The Music Page

Here we have a collection of lead sheets and some pointers to resource materials including tunebooks, chord charts, and tutorials.

The lead sheets are in PDF format for your ultimate printing pleasure. Just download and print. They are in a variety of styles, some are just fresh from the web, others I have reformatted. I usually use them just long enough to learn the song, and afterwards only as a reminder of the lyrics. Note - I don't always play the songs in the same key as the lead sheet, and there's no reason you should, either.

I have also included some tunebooks and music that I have found on the web, which may be of interest to other fiddlers. I expect I will eventually try to add the tunes from Ceol Rince na hEireann, the collection of Irish dance tunes that's more recent than O'Neill's. The tunes are available on the net in ABC notation, and can easily be converted to postscript with the abcm2ps program (free, on the net). Enjoy!

In addition to these, the web has a pretty good collection of O'Carolan's music in ABC and MIDI format. In time I might put them up, as well.

Other Resources

Fiddle Resources

• Cole's One Thousand Fiddle Tunes (unfortunately, it's out of print, and the odd copies I found on Amazon are quite costly, but it's almost worth it.)
• Ryan's Mammoth Collection of 1050 Reels and Jigs, Hornpipes, Clogs Walk-arounds, Essences, Strathspeys, Highland Flings and Contra Dances, with Figures, and How To Play Them. This is the original source for Cole's Thousand Fiddle Tunes, and is available from Mel Bay publishing. I got mine from Amazon.com at a nice discount from the list price. Heartily recommended.
• The Fiddler's Fakebook Not as comprehensive as Cole's, nor as accurate, but it includes a lot of American, Irish, Scottish, and Shetland Island tunes not found elsewhere.
• The Phillips Collection of Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Volume 1, containing Hoedowns, Breakdowns, and Reels. 720 tunes transcribed from players in the latter half of the twentieth century. Originally issued in two volumes, the contents of what was Volume Two have been reissued by Mel Bay in several volumes, including Rags. Blues, Listening Pieces, etc.; Hornpipes; Waltzes; Jigs & Polkas. All are available from Amazon.com at a nice discount off the list price. The engravers used the ugliest slur marks I've ever seen, but after a while you can get used to them. The tunes make it all worthwhile. This book contains tunes you won't find anywhere else. Strongly recommended.
• O'Neills Music of Ireland Eighteen Hundred and Fifty Melodies, including Airs, Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, Long Dances, Marches Etc. Best source I know of for Irish airs, with 625 of them; along with 75 of O'Carolan's compositions. Well worth owning.
• O'Neills Dance Music of Ireland Some duplication with the above, but a good one to add to your collection.
• Mel Bay's Complete Irish Fiddle Player This one is really good, with lots of tips on bowing technique and ornamentation.
• Petrie's Complete Irish Music. 1,582 traditional melodies edited by George Petrie. Petrie began collecting Irish tunes as early as 1807, and amassed a huge manuscript collection, which was finally published in 1903. This Dover edition contains the full 1903 contents of the three-volume set published originally between 1902 and 1905. The tunes are quite comprehensive, suffering only from Petrie's tendency to prefer flat keys. Petrie apparently valued singers more highly than instrumentalists as his sources, which may explain the odd key signatures. The collection contains all manner of airs and dances. It's a great repository of tunes, but to play them well will require a sound grounding in Irish Tradional musical styles and idioms, and a great deal of transposing (I just found a tune in the key of Gb (six flats!). Again, available from Amazon at a good price.

Guitar Resources

• The Bluegrass Fakebook Words and music for about 150 bluegrass classics, including about 50 gospel songs.
• Rise Up Singing Great songbook, with lyrics and chords for about 1200 folkish songs.

Banjo Resources

• The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo by Patrick Costello. A good introduction to playing banjo in clawhammer style.
• Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo The classic guide to Scruggs-style picking. An excellent resource.
• The Complete 5-String Banjo Player by Tony Trischka. Published in October, 2007, this looks like a worthy complement to the Scruggs manual listed above. Recommended.