Sheet music recommendations

[Faber0611]

I am looking to get some sheet music for tin whistle, and wanted to see if anyone here had a favorite book or website to recommend. I'd be happy to check out individual pieces of sheet music from a website, or a book containing any number of pieces. Thanks

[whistlecollector]

I am looking to get some sheet music for tin whistle, and wanted to see if anyone here had a favorite book or website to recommend. I'd be happy to check out individual pieces of sheet music from a website, or a book containing any number of pieces. Thanks

What kind of music?

You can torture yourself here in the meantime:
https://musescore.com/user/7818571/scores/5361990

[Tommy]

I am looking to get some sheet music for tin whistle, and wanted to see if anyone here had a favorite book or website to recommend. Thanks

This is my favorite. http://tinwhistler.com

[Faber0611]

I am looking to get some sheet music for tin whistle, and wanted to see if anyone here had a favorite book or website to recommend. I'd be happy to check out individual pieces of sheet music from a website, or a book containing any number of pieces. Thanks

What kind of music?

You can torture yourself here in the meantime:
https://musescore.com/user/7818571/scores/5361990

Thanks for that! It looks and sounds intense!

I want to play mostly hymns and religious songs, but also have a love for slow airs.

[Faber0611]

I am looking to get some sheet music for tin whistle, and wanted to see if anyone here had a favorite book or website to recommend. Thanks

This is my favorite. http://tinwhistler.com

Tommy, this site is great! Thank you for recommending it.

[An Draighean]

The Armagh Pipers Club put out three or four volumes of "Learn to Play the Tin Whistle with The Armagh Pipers Club" that were full of good tunes. Not sure if they are still in print or not; you could check here: http://armaghpipers.com/

[Steve Bliven]

Well, somebody has to say it.... Try theSession.org for thousands of tunes—and ofttimes lively discussion.

Best wishes.

Steve

[pancelticpiper]

I want to play mostly hymns and religious songs, but also have a love for slow airs.

My belief is that for hymns you can't beat hymnals.

I went on a hymnal binge around a decade ago. It was a research project of sorts: as a piper who was playing regular wedding and funeral gigs I wanted to discover which were the most common hymn tunes across all the major denominations in the USA.

The hymn tunes because a piper can't play hymns- the pipes can't sing, and hymns are texts. In traditional hymnody hymns (texts) and tunes often float independently. It's why traditional hymnals have a metrical index and tune index in the back.

I ranked the 100 most common tunes across the major denominations. The most common, by the way, was HYFRYDOL. I've not come across a hymnal that didn't have at least one hymn set to that tune, and some hymnals had as many as four. (Hymn tunes are traditionally spelt in all capital letters.)

Now about "slow airs" if you mean the sean nos style Irish airs my belief is that these should be learnt by ear. Sheet music is near-useless due to the rubato nature of the airs.

[whistlecollector]

I want to play mostly hymns and religious songs, but also have a love for slow airs.

My belief is that for hymns you can't beat hymnals.

I second this notion, with the addition that I'd aim for a mainstream denominational Christian hymnal (Methodist, Lutheran). These will have all the popular ancient United Church hymns plus many beautiful tunes from the Protestant/Revolutionary tradition of the last several centuries.

Modern Catholic hymnals I think are in too much flux the last half century -- hummy-strummy "folk" "stuff" from the 70s and 80s mixed in with other dubious modern(ising) stuff.

(Western) Catholics also don't really have hymnals in the usual sense. Missals are mostly (and rightly) liturgical in nature. That might be handy if you intend to play in a lot of Liturgies (or if you are (Western) Catholic and don't own an up to date missal!), but not so much for just playing hymn tunes.

Another good source of tunes is the Sacred Harp books. Lovely music in and of itself and some rather nice hymn-like tunes to boot.

[pancelticpiper]

I'd aim for a mainstream denominational Christian hymnal (Methodist, Lutheran). These will have all the popular ancient United Church hymns...

For sure if I were going to get only one hymnal it would be the United Methodist one. Why? It's the largest, with over 900 hymns.

