Does any one know of a few songs that are at a level between the foggy dew and silver spear? I am teaching myself through you tube and the guy that has been putting up the lessons has been great, i just wish there was something in between those 2 songs.
Nope. You either have to play a slow song, or a fast reel. Irish music has nothing else to offer. At all. Actually, it’s a little known fact that all Irish music is based on Foggy Dew and the Silver Spear.
You need to put little tags before your post [sarcasm] [/Sarcasm] 
Any way the Foggy Dew and the Silver Spear are two really different tunes. In fact I wouldn’t call The Silver Spear a beginner tune. Reels tend to be to fast for beginners, most are for me any way. I can nail Jigs and Aires. But Reels are my bane.
Try the Britches Full of Stitches
Swallowtail Jig
The Kesh
Wind That Shakes the Barley is a nice reel to try. I can play it well just not that fast yet.
You mean the uzi wasn’t a giveaway?
thank you
Tunes are tunes, not “songs” - unless they happen to be the air (i.e. “tune”/“melody”) of an actual song - you know, one of those things with words that can be sung. Even then, one normally refers to said tune as “the tune of the song”. And “air” as in “slow air” has no terminal “e” unless you are writing Ye Pseudo-e Olde Englishe.
This ghastly pop-music misuse of “song” in a context where previously “number” or “track” would have been used is intolerable and must be eradicated and disbarred from traditional music circles (where folks should know better…).
Ahhhhh. Got that off my chest…
There are also slip jigs, marches, polkas, slides, hornpipes, planxtys, strathspeys (types of dance tunes), waltzes…
Do you read music?
You might take a look at:
O’Sullivan’s March (on Best of the Chieftains)
Cuil Aodha Slide (on Best of the Chieftains)
The Brosna Slide
Star Above the Garter (slide)
West of the River Shannon (nice, flowing waltz tempo in 3/4 time)
Nancy’s Waltz
Give Me Your Hand (waltz)
Barney Brallaghan’s (slip jig)
The Butterfly (slip jig)
Ballydesmond Polka #2
O’Carolan’s Welcome (planxty)
Planxty Irwin
Harvest Home/Boys of Bluehill/Off to California (hornpipes)
Barn dances are also fun to play. There’s a good one at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/sessions/
Strathspeys are a bit “different”, very staccato and are often hard to get a handle on, so I’d look at those when you’ve gained some experience with some of the others. You may not even like strathspeys.
This will give you some variety between Foggy Dew and Silver Spear.
If you read music, you can access the above tunes at
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind
Not to interrupt a thread here but the “tune” Foggy dew was mentioned and that lead me to a question. I have downloaded two versions of “foggy dew” that hardly resemble each other. Same thing for “Sally Gardens” and have seem others with the same name that look to be different tunes. Having just gotten started with this I wonder if I will run into this often.
In a word… yes. And it can get confusing. Many ITRAD tunes have either a sub title or several different names. For instance, Paddy McCarthy as heard on The Corrs CDs is better known as Man of the House and that’s what I’ve always heard it called it in sessions. Sally Gardens or The Sally Gardens is different than Down by the Sally Gardens, sometimes referred to as Maids of the Mourne Shore. One is played slowly, and the other is a completely different melody and is a briskly played reel. However, Foggy Dew is pretty consistent in all the sessions I’ve done.
Sessions get interesting when one player calls a tune by one name and someone else will say, “Isn’t that xxxxxxxxxxx?” And another will chime in with, “Yea, and I know it as xxxxxxxxxxxx.”
And when listening to various performers and bands, you’ll often hear very different renditions of the same tunes. I’ve had the pleasure of participating in different sessions in different areas and always hear variations on the same tunes…some slight, some more drastic. One of our regulars travels a lot with his work and has attended sessions all over the country. Without fail, he’ll return saying, “Boy, they sure don’t play xxxxxxxx like we do!” Another regular spent some time in Cape Breton and was amazed at how differently they approach tunes. She’s an exceptional fiddle player and said she couldn’t keep up with the Cape Bretoners.
When you download tunes, you’re hearing the musicians’ interpretation of that tune. If you want to hear some extremes on interpretation of the same tune, check out The Butterfly. I’ve heard it from slow and deliberate to progressive jazz where you can barely pick out the melody. Same with Si Bheag, Si Mhor.