Who can I thank for the O'Carolan Project?

[dcuttler]

I have downloaded the tunes from the O'Carolan Project, and as a beginner have found playing them a real enjoyment. Who do I thank for making them available?

[Zardoz]

I was hoping someone would reply to your question. I asked in a previous post about the music notation for some of the tunes being misaligned when printed and wanted to see if whoever put them on paper could correct that (or tell me how to). Did you notice that or are you using the tabs? They seem to be correct. I like them a lot as well, a nice change from bluegrass and a nice mix of single line and chord melody arrangements.

[mandrian]

Hi,

I believe it to be the work of Scott Tichenor, our site owner and host. We have much to thank him for. As a Carolan fan and player, I also enjoy his Carolan videos on YouTube.

Regards,

[Denis Kearns]

I agree! The O’Carolan resource is so very nice. I’m a big fan of his tunes and working on new ones all the time. Eventually, I may even learn to play one on the harp in my living room (an impulse buy after an excellent concert!).

The learning/lessons section is just annother example of the incredible value of the Cafe!

[mandolin breeze]

Nice set of songs and enjoying taking a stab at a few. Is there software that