About having "all the popular" hymns, I discovered an interesting aspect about hymnals when I started collecting them and going through the indices:

If you compare Hymnal A and Hymnal B you will find that they have quite a few tunes in common. If you compare Hymnal B to Hymnal C they will likewise have quite a few tunes in common- but they're not the same tunes!

Likewise Hymnal A to Hymnal C, or A, B, or C to D.

So any two-way Hymnal comparison gives a goodly number of common tunes, but any THREE way comparison gives few.

The opinions people express about which hymns or tunes are most popular tend, therefore, to be myopic, and apply only to the particular denomination each person is a member of. More than that, it's a congregation-by-congregation thing even within the same denomination.

For example there are three hymns in the 1982 Episcopal hymnal sung to DUNDEE but none in the Methodist hymnal.

To reiterate I'm talking TUNES not hymns, because as a piper I can't play hymns, because pipes can't sing.

(Western) Catholics don't really have hymnals in the usual sense.

True that most Catholic parishes, at least around here, use Missalettes instead of hymnals. But there are plenty of Catholic hymnals out there, which brings up an interesting aspect of Catholic hymnody: anybody and write and publish a Catholic hymnal.

Most traditional mainline churches have an official committee that assembles and has published that denomination's one-and-only official hymnal. If you go into one of their churches you know what hymnal will be inside.

The Catholic church doesn't have that. Rather, it's laisse faire capitalism and several firms publish Catholic hymnals. The same publisher will offer several different hymnals aimed at different sorts of parishes: traditional hymns, newer praise songs, hymnals in various languages, and so forth.

Modern Catholic hymnals I think are in too much flux the last half century -- hummy-strummy "folk" stuff from the 70s and 80s mixed in with other dubious modern(ising) stuff.

My take on the situation is that after Vatican II many parishes embraced hymn-singing. What they could have done- perhaps should have done- is adopt wholesale a large body of hymns from one of the preexisting hymn-singing churches, using, say, the Methodist hymnal as a basis (like the LDS church did in the 19th century).

Catholics did do some of that, true. But also a number of composers stepped into the hymn-vacuum and wrote new Catholic hymns. Many of these were mediocre, but some were very good and have stood the test of time, being sung regularly since they were composed in the 1970s. Some have become popular in non-Catholic churches too.

About the distinction between hymns and tunes, let's say you're asked to play Amazing Grace. Everyone knows that tune! But there is no such tune... Amazing Grace is a hymn, a text, quite devoid of melody. Yes it's usually sung to the tune NEW BRITAIN.

But it can be sung to any tune with the same meter, say, KINGSFOLD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCBrdCK7u9c&t=50s

or FIDUCIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmFKZmcGAW0

[Faber0611]

I want to play mostly hymns and religious songs, but also have a love for slow airs.

Now about "slow airs" if you mean the sean nos style Irish airs my belief is that these should be learnt by ear. Sheet music is near-useless due to the rubato nature of the airs.

By "slow airs" I mean more like this: https://youtu.be/adzYNYqEHkY

Thank you for your reply! I am learning so much about music I never knew before. I am still very new. I will most definitely get myself a hymnal. Thanks so much.

[pancelticpiper]

By "slow airs" I mean more like this: https://youtu.be/adzYNYqEHkY

Yes that's the style I was talking about, the sean nos airs.

Though that one isn't traditional, from what I see, but a recent composition by Tommy Peoples.

My advice would be to immerse yourself in performances of traditional sean nos airs, particularly and initially solo vocal performances in the Irish language. After absorbing some of the vocal style then it's time to start listening to instrumental renditions. You'll see, then, why the instrumentalists are doing the things they're doing.

Ditto with Highland piobaireachd... it wasn't until I listened to quite a bit of canntaireachd that the piobaireachd style started really making sense.

[whistlecollector]

About the distinction between hymns and tunes, let's say you're asked to play Amazing Grace. Everyone knows that tune! But there is no such tune... Amazing Grace is a hymn, a text, quite devoid of melody. Yes it's usually sung to the tune NEW BRITAIN.

