Okay so I saw that the whistle shop has this new book posted from L.E. McCullough which not only has the sheet music but also 4 CDS with the tunes on them for learning…
anyway I am looking for a good book to learn some tunes from but i also want one with CDs (ever since i started taking lessons i have come to prefer learning a tune by ear even though I read sheet music well) and this one looks intruiging- but i was wondering has anyone bought it and what do they think of it? Or does anyone else have suggestions of books that come also with CDs that are good for just learning tunes? (I don’t need a tutorial or anything)
any advice would be great
-Angela
Angela, I have two McCullough books, both with the CD’s. I far FAR prefer the first for its printing.
The new book puts ONE tune per page, which spreads the notes, bars, phrases over a VERY large area, making it hard to see the flow of a tune. The notation is a bit peculiar too, with rolls annotated in ways that just don’t seem right. But I like the tunes themselves very much! There are very brief notes about where he heard or learned certain tunes, which I find a waste of ink, and a bit peculiar. I think the CD’s are quite nice, and don’t suffer from the droning of him saying the tune name and key, the way he does in the first set. The playing is very good, with a little ornamentation on the first, ‘practice’ go, and rather florid on the second, faster rendition.
Despite the lower production quality of the earlier book, I like its printing far better, though I still see (and hear) some odd notes thrown in – him popping to a note higher than sounds right to my ear (and higher than what I hear in session). The tune selection is also better for my tastes. It lays flat (its bound with the plastic whatsit; the second book is a standard kind of paperback binding that you have to crease or break to get it to lie flat) and the layout of the tunes is more condensed and far far easier for me to read. I want to see my notes as dfa dfa, not d f a d f a. I dislike the announcing of every tune on a CD. When I’m learning from a CD I have it set to repeat, and don’t want to hear “XYZ jig. Key of A modal.” repeated. In fact I don’t really need to hear it at all when that information is in the book anyway.
Both are worthwhile to those of us who like flipping through books and sampling a tune here, a tune there.
I haven’t tried his video tutorial yet.