Sheet music resources

[cleichthammer]

Hi. New member, first post. I just ordered my Eastman MD304 from Folkmusician and can't wait to get started. I am coming from a violin background so I read music. Tabs are like heiroglyphics to me. I have "The Fiddlers Fakebook" but was wondering if you good people may be able to point me towards some other resources with standard notation. I think I will be more of an Old Time/Irish player more than Bluegrass...or at least thats where I want to start out. Thanks in advance.

[Charlieshafer]

Best bet is the Session. Here's the url: https://thesession.org

It will keep you busy for months. For old-time stuff, there are a few sites, my most-relied upon is: um.. that's a problem, I deleted my bookmark. Anyway, for Scots stuff, I go to the source for all things Skinner:

James Scott Skinner (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/scottskinner/)

Let me dig for the deleted bookmark and get back to you!!

[Charlieshafer]

Old-time places I haunt:

My best investment for the fiddle club was the Milliner-Koken book, which is indeed $99, but has all the obscure stiff that Walt and Clare accumulated through the years. From Mudthumper (http://www.mudthumper.com/fiddletunesbook.html)

For on line, I'll use this (links to sheet music at the bottom under "newest tunes", among other paces: Tater Jones (http://www.taterjoes.com/fiddle/index.html)

And from the U.K., Traditional Music (http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/old-time-music/idxv11s.htm)

That'll keep you busy, even though with a little searching you'll find much more.. as in more than you really want.

[Pittsburgh Bill]

I often use guitar books as they are readily available for almost any genre of music. I also go online for music notes. You can sometimes order the music in a key of your choice.
I never heard anyone say tab is like hieroglyphics, but I feel your pain. I can't imagine how anyone could sight read tab and I lack the patience to try, but there are remarkable talents out there that probably can.

[foldedpath]

That site Charlie mentioned: thesession.org, is an absolute gold mine for Irish trad sheet music. However, it's best used for looking up settings and sheet music for tunes you already know the name of, rather than casual browsing. There are thousands of tunes in the database.

You might want to check out "Dow's 50 (actually 60) Essential Tunes (http://www.cheakamus.com/Ceilidh/Downloads/Dows_List.pdf)" (pdf link), a list of some of the more popular tunes that show up in Irish sessions, organized by tune type, and with sheet music for every tune.

For OldTime, check out the Portland Collection (https://www.theportlandcollection.com/), starting with Vol.1. This was originally a contradance tune collection project, but I hear many of these tunes in local OldTime jams.

Between Dow's 50 and the Portland Collection, you'd have a ton of good sheet music to get started with.

[HonketyHank]

I'll second the motion regarding thesession.org. The tunes there have either standard notation to be printed (but not downloaded), or downloadable midi and ABC files.

You might want to check into the free tab file reader available from TablEdit even though you don't need tabs. It can take ABC files as input and give you standard notation or tabs. TablEdit format tab files are pretty much ubiquitous, so I think you will find it to open up a lot more resources for tunes, too. If you want to edit, there is a full version of TablEdit for a reasonable cost (I think $60 US).

There are also quite a few free ABC readers and editors that will give you standard notation from ABC files.

I use TablEdit a lot and I am quite happy with it. I also have EasyABC - it is good, but TablEdit does most of what I need to do with ABC's plus all I need with tabs.

You can find a lot of fiddle tunes written out in std and tab in pdf format at mandolessons.com. The advantage there is that Baron has accompanying videos with lessons on each. He's a good teacher.

Mandozine.com has a lot of tab files (as does mandolincafe.com). There a lot more resources out there on the web. Have fun.

[cleichthammer]

Thank you so much everyone. Awesome info!

[Phil Vinyard]

I am a former 'cellist and read music. And, like you, thoroughly dislike tab. Mandozine is still my favorite link for sheet music. Here is the direct link: http://mandozine.com/music/tabledit_search.php

The best part--these download in Tabledit format. You can get the free TEFview program to open and format the files, and you can tell it to not print the tab and just print the notation. Works great. But if you are a trained musician, you're going to want to make changes to the tunes and you need the full version of Tabledit. Get it! It's not that expensive and well worth it. I have Finale but Tabledit it still my go to for mando music editing.

Andy Boden also has some terrific things: http://www.andyboden.com/music.html
Check out John Goodin: https://somanytunes.blogspot.com/

There's a lot out there! Keep digging!