But it can be sung to any tune with the same meter, say, KINGSFOLD

Generally speaking, I don't disagree with you, but, for most people, I think you're pushing a (perhaps overly technical) distinction without a difference.

Yes, obviously, you can not play the words of a hymn on a whistle (or pipes), but you can play the tune of a hymn. Whatever the metrical name might be, if you ask someone to sing or play a well known hymn on an instrument, they'll probably, without much thought about the matter, say "how about 'Amazing Grace'?"



Just don't be surprised if most people don't know what KINGSFOLD or NEW BRITAIN are! (I'm only vaguely familiar, having figured out on my own what's going on by looking in old hymnals and wondering "what the heck are these strange titles doing here?")

But now I've got to thinking about this: what was the rationale for those names? Or to put another way, why aren't the hymns called by those names? Also, áre there hymns the words of which are no longer sung but bore some relation to the name "New Britain" or "Kingsfold", etc.?

I always thought the names were rather curious, and I know the practice is very old, but even back in the day, it seems that the actual hymn bore no relation to the metrical title. Any further enlightenment would be appreciated!

(Western) Catholics don't really have hymnals in the usual sense.

True that most Catholic parishes, at least around here, use Missalettes instead of hymnals. But there are plenty of Catholic hymnals out there, which brings up an interesting aspect of Catholic hymnody: anybody and write and publish a Catholic hymnal.

Right. There is apparently no governing body overseeing liturgical music. Very sad. Because we end up recycling the same garbage decade after decade.

Most traditional mainline churches have an official committee that assembles and has published that denomination's one-and-only official hymnal. If you go into one of their churches you know what hymnal will be inside.

Right. Very handy, that.

The Catholic church doesn't have that. Rather, it's laisse faire capitalism and several firms publish Catholic hymnals. The same publisher will offer several different hymnals aimed at different sorts of parishes: traditional hymns, newer praise songs, hymnals in various languages, and so forth.

Laissez faire is the understatement of the year! Without any kind of oversight, the place is opened up for all kinds of dodgy theology and just plain horrible hymnology.

[pancelticpiper]

I think you're pushing a (perhaps overly technical) distinction without a difference.

Yes, obviously, you can not play the words of a hymn on a whistle (or pipes), but you can play the tune of a hymn.

But that's the point, there's not a 1:1 relationship between tunes and hymns. You can play a hymn-tune, but different churches will be singing different hymns (words) to it.

I might say that as long as you're staying in a single hymnal you're good, but that's not the case, because the same tune might be used for two, three, or four different hymns in the same hymnal.

It's why people who do traditional hymnal-based church music speak of the tunes (by name) rather than the hymns (words). Otherwise disaster can happen.

Like when I was asked to play Come Thou Long Expected Jesus and was thinking they might use NETTLETON (87,87) which is what I was used to, or maybe STUTTGART (87,87) as it appears in the Episcopal (1982) hymnal. But no! In the Methodist hymnal the tune is HYFRYDOL (87,87). It's why people like me have hymnals from lots of different churches.

Tunes which have the 87, 87 meter include:

ABBOTS LEIGH, BEACH SPRING, CONVERSE, EBENEZER, GENEVA, HYFRYDOL, IN BABILONE, NETTLETON and many others and Come Thou Long Expected Jesus can equally be sung to any. (BTW BEACH SPRING is a lovely tune and not heard enough.)

(It's why you have those little numbers there at the bottom, the metrical numbers, and why most traditional hymnals have metrical indices in the back.)

[Tunborough]

Like when I was asked to play Come Thou Long Expected Jesus and was thinking they might use NETTLETON (87,87) which is what I was used to, or maybe STUTTGART (87,87) as it appears in the Episcopal (1982) hymnal. But no! In the Methodist hymnal the tune is HYFRYDOL (87,87). It's why people like me have hymnals from lots of different churches.

When you first mentioned HYRFRYDOL, I went looking for it. As soon as I heard it, I thought, "Oh yes, that's the tune for Come Thou Long Expected Jesus." Which demonstrates your point.