great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

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Mike Brennan
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Tell us something.: Been playing Irish trad for 40 years. Started out on whistle and now play flute, mandolin, bouzouki, guitar (DADGAD & standard tuning), banjo, and uilleann pipes. I've even dabbled in making uilleann pipes and have several very nice chanters that I made.

Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by Mike Brennan »

westonm, enjoy your journey, and if there's anything more we can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought ONeills 1001 gems was only dance tunes. If that's the case then you want 1850 which includes airs too.

Mike
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by maestrosid »

Depending on what your needs and desires are, these might be a good resource. Three books from Comhaltas, each with an accompanying recording of all the tunes. Standard musical notation. Also available on Amazon.

They have been helpful to me, as you can listen and learn and have the notation as backup. I use Amazing Slow Downer software on the recordings to better hear and build up speed.

https://comhaltas.ie/shop/detail/foinn_ ... _volume_1/

Good luck on your journey.
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Tell us something.: Hey! I'm interested in tin whistles and traditional irish and celtic music. It's an exciting opportunity to explore the scotch-irish roots of my family as well as play some old Civil War era tunes.

Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by westonm »

picking through some of the airs i've found online and in books, it's amazing how many have been used as the basis for hymns. i recognize a lot of them.
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by piperjoe »

One of my favorites is L.E. McCullough's, 121 Session Tunes.

Whether you learn from the dots or prefer to pick tunes up by ear, (it come with four CDs)...or would like to learn to do one or the other, most of the tunes are set well. There are a few that don't match up with what you normally hear, but even those are close enough that you won't get kicked out of a session. Well, most sessions anyway. :puppyeyes:

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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by benhall.1 »

Mike Brennan wrote:westonm, enjoy your journey, and if there's anything more we can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought ONeills 1001 gems was only dance tunes. If that's the case then you want 1850 which includes airs too.

Mike
Strange that, isn't it? The subtitle is "1001 Jig, Reels, Hornpipes, Airs and Marches", but yes, as far as I can see, it's only dance tunes.
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by Nanohedron »

benhall.1 wrote:
Mike Brennan wrote:westonm, enjoy your journey, and if there's anything more we can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought ONeills 1001 gems was only dance tunes. If that's the case then you want 1850 which includes airs too.

Mike
Strange that, isn't it? The subtitle is "1001 Jig, Reels, Hornpipes, Airs and Marches", but yes, as far as I can see, it's only dance tunes.
No copy on hand, but IIRC the Set Dances (or "Long Dances" per O'Neill) are also unavailable in the 1001. Isn't that right?
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by MichaelLoos »

No, not right - O'Neill's 1001 has: Double Jigs, Single Jigs, Hop or Slip Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, Long Dances etc, and Miscellaneous.
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by NicoMoreno »

benhall.1 wrote:
Mike Brennan wrote:westonm, enjoy your journey, and if there's anything more we can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought ONeills 1001 gems was only dance tunes. If that's the case then you want 1850 which includes airs too.

Mike
Strange that, isn't it? The subtitle is "1001 Jig, Reels, Hornpipes, Airs and Marches", but yes, as far as I can see, it's only dance tunes.
I don't think that's the subtitle of either the original Dance Music editions, or the Krassen edit:
https://www.amazon.com/ONeills-Music-Ir ... 0825601738
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/o- ... lp19796295
https://archives.irishfest.com/Dunn-Fam ... -Cover.jpg
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by Mr.Gumby »

NicoMoreno wrote: I don't think that's the subtitle of either the original Dance Music editions, or the Krassen edit:
The title page says:



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Krassen just has 'new and revised'
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by Wanderer »

maestrosid wrote:Depending on what your needs and desires are, these might be a good resource. Three books from Comhaltas, each with an accompanying recording of all the tunes. Standard musical notation. Also available on Amazon.

They have been helpful to me, as you can listen and learn and have the notation as backup. I use Amazing Slow Downer software on the recordings to better hear and build up speed.

https://comhaltas.ie/shop/detail/foinn_ ... _volume_1/

Good luck on your journey.
They have 4 books now. I asked them about purchasing, and they're not really easy to get ahold of in the USA :(
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by benhall.1 »

NicoMoreno wrote:
benhall.1 wrote:
Mike Brennan wrote:westonm, enjoy your journey, and if there's anything more we can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Maybe someone could correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought ONeills 1001 gems was only dance tunes. If that's the case then you want 1850 which includes airs too.

Mike
Strange that, isn't it? The subtitle is "1001 Jig, Reels, Hornpipes, Airs and Marches", but yes, as far as I can see, it's only dance tunes.
I don't think that's the subtitle of either the original Dance Music editions, or the Krassen edit:
https://www.amazon.com/ONeills-Music-Ir ... 0825601738
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/o- ... lp19796295
https://archives.irishfest.com/Dunn-Fam ... -Cover.jpg
You're right. Sorry about that. It's just the subtitle on the front cover of the otherwise facsimile edition I have that was published by Waltons. Inside it has the title page illustrated by Mr Gumby above, except that they've substituted "Waltons'" as the name of the publisher.
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by NicoMoreno »

At any rate, technically there are some airs in the Misc section... not "slow airs" necessarily (which I would use to mean sean nos and similar style song melodies), but song melodies anyway.
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by ytliek »

westonm wrote:thanks for the responses. i will look into them.


it just occurred to me that i might benefit from understanding also the history of the irish music tradition, and what influenced it over the years. are there some recommended books for that?
This is not a tune book but a history: Companion to Irish Traditional Music – 2nd Ed. (Nov. 2011)

http://imusic.ie/companion-to-irish-tra ... l-music-2/

Loads of good information.
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by Kade1301 »

In case anybody is interested, O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland, 1907 edition, is available for free from IMSLP

http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Dance_Music_o ... C_Francis)

IMSLP is a huge archive of music whose copyright has expired - I just taped "Irish" into the search box and got a list of 45 pages: http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Folk_Son ... ollections
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Re: great songbooks of irish airs and jigs

Post by Mr.Gumby »

available for free from IMSLP
I am afraid IMSLP doesn't allow downloads unless you pay a membership fee. I tried to get their copy of the Hibernian Muse from the link you posted. No cigar, not a free one anyway, unfortunately.

O'Neill's is available from various sources and in various formats on-line (eg here, here or here)
Last edited by Mr.Gumby on Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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