Tip for finding sheet music

[Celtic-Grass]

Don't know if this is common knowledge but it always seems new to most of the people I play with at sessions... I discovered an easy way to find sheet music for just about any Irish tune, and some old tyme as well using Google. Just type in the name of the tune and click on "image" search. A .GIF or .JPG of the sheet music is bound to come up in the first couple of rows of thumbnails. It's a lot easier than plowing through the set lists on the session websites...
I made my whole big, fat, Celtic book this way.

[Steve L]

I didn't know and I just got a copy of the Gaspe Reel doing that. Thanks for the tip!

[Bren]

using .pdf in the web search is another thing you can do.
Then you go looking for the YouTube video of someone playing it.

[Martin Jonas]

Actually, by far the easiest way of finding just about any session tune is to go to ABC Tunefinder. It searches a large number of ABC tune collections and presents the results either in ABC format or in standard notation as image file or, in higher quality, as a PDF file. There are very very few tunes that don't get a hit, usually in several alternative version.

Martin

[Celtic-Grass]

I've always shied away from ABC's (My kindergarten teacher was a tyrant)
but I'll check that out.

[jmcgann]

Reading is great.

But...

learning by ear is essential for Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk and most other kinds of music, though.

The ear is so key and as time goes by, with easy access to ABCs etc. I feel ear skills can lose their critical development. Just a friendly reminder from your pro-reading pro-ear pal

[Fred G]

thanks Martin, that works great!