I know that there are lots of sites on the internet containing almost any tune that anyone could want. The "ABC" world has alphabetized all sorts of music. Going back to the fine tradition of traditional music collectors, however, we have some remarkable volumes of tunes to turn to. The ones I'd mention are O'Neill's 1001 Gems (of course) and Brendán Breathnach's "Ceol Rince na hÉireann" vols 1-5. I like Vol.1 (all good settings as he found them in Dublin in the 60s), Vol 2 (a great survey of tunes from players throughout Ireland)and Vol 3 (all taken from records of great players). The other 2 volumes have valuable stuff in them too.
To my mind CRÉ 2 is one of the best places to look for tune surprises.
I've always tended to shy away from books, though. Listening to the person beside you in a session is often the best way to get tunes. Failing that, get as many Séamus Ennis recordings as you can. I don't know what made him tick but whatever it was, he knew about Irish music.
More importantly, it's all a bit of fun. At least the flute doesn't have reeds to go wrong. Does it?
Collections of Tunes
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chas
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There's also John and William Neal, the earliest surviving Irish tune book. It was published in facsimile, but is really (really) hard to find now. The Joyce collection from the mid-1800's is good, too, with some annotations in it as to whence the tunes came. And, of course, the complete works of O'Carolan.
Outside of a couple dozen Carolan tunes, none of these have much in the way of tunes you'd expect to find in a session. But they have lots of fun stuff.
Outside of a couple dozen Carolan tunes, none of these have much in the way of tunes you'd expect to find in a session. But they have lots of fun stuff.
Charlie
Whorfin Woods
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Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
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Aodhan
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Here in Phx we have a few copies of "The King Street Session" tunebook circulating around. Came out of a session in California, has close to 1000 tunes in it. Very nicely done, and quite a few tunes I haven't seen other places.chas wrote:There's also John and William Neal, the earliest surviving Irish tune book. It was published in facsimile, but is really (really) hard to find now. The Joyce collection from the mid-1800's is good, too, with some annotations in it as to whence the tunes came. And, of course, the complete works of O'Carolan.
Outside of a couple dozen Carolan tunes, none of these have much in the way of tunes you'd expect to find in a session. But they have lots of fun stuff.
John