Music. And, with the timeframe you’ve set for yourself I’d do some good homework by listening to recordings of players you’re interested in. Also, listen to Ireland’s daily/weekly Trad radio programs (and TV). Search for the stations (near your visiting area) and adjust for the time differential for your geo location.
Here’s just a couple radio stations that broadcast on the internet.
I’d also check out any local festivals or workshops being held in the area you are visiting, or schedule your trip to coincide with such events. Touristy vs. off the beaten path to the real local sessions… Of course I would also read the Chiff & Fipple Forums for some valuable insight.
True, and true! I did mention those books specifically as books of “old standards”. Yes they seem quite dated now, drawing much material from then-popular groups such as Planxty and The Bothy Band.
True again. Experienced session players who play at sessions regularly are keen to play “what’s next”, whatever new tune is just starting to make the session rounds.
Thesession.org is a great resource for those of us several thousand miles away from Ireland. You can, for example, do a search based on which tunes are included in the greatest number of members’ tune books, which gives a rough idea of which tunes are the most popular.
And you can search tunes by date added, which helps separate the old stale standards from the new stuff. A newer tune that’s in a huge number of tune books will probably be a fairly recent popular tune.
Thesession.org is a great resource for those of us several thousand miles away from Ireland.
We could argue how much it reflects the (current) repertoire of sessions in Ireland although I do notice younger musicians getting more influenced by what’s on the web. I do admit I have learned a small handful of tunes off thesession that supposedly came from the repertoire of people I know in real life before I actually heard these people play those tunes, which strikes me as slightly odd.
For session tunes, I would also suggest keeping up with the youths involved with traditional music as they are the future of what will be playing in the sessions. There are many avenues with the young musicians to search, Comhaltas, and youth groups such as here.
Buy the Comhaltas Foinn Seisun books and accompanying CDs, learn from them, and even if you only learn a quarter of the tunes you’ll be able to play, contribute to, and enjoy yourself in any session on Earth. Start with the first book and accompanying CDs, and go from there.
I also very, very, very strongly recommend the outstanding whistle lessons offered by the Online Academy of Irish Music - http://www.oaim.ie. It doesn’t get better than this, truly.
I agree with Chris, I have all the Foinn Seisiun Books and recordings and am working my way through them, I also find it useful to record myself playing them on video, upload to Youtube which can be a useful aid for others to learn from and also to recieve positive and negative critique which all helps me improve.
I personally would avoid trying to learn the sets of tunes that are available on popular flute / whistle players CD’s at the very start of your journey as these are a bit more “Show Stopper” type tunes and may impede your initial learning. I bought a great CD recently of the playing of James Murray & Ollie Ross from South Sligo and discovered that most of his recordings are of him playing an Eb flute so I can’t really play along with it, but it still useful to listen to the recordings to hear different styles and variations of each tune and to give you an dea of what you should aim for.
Saying that, I am now interested in buying an Eb flute and would be interested if anyone is selling one.
Even in Ireland, there are sessions and sessions. On a recent trip to the holy land after an absence of many years - come to think of it my previous trip was in the last century - I was surprised, to put it mildly, to discover pub sessions in which, if you closed your eyes, you might think you were at a “beginner’s” or “slow” session anywhere in the world.
The musicians at some of these gatherings were mostly people in late middle age who clearly had not learned the music at their mother’s knee or as teenagers, but quite recently, and using the same resources as people anywhere in the world - notably the Fionn Sessiun books, because they were playing sets of tunes lifted straight out of those books, and not very well.
On one evening a friend (who lives far from the west coast and other strongholds of traditional music) took us out to a session, warning us that the level of instrumental music might not be terribly inspiring. It wasn’t - and after a while we tired of sets along the lines of Denis Murphy’s Slide / The Brosna Slide*, and slunk off to another one a few miles away - where it wasn’t long before the exact same set was played. The FS books were actually on the table at this second gathering, and being consulted when questions were asked (although - phew - nobody was reading out of them to play the tunes).
The next night, our last before flying out, we were in the Cobblestone in Dublin where the music was of a very different order.
All this to say that, well, the Irish music craze affecting people all over the world with no previous notions of Irish music has spread to Ireland. And you can find sessions of every level from the sublime to the, er, well, surprising.
* Great tunes of course, nothing wrong with them, and neither with The Boys of Bluehill and Morrison’s Jig and all the rest. But their prevalence at a session is often indicative of the level of rendition you can expect.
Great tunes of course, nothing wrong with them, and neither with The Boys of Bluehill and Morrison’s Jig and all the rest. But their prevalence at a session is often indicative of the level of rendition you can expect.
True, of course, although I should maybe point out I remember nights Jackie Daly pulled out the Kid on the Mountain and the Butterrfly. Possibly to accommodate visiting musicians, he’d often play Ashokan Farewell too on those nights, but not always.
I think StevieJ makes a really good point, or several.
The Fionn Sessiun books are a useful way to help build up a good repertoir of core tunes that will basically be played anywhere, but they are not very helpful in learning how to play the tunes in a truly musical way.
For this I think it’s much, much better to listen to recordings of well respected solo musicians, or duos, and lots of the older players especially, and really study their playing closely and seek to emulate it. I also think it’s also really good to listen to solo playing on a number of instruments - whistle, flute, pipes, fiddle, accordion, concertina, etc - and study how each musician, and each instrument, explores a tune differently and similarly. There are some recordings I feel like I could study for my entire life and still have more to learn. It’s from these recordings, and from careful listening to the live playing of the great musicians I’ve had the honor of knowing, that I am developing my own musicality.
So much of the nuance is lost in recordings of a big sessiun, and this is very much the case with the Fionn Sessiun recordings. That said, if one of your primary interests is to be able to play in a sessiun then the Fionn Sessiun books and recordings will give you a very helpful base, but again use them to build up a tune-based, not for learning how to play.
All the above said, I absolutely do feel that one of the very best learning resources I’ve ever come across is the Online Academy of Irish Music. If this had been around when I was just starting I would be ten times the player I am now. Truly. Do check it out if you haven’t already. It’s outstanding. http://www.oaim.ie
Well said. It’s well worth revisiting these significant recordings every so often. Decades ago I knew one such LP inside out - every note, variation and decoration, or so I thought. A few years later I listened to it again and was struck by quite a lot of things that I had never noticed Layers of the onion…
Of course I would also read the Chiff & Fipple Forums for some valuable insight. 
- I was surprised, to put it mildly, to discover pub sessions in which, if you closed your eyes, you might think you were at a “beginner’s” or “slow” session anywhere in the world.
And you can find sessions of every level from the sublime to the, er, well, surprising.