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ccravens
Mar-07-2015, 1:49pm
Does anyone have any O'Carolan books (mandolin preferred) they could recommend?

I have learned one of his songs and would love to learn more.

Thanks in advance!

:)

derbex
Mar-07-2015, 2:19pm
Deborah Greeblatt has O'Carolan for two mandolins (http://www.greenblattandseay.com/book_42_ocarolan.shtml)

Allan Alexander has Celtic Mandolin (http://www.mandolinandguitar.com/celtic_mandolin.html)with many O'Carolan tunes in it.

Or get the list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_O%27Carolan#Compositions) off wikipedia and look the tunes up on thesession.org (https://thesession.org/search?where=&q=carolan) for free.

Caleb
Mar-07-2015, 5:27pm
I'll second Alexander's Celtic Music for Mandolin. Probably over a dozen O'Carolan tunes. It's my favorite tune book and I play from it daily.

Spencer
Mar-07-2015, 6:33pm
I bought O'Neill's music of Ireland a long time ago, it has a lot of O'Carolan compositions. Mel Bay sells it now: http://www.melbay.com/Products/96322/oneills-music-of-ireland.aspx There is a table of contents on the site.

Minus: It is intended for violin, and is in standard notation
Plus: There are scores of other good Irish tunes.

Spencer

Jacob
Mar-07-2015, 7:24pm
The Complete Music of Turlough O'Carolan (http://www.oldmusicproject.com/occ/tunes.html) - free in sheet music - NWC - ABC - Midi formats

fatt-dad
Mar-07-2015, 8:00pm
yes, the, "Complete" link above is a great resource. I've recently learned a few of these - just great tunes!

f-d

Tobin
Mar-09-2015, 8:33am
Deborah Greeblatt has O'Carolan for two mandolins (http://www.greenblattandseay.com/book_42_ocarolan.shtml)

This looks interesting, but they don't offer much in the way of description. Can you tell me how these tunes are arranged in the book? Are they written as melody-harmony duets?

JeffD
Mar-09-2015, 9:36am
I bought O'Neill's music of Ireland a long time ago, it has a lot of O'Carolan compositions. Mel Bay sells it now: http://www.melbay.com/Products/96322/oneills-music-of-ireland.aspx There is a table of contents on the site.

Minus: It is intended for violin, and is in standard notation
Plus: There are scores of other good Irish tunes.

Spencer

That is my goto source for O'Carolan. Lots of great stuff, and the versions are generally standard.

The rest of the book is a treasure trove of Irish music, with a fascinating history (for another thread).

avaldes
Mar-09-2015, 9:44am
This arrangement of "Si Beag, Si Mohr" (spellings vary) is by Mark Robertson Tessi, who is on the forum, I believe. The youtube is my interpretation.

http://youtu.be/DH785K9r2YI

fiddleboat
Mar-09-2015, 10:02am
I have Greenblatt's O'Carolan for 2 violins - it has melody on top line, and a basic harmony line below - so yes, works for a duet. Since I'm not really saying anything that's not in the description already, let me know if you have a specific question about it. Not sure how the mandolin version would differ...?

Here's another tunebook in standard notation - http://www.kitchenmusician.net/books/km3.html

Martin Jonas
Mar-09-2015, 10:21am
As Jacob has posted, the melodies of all Carolan tunes are online -- no need for a book. If you need mandolin tab, you can import the ABC into TablEdit or similar editors. However, keep in mind that there are two main sources of Carolan tunes: O'Neill and O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan is more recent and much more extensive, but the older O'Neill collection has dozens of tunes attributed to Carolan that O'Sullivan has left out (presumably on the grounds that he doubted the attribution). Of the tune names that appear in both collections, there are often considerable differences. To be honest, although O'Sullivan is probably more scholarly, usually the O'Neill versions are more playable.

Both collections are available complete at the same site posted by Jacob:

O'Sullivan (http://www.oldmusicproject.com/occ/tunes.html)
O'Neill (http://www.oldmusicproject.com/OneilsOcarolans.html)

As far as arrangements are concerned, there are a great many different online sources for various Carolan tunes, most with just added chord symbols but a fair few also with more or less elaborate harmonies or countermelodies.

Probably the best single source for mandolin arrangements of Carolan tunes is the Cafe's own "Song-A-Week" social group (Link (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?groupid=67)), where you'll find mandolin recordings of many dozens of Carolan tunes, usually in multiple versions by different group members and often with links to the arrangements used for each recording. David Hansen is the most prolific champion of Carolan in the group, and I've also recorded a fair number of his tunes (search for "Carolan" in my Youtube channel).

Martin