What’s Here?
- Six Things that will help you improve more quickly
- Links for slowplayers (just the essential places on the internet)
- ABC tools and Tune Archives (just the essential ones)
Six Things
Playing music well is a long-term commitment. Six things will help you improve your playing more quickly. The first is a tuner, so you can be in tune. The second is a metronome, so you can be in time. The third is a small, portable recording device, preferably one that records in a common format (e.g., MP3) and can be easily ported to your computer (e.g., either with a USB connection or with an SD card). The fourth is a “slow-downer” program that can reduce the tempo of music without altering its pitch. There are a number of them available, as programs or apps, and they’re not too pricey. Record music you want to learn, and play it back often. In unfamiliar circumstances it’s a good idea to ask people if they mind being recorded. The fifth is a knowledgeable teacher. Written explanations, no matter how lyrical, simply cannot replace focused instruction and aural learning. It is also true that for the novice it is not always clear just what to focus on when listening, so having a good guide will keep you from years of wandering around in the woods. The sixth is a group of people to play with. This is social music, it’s music to dance to, so keeping the tempo steady is important. While you might be able to play it reasonably well by yourself, the real fun is in playing with others. That’s where the music really comes to life and lifts the spirit! There is quite a difference between playing a tune alone in your kitchen and playing it with five other people. You have to learn to listen to others as you play so that you can all play at the same tempo and keep it steady, training your ear so you can hear when someone is doing something interesting that you’d like to pick up. Doing this is a skill that only develops over time with considerable practice. As I say elsewhere, if you really want to keep you ears on your toes, then start looking around for these six things now.
Links for Slowplayers
The following links can help you discover tunes and techniques, as well as provide important insights on your quest to become a better player. I have not listed all the sites there are since that would be overwhelming. Instead, I have listed just some essential sites. These are the sites I go to first when I’m researching tunes. You should explore them when you can so that you know what is available. [updated 16 Sept. 2014]
Sites of Interest: Places to Hear Tunes, Practice, and Gain Understanding
- KCITMS — Kansas City Irish Traditional Music Sessions (on Facebook)
- BBC Virtual Session — Just what it says. Get out your instrument!
- Research
- Journal of Music — information on music, esp. Irish Trad
- Irish Music Magazine — information on ITM
- Ceol Álainn — interesting information on some out-of-print recordings
- some out-of-print recordings related to Ceol Álainn (available for free download!)
- Ceolas — a resources site created in 1994 (I’m not sure if it’s been updated since 2004 however)
- Comhaltas — another resource site with lots of audio and video
- Ancient Music — All about music and instruments
- Tune Search
- TheSession.org — Jeremy’s wonderful site for tunes and discussion
- Folk Tune Finder — Joe’s tune finder and blog site
- Irish Traditional Music Archive — national archive for trad song, music, and dance of Ireland.
- Irish Tune Info — Alan Ng’s a site for finding tunes
- Traditional Tune Archive — Andrew Kuntz’s semantic index of trad tunes
- Trad Tune Collection — Nigel Gatherer’s collection of trad tunes
- JC’s ABC Tune Finder — John Chamber’s site for finding tunes
- Comhaltas — a large collection of tunes by Le Ceoltóiri Cultúrlainne
- Identitairs Québécois — a database of traditional Québécois tunes
- Trad Music Database — tune search engine
- Le Session — Steve Mansfield’s tune collection, Derbyshire, England
- Fiddle Lesson Tunes — Jill Elliot’s website, Bristol, England
- Old Town School of Folk Music — a list of Old-Time tunes, with recordings, from Chicago IL
- Traditional Music Library — Rod Smith’s wide-ranging collection of tunes, hosted in England
- Packie Manus Byrne Home — This is a website with a nice tune collection and recordings
- Cape Breton Tune Index — Alan Snyder’s index of all recordings by Cape Breton players
- Cranford Tune Archive — a collection from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Vashon Celtic Tunes — Steve Austin’s collection of tunes
- Instruments
- Fèis Rois — a website for trad, but not updated in a while
- Mandolin Cafe — all kinds of trad music with special (but not exclusive) focus on the mandolin
- Chiff and Fipple — a whistle and flute haven
- Irish Flute Tunes — Michael Clarkson’s website
- A Guide to the Irish Flute — you know what this is
- FullBodyBurn — an interesting whistle site, lots of info
- Tin Whistle Tunes — Tony Higgins and friends play many tunes
- Penny Whistle Press — Bill Ochs’ website
- The Errant Elbow — An Uilleann pipe blog by Harry Bradley
- Fiddle On Magazine — an online fiddle magazine from England
- Donegal Fiddle — a place to learn about Donegal style fiddle
- Irish Tenor Banjo — a site for . . . well, guess
- Banjo Hangout — all kinds of banjo stuff
- Irish Bouzouki — Jean Banwarth’s zouk page
- Guitarists Network — THE Guitarists Network
- Hubbard Hall Tune Jam — chord charts for many tunes
- Cyberfret — free online guitar lessons
- Bodojo — a bodhrán site
- Goatbeaters — another bodhrán site
- Session Sites
- TradConnect — a list of sessions all over North America
- Irish Arts Academy — Indianapolis slow session, with recordings
- Charlotte Folk Society Slow Sessions — in Charlotte NC, with dots
- Six Water Grog — a slow session in Ashland, VA, mostly Americana, but they have recordings
- McDonnell’s Slow Session — a slow session is Melbourne, Australia
- Center for Irish Music — in St. Paul, MN, with session info
- Riley School of Irish Music — in Cincinnati, OH
- La Musique Irlandaise en Bretagne — Irish Music in Brittany
- Paris Slow Session — Irish slow session in Paris, France
- The Old School Sessions — a session site in Sturminster Marshall, Wimborne, England
- Books
- Field Guide to Irish Sessions — Barry Foy’s book, excellent!
