History of Irish Music

prunci · Post by **prunci** » Fri Aug 02, 2002 8:35 pm

Could anyone share some recommendations for a history of Irish music or other good reference books ? I think learning more about the development of the music is probably important to playing it better.

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 7:49 am

A good start might be:
"A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music"
by Gearoid O hallmhurain in paperback.

As a follow-up try:
"Last Night's Fun" by Ciaran Carson.

rhodeirish · Post by **rhodeirish** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 10:56 am

You may also want to look at the Companion To Irish Traditional Music, edited and largely written by Fintan Vallely. You can read more about it on Fintan's Web site at:
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~fidil/

John Harvey

Mark_J · Post by **Mark_J** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 2:04 pm

On 2002-08-03 09:49, Stan wrote:
A good start might be:
"A Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music"
by Gearoid O hallmhurain in paperback.

As a follow-up try:
"Last Night's Fun" by Ciaran Carson.

On 2002-08-05 12:56, rhodeirish wrote:
You may also want to look at the Companion To Irish Traditional Music, edited and largely written by Fintan Vallely.

I recommend reading the books in the order of appearance in this thread. All three books are great. Fintan's book is very large and fairly comprehensive, but it is not a great cover-to-cover read. It does certainly allow you to jump from page to page to fill in gaps from within your knowledge. If you have no point to start, you may lack use for the book. That's why I think you should read this one last; it is something of an encyclopedia in it's format.

Gearoid's book on the, other hand, is brief & concise while being an excellent cover-to-cover read; and quick at that. It will fit you for a new set of brains, it will. Very, very hard to put down. I don't think any other book can fit you with a framework to understand IrTrad better than this one.

Ciaran's book is not as informative as either of the above. It is amazingly enlightening and very entertaining. I always hope for fried eggs with that lace on the sides, now a days. You will too, if you read the book.

All three books fulfill a different purpose. All three hit the mark at what they are intended to be. I don't think you could do better than to try these choices out.

prunci · Post by **prunci** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 8:09 pm

Thank you all for your suggestions.