[Peter Coronado]

Here's one of my favorites: http://www.braccio.me/session/KingStreetTunebook.pdf

[Simon DS]

There are lots of resources on the internet, especially for standard notation but it's difficult to actually 'get' them, and you can spend a lot of time searching while not much time playing music. One way to manage this is to find tunes, mainly .ABC files by theme, region, the pub you go to, or the people you know, and 'Song of the week' which even come with videos here on Mandolincafe. This narrows the number down so that you can actually play them in sets. One thing you could do is go to thesession.org and search by person. Each person has a tunebook (in /tunebook/settings) that you can download complete. This way you could maybe get the tune versions that certain people from certain places like.
could also try: http://www.biteyourownelbow.com/webtunes.htm Good luck.

[cleichthammer]

So much good info! Really appreciate it!

[jeho2a]

For Irish music, I recommend Henrik Norbeck's website (http://norbeck.nu/abc/). As the work of one person, it's more curated than thesession, and has good and well regarded basic settings of a lot of tunes. He's also put together a top 40 session tunes (http://norbeck.nu/abc/TopSessionTunes1.pdf) that looks good. Thesession is good as well, especially for finding different settings of tunes of interest and discussion thereof.

There's lots of Swedish music on Norbeck's website too.

[Polecat]

http://www.celticscores.com/ - Scottish, Irish, Breton and a whole lot more.
http://www.folkloretanznoten.de/ - the site is mainly in german, but has a wide range of truly international folk music; where else can you find Vlah folk tunes? (presuming you know who the Vlah are - I don't)
http://www.heallan.com/freedownloads.asp - the download area of the Highland Music Trust, a fantastic resource if you're looking for "Scottish Baroque" (Neil Gow and the like)
And my favorite, http://www.folktunefinder.com/ - you can type in the first few notes of a tune you're looking for, or just something at random, and it trawls all the abc sites on the internet, converting them to standard notation. I've wasted hours on this site, but also discovered some gems which I would never have found any other way.

[Jim Garber]

I found this Irish tune book to be excellent. It is over 500 pages. I actually had it printed and spiral bound at my local Kinko's tho I had to separate it into two books. I use it all the time. Kingston Book (http://www.braccio.me/session/Kingston_Irish_Tunebook_Rev_1.0.pdf).

There is also Ryan's Mammoth Collection from 1883 of close to 300 pages: Ryan's Mammoth Collection (http://violinsheetmusic.org/files/download/collections/ryans-mammoth-collection.pdf)

For more southern old time tunes try this site: Lamancusa Old Time Tunes (http://www.mne.psu.edu/lamancusa/tunes.html).

[JeffD]

This is something I put together a while ago.


OK, the must haves (essential). These three are the core of any collection, IMO. They will provide you with a solid foundation of the fiddle tune repertoire. .

General tune books

Fiddlers Fakebook
Portland Collection (volumes 1).
The Waltz Book (volume 1) editor Bill Matthiesen

Bluegrass Picker's Tune Book editor Richard Matteson Jr. (Other more hardcore bluegrassers might have a better recommendation than this book.)

Whatever local collection of tunes your musical community has compiled. They used to be xeroxxed sheets, but now they may be PDF files on the web. This is a key thing to try and find.


Important to have, this will complete your collection, and would be most of everything you probably would ever really need:

General tune books

Portland Collection (volume 2)
The Phillips Collection of Traditional American Fiddle Tunes (volumes 1 and 2)
Ryan's Mammoth Collection (editor Patrick Sky)
Waltz Book (volume 2 and 3)
Traditional Dance music of Britain and Ireland The Fiddler's Tune-Book (editor Pete Kennedy) (volume 1tan colored)

Irish tunes

Irish Traditional Fiddle Music (editors Miller and Perron)
O'Neills Music of Ireland

New England fiddle tunes

The Fiddler's Throne (editor Randy Miller)
New England Fiddler's Repertoire (also Randy Miller)

Canadian

The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island (editor Ken Perlman)
The Cape Breton Fiddlers Collection (editor Paul Cranford)


Nice to have, these are non-essential but fantastic tune collections to amuse an delight you for hours:

General

Traditional Dance music of Britain and Ireland The Fiddler's Tune-Book (editor Pete Kennedy) (volume 2through 5, orange, blue, green. and pink)


Irish tune books

Irish Session Tunes (Ceolta Seisiuin na hEireann) (orange book and blue book)
Fionn Seissiun (volumes 1, 2, & 3)

Scottish fiddle tunes

The Fiddle Music of the Scottish Highlands Ceol Na Fidhle (volumes 1 though 6)
William Marshall's Scottish Melodies (edited by Randy Miller)

I would add the fourth Waltz Book and the third Portland Collection, which came out subsequent to my list.