- Companion to Irish Traditional Music — Fintan Vallely’s book, excellent!
- Practice
- Good Ear — Free Online Ear Training (great idea, but not working)
- Musical Memory — an online book focused on developing your tune memory
- Programs
- Tunepal — a program that identifies tunes as they’re being played
- Music Theory
- Dr. Blood’s Music Theory — a music theory website
- Music Theory dot net — a music theory website with quizzes, and an app
- Music Theory — 46 free lessons. What else would you be doing?
Youtube – there is a considerable amount of material on youtube, but it is of widely varying quality. Some people are seasoned players, some seem to have just picked up an instrument the day before yesterday. As it’s important to start off right – as Plato was fond of saying “well begun is half done” – you should focus on the way the better players play the music. Please ask if you are unsure, as it can save you months or even years of frustration.
ABC Tools and Tune Archives
ABC is a music file format designed by Chris Walshaw for writing tunes in an intuitive, portable way, useful for sending tunes via e-mail or text, for putting tune books together, for typesetting tunes, and for comparing versions of tunes. There are a number of different software packages (almost all freeware) available for handling ABC files on various platforms. Instead of dots on a staff, the tunes are written as letters (but can be easily turned into dots n’ sticks on a staff). Additional notation determines the length of the notes and other features. It takes just a little getting used to, but those who can read ABC can do so as fast as those who read dots. The tune archives offer tunes collected from a wide variety of sources, from traditional players, local sources, tune books, other internet sites, defunct session archives, and more. As with all ITM, the arrangements and settings will sometimes differ. That’s a good thing.
- ABC Primers
- The ABC Home Page — the place to learn about ABC format
- John Chambers’s ABC Primer — the place to learn about ABC format
- The Le Session Page — Steve Mansfield’s tutorial and tune collection
- ABC Programs
- ABCMUS — a tunebook program by Henrik Norbeck
- ABCNavigator — a program for writing, playing, editing and organizing tunes
- Online Transposer — Jens Wollschläger’s online ABC-Transposer
- ABCEditor — Elizabeth Scarlett’s free ABC editor, appropriately named.
- ABC Tune Archives
- The Session — a site to find traditional Irish music tunes (ABC and dots)
- Ceolas — a wide-ranging resource page started in 1994
- JC’s ABC Tune Finder — John Chamber’s web site for finding tunes
- Over 2000 Tunes — tunes transcribed by Henrik Norbeck
- Traditional Tune Archive — ye olde Fiddler’s Companion
- Le Session — tune collection from England (the old Le Grand Session de Manchester)
- Cranford Tune Archive — a collection from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
Some other Information:
Cruinneachadh na nGaedheal (The Gathering of the Gaels) – This site has been taken down. It was a for a Gaelic historical reenactment group working at Renaissance Faires, Celtic Festivals, and Highland Games. They specialized in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands of the 15th and 16th centuries. There is a lot of cool information about costumes and language here, but it seems to have been defunct since around 2007.
Irish Language Sites
- Focal an Lae
- Beginner’s Guide (Standing Stones)
2 Comments
Thanks. I’ve made the change.
Hi. I thought I’d let you know that the Vashon Celtic Players site has moved. It’s now
http://www.vashonceltictunes.net/irish/
Thanks for the link!
Steve