im looking for some airs with both a cd and the sheet music any suggestions?
I’ve found this to be pretty good:
http://www.thewhistleshop.com/catalog/tutorials/irishmusicsongbooks/slowairs/slowairs.htm
I have Ireland’s Best Slow Airs published by Walton’s Publishing and purchased from The Whistle Shop. Some of the tunes on the CD are whistle, some are fiddle. Airs are free to the expression of the artist, so they do not necessarily play note for note and the rhythm does not always match the notation. But it is good quality sound and will help you learn the tunes.
Another good music source is
http://www.southwinddulcimer.com/
They have been much quicker to ship than any other online music store that I’ve come across. I believe they also carry music books published by Walton’s Publishing, and they have a large selection.
I am also interested in Waltons book of slow airs & CD. Is there any differance between the music notations of a fiddle and a whistle?
I’d recommend “Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland” by Tomas O Canainn. Some beautiful lesser-known airs as well as the standards. The cd is ok, but there are better versions of many of them which you can find on other recordings.
http://www.ossianusa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ossian&Product_Code=00118-IBCD
If you’re playing a low D whistle, you’ll be playing the same notes a fiddle does, and if a “regular” D, then you’re an octave higher. Play a whistle in any other key, though, and I’d have to start counting on my fingers to figure it out. But if you’re playing by yourself, who cares?
I spent mumble years playing Boehm flute so my brain is stuck in the concert pitch, but blessedly it’s the same as a fiddle’s so I don’t have to transpose. (It could have been clarinet!)
Oh yeah… a fiddle has a lower range than a flute (or whistle), so you’ll sometimes see notes below the staff. (G is the lowest open string.) Feel free to transpose them up an octave if you like. Fiddlers often don’t like to “shift,” or move their fingers up the neck toward the bridge, so you might make up the difference in playing higher. 
M
i am partial to “best slow airs”.
regarding the notes. if memory serves (i am not home) the vast majority are notated in the exact range of the whistle, or pipes for that matter. for the few that may not be, use those to learn by ear- nothing better, and these tunes are best learned by ear.
you should know that the book and cd have many tunes that everyone would consider slow airs but there are other that are in related categories- several ocarolin for example. you can’t go wrong.
meir
Thank you Margurite, and all for the info. Right now I am only playing with a drummer, guitar, elct keyboard, piano, and four vocals. No fiddle player yet. And I am the only whistler. The only thing that haunts me from my school band days is the director keeping time. I have a metonome but it does not stop and tell us anything. 