Hello Everyone, I’m new to posting here. I was wanting to learn some songs for our weekly sessions and I was wondering if anyone had any good resources of trad songs for women to sing. I can find tons of lyrics on the net, but not many tunes to go with them. Any help would be greatly appreciated;)
Thank you
Kimberly
Welcome to the board, Kimberly! Here are some resources that I’ve used in the past (click on the blue):
Irish Songs (these are midis, but you can get an idea)
I have more links, if you need them… Some songs that I really love to sing are Anachie Gordon, Wild Mountain Thyme, Ripe and Bearded Barley, If I Was A Blackbird (there is a female version out there), Star of the County Down, Fear A Bhata (The Boatman), Down By the Sally Gardens, A Stor Mo Chroi, Do You Love An Apple, and Spancil Hill.
I listen to a lot of Mary Black, Dolores Keane, Talitha Mackenzie, Jean Redpath, and the more modern Cailin Rua and Cara Dillon. I really like Lintie and Karan Casey too. Your best bet is probably to try and get a hold of as many CDs of female trad singers as you can, and then go from there. Here is a great online radio station that may help: Radio Celt
And a pretty decent article: Irish Traditional Songs and Singing Styles
Hope that helps,
Andrea
(edited to correct embarrassing typos, ack)
Hi, Kimberly- I’m new to this site, too, and a singer as well. The Mudcat Cafe is currently discussing this same topic- http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=20768&messages=73
will take you there.
Have fun!
Allison
I’m particularly fond of Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill’s Gan Dha Phingin Spre (No Dowry) .
There are many fine Scottish singers nobody has mentioned. Belle Stewart, Jeannie Robertson, Karen Mathieson (alone and with Capercaillie), Christine Primrose and Catherine McPhee come immediately to mind. Much of their stuff is in Gaelic.
I’m not surprised they are not mentioned here. This is the Irish music forum, not Scottish. 
djm
Don’t the colonies count any more? You might be surprised to hear of where one or two of the singers mentioned actually come from.
Not a question of where someone comes from (or how far away they end up ). Scots Gaelic is not the same as Irish Gaelic, and Scots music is not the same as Irish music, though there are similarities and sharing, for sure. I was simply responding to your note that no-one had mentioned Scottish singers on an Irish music forum. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a web site or forum for Scottish singing … somewhere …
djm
Volcals being my first love and having research and studied some about hebridian and calidonian singing. Haveing traversed the odyssey from Jethro Tull and Steeleye Span to Jean Redpath to Joe Heany and Darach O’Cathain and back again. Haveing listened to the Tocer and other original recordings of waulking songs and others down to Childs balads. Haveing poured over many volumes, Kennedy’s Folk Songs of the British Isles being not the least of these. I have found that teasing out which is Scottish and which is Irish is an impossiblity. There is just too much cultural interplay to strictly seperate the two. Especialy in the vocal traditions. As you become more familiar with the general body of traditional works you can see the inextricable similarities among the different kinds of ‘folk’ or ‘roots’ music. That is not to say that there are no wholely Irish or Scottish styles. But the boarders between these two and many other styles are very shadey. Many of the oldest songs sung in Irish originated in Scots Gaelic.
I like to say if you want a tune, go to the Irish. But if you want a song, go to the Scottish.
Rant complete.
BL
By the way a Rant is a style of singing which I enjoy very much.
Well said BL. I’d sort of lost interest in arguing with djm who was beginning to sound like the reincarnation a 19th century British tax collector.
There never was a point in seeing Gaelic culture divided neatly into two schools. There’s not much brine between Ulster and Scotland. There’s no more of a clear categorical difference between Scottish and Irish styles or accents than there is between say, Donegal and Kerry styles and accents. Obviously, the closing off of traditional routes of cultural and economic exchange between Ulster and the Highlands by the British between Culloden and the 20th century probably brought about sharper divisions than had existed previously, but Irish labourers worked in Scotland and lived in bothies and the exchange continued by other means.
Before I even mentioned some Scottish women, others had mentioned Jean Redpath and Talitha MacKenzie, neither of whom are noted for being Irish.
Well, if you have grown past The Kesh and Bucks of Oranmore your musical tastes will have expanded beyond the boarders of Erine to Shetland, Brittany, Galacia, and even into Scandinavia. Many who have mastered their instrument have gone far a field to satisfy their musical monkey. (This is not the same as the Flute Monkey by the by.)
For an example: I was surprised to find that a slow air Paddy Keenan plays on Poirt An Phiobaire is a bagad tune from brittany.
So IMHO a tolerance of un-Irish music is an indication of a person’s level of knowlege. It seems to be that the intermediate types, the ones that have grown past the Danny Boy and Whisky songs but not yet to the ‘if it sounds good it’s right’ stage, get the most exercised about what is Irish and what is not.
If it sounds good play it. Of course it will be within the context of all the listening and studying and exploring you have done.
Talitha MacKenzie was one of the sign posts on my odessy into Irish music. Her singing in gaelic sounded so grounded to me. Especialy when she sang a Canterachd. She really fueled my interest in the pre-commercial music of the folk. 
I know she is from Boston and learned her Gaelic from a book but she married a Scotsman and took his culture as her own which I identify with. She spent some time in the Boston session scene and gained some understanding of The Music there I would think.
You know, I can understand people trying to put limits on what they will have to know to become a ITM expert, heaven knows my years are limited and a late start in The Music is a hard thing to see over, but you really miss a lot of cool stuff if you put the blinders on.
just to please everyone, here’s the scottish forums http://www.footstompin.com/forum?forumid=3
http://www.springthyme.co.uk/wwwboard/index.html