> I have name of an "Irish" tune (jig, reel, hornpipe ...) how can > I research its history ? Are there any web sites out there that > enable me to look up the history of a tune ? Books ? Very often > a tune can be known by more than one name. How can I find these out ?
There is an IRTRAD-L list for discussions of Irish music where there are people who can answer that. VERY high-volume, though; far more than I want to cope with. If there's a Scottish version of your tune, and it's not from the last few decades, it will probably be in Charles Gore's "Scottish Fiddle Music Index" and if there's an English one from before 1800ish it'll be in the National Tune Index (huge microfiche set). Both of these use coding schemes so you can look a tune up from the way it starts to find alternative names. You can find them in large libraries; Gore's book is in paperback and not very expensive, the NTI costs an arm and a leg. Breandan Breathnach, the Irish collector/musicologist, was one of the pioneers of tune theme-coding, but I don't think there's a large theme- coded index of Irish music available anywhere. Alois Fleischmann's huge two-volume "Sources of Irish Traditional Music" has pretty much the whole older Irish repertoire in it, printed beautifully, and traces it all back to wherever it came from, but his history can get *very* wonky once the trail leaves Ireland - i.e. you can mostly believe him on the publication dates but never on the historical meaning. : there's a "tradtunes" list that is a better place for discussing : tunes, research, and such. It's at : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tradtunes/ and which, being Yahoo, will get you inundated with spam, rendering your email address totally unusable. There is no way I will ever subscribe to that list as long it's hosted where it is. Meanwhile, how about posting the name and ABC of your tune right here? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland tel 0131 660 4760 * fax 0870 055 4975 * http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ food intolerance data & recipes, freeware Mac logic fonts, and Scottish music To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
