I’ve been playing “at the pipes” for about 6+ months, taking a few lessons from Tommy Martin who is in St. Louis for a bit. I’m learning a few tunes that are common Irish Session tunes with him. I play a very nice practice set that was made for me by David Boisvert of Greenwoodpipes.
My Question…I was wondering if anyone has some suggestions as to what they believe would be a really good book of Irish Session tunes. I would like to find something that has been compiled where the tunes are somewhat common among pipers and fiddlers and might get played at a pub or session gathering.
I’ve heard that O’Neills has some books, but someone cautioned me that there is one that is good and the rest I should leave alone but he couldn’t remember which was the good one!
Thanks for taking a minute to read this and for any help in this pursuit.
Karen Tweed has a very good session book (circa early 90s) called “The Silver Spire: 46 Irish Session Tunes from the Repetoire of Karen Tweed”. There is also an accompanying CD. AND she did all the illustrations!
TK, thanks for your reply. I have not heard of Karen Tweed, probably because I’m a bit new to Irish music. I started playing the whistles about 3 years ago and the fiddle one year ago. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to inflict the ultimate pain on myself and take up the pipes!!
Do you use her book and, if so, have you found it useful? Do you find that many/most of the tunes are popular in session settings?
I’m a great fan of abc notation, myself, and there are lots of Irish dance tune collections available for free on the internet. I haven’t wanted to buy a tune book in years now. The files are simply text files and take up little space on the computer. You can have litterly thousands of tunes at your fingertips.
I use ABC2WIN shareware to display and print the tunes as standard music notation. I like ABCMUS which plays the tunes as midi files. Here are some sites that provide some pretty good information:
Bill, thanks for the links. I downloaded the ABC player and have been downloading some tunes. They download very quick and now I have hundreds. That will keep me busy for some time. I like the fact that not only can I view the music but with the click of a button I can listen to it as well and decide if I want to learn to play it.
I notice that you live in Ft. Wayne. In the past I have done business with ITT and Magnavox. I get over that way periodically for business. Is there a local piper’s club? How long have you been playing and who made your set?
No, there’s no local club here - just me and a teen-age boy who has one of the Daye penny chanter sets. He’s pretty involved with school activities these days and I haven’t seen him enough to know how involved he is with piping now. I get together with Jim Smith from Shelbyville, who is a regular attendee at the St. Louis Tionol, once or twice a year if we happen to be in the same place. So, I consider myself to be a major proponent of the rare NE Indiana piping style. The piping world has little to fear however, as I rarely cross the state line.
I’m playing a Bill Thomas half-set with a Childress chanter. I started learning in 1995 and kind of floundered around until December, 2000 when I picked up the Childress chanter. About the same time I stopped playing my other instruments and concentrated on piping only. That was a good decision as my ability to play radically improved.
I’ve been advised that my new Childress full set will be complete in a couple of months.
Let me know if you come in to Fort Wayne. If I ever get my kitchen done, my wife will let me have friends over for a tune. If I don’t get the kitchen done, we can have a tune anyway.
Just a further comment about abc notation: ABC files can be very helpful for the isolated musician, but the quality of the transcriptions can vary. The use of abc players for learning tunes cannot be a subsitute for listening to the real music.
this question comes up every year. and every year i suggest
“Pipe Friendly Tunes”
by John Walsh.
they are very whistle friendly. there are more than 550 of them. they are organized by name and type. when there is more than one name to a tune, the index recognizes all names.
when there are 2 similar settings to one tune he often gives you both.
and the settings are more modern and easier to read than ONeill.
the only down side is that the title scares off whistle players.
if you would consider it, i can give you 3 web sites that sell it.
Meir,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I would like to further investigate this source.
One of the things that helps me learn tunes is to play them on the whistle, pipes, and fiddle. Normally, a whistle tune will be played well on the pipes. However, I’m new at the pipes so I certainly have not tested out many tunes yet.
Because of my lack of experience, I am better at slow airs and hymns. I have been enjoying taking hymns and playing them on the pipes. Several of them come out very nice.
