Irish traditional music, and to a lesser extent the traditional music
of the rest of the Celtic lands and Britain, is an important part of
our daily lives - it keeps us going, picks us up when we're down, and
urges us to dance (metaphorically, anyway) for joy.
Song Resources - [Les says] As
a singer, I'm always on the lookout for a new and interesting song, or
for the lyrics to a song I heard in passing during a session.
- CDs - CDs are still a
great resource for getting good tunes and songs (and good recordings
that invite you to listen over and over...) I almost always buy CDs
when they're available, because CDs still come with something that MP3
downloads rarely have: the liner notes. Not only do the liner notes
often contain lyrics, but they also usually have a history of each song
(or tune), including any copyright information! If you're fortunate
enough to have artists come through your area, I recommend buying the
CDs directly from them as they usually get more profit that way.
- The Digital Tradition - Mudcat
Cafe's Digital Tradition lyrics archives and forums are a treasure
trove of traditional songs. The forums are especially useful for
dredging up the history of a song or alternate versions of lyrics and
melodies. Some of the lyrics in the archive have associated MIDI files
that provide a rough base for the melody, though I highly recommend
finding a good recording rather than relying on the MIDI whenever
possible.
- The Celtic Lyrics Corner - This
site focuses more narrowly (though not exclusively) on songs from
Scotland and Ireland coming from recorded albums. It has an extensive Puirt
à
Beul ("mouth music") collection and a good selection of lyrics
in Irish and Scots Gaelic, including many good translations.
- Books - There are a
number of good books out there with collections of songs. The Child
Ballads are perhaps the most famous collection of traditional songs,
and there are several versions available in print; I use "The
Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads", which includes melodies. Along
those lines I also have a small collection from Cecil Sharpe and a much
larger tome by Peter Kennedy - "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland" -
which includes small sections of lyrics in several Celtic languages.
For printed lyrics in Irish I recommend the two small collections
titled "Ceolta Gael" and "Ceolta Gael 2".
Tune Resources - There's really
no substitute in Irish music for learining tunes (or songs, for that
matter) by ear from other players. Dots (i.e. sheet music) and ABC
notation at best provide the base pattern for a tune. At their worst,
they can mislead you with wrong notes or a version of the tune that
conflicts with the version played in your area. Recordings by popular
bands often contain arranged versions of tunes that might or might not
correspond to something played in a session. If you use anything other
than other players when learning tunes, use them as backup resources
only whenever possible. Ranting lecture out of the way, the
above-listed dots and ABCs are out there and can prove useful on
occasion.
- Tunepal - Tunepal is
probably the best overall electronic resource for a traditional player.
Available as an app for your smartphone (and also available via your
PC), Tunepal listens to a tune being played in the background and
identifies it for you based on its archives of O'Neill's,
TheSession.org, and other sources. It can also search by tune name,
keep track of tune lists for you (including location of where it was
heard if you want), and has a MIDI player that's useful if you don't
understand the dots or ABCs well enough to know if it identified the
right tune!
- TheSession.org - The
Session is a community-supported archive of tunes input in ABC
notation. It can show tunes in ABC or dot notation, and has attached
forums for discussion on tunes. There are a few problems with the
site's concept of tune data - mostly that the first person to enter a
tune gets to define the "authoritative" version of that tune as shown
in the search results; if that person enters a non-standard or just
plain poor setting of a tune, the only correction provided is in the
commentary on the tune's forum entry - so compare the notes against
what you know and don't be afraid to search the forums for better
settings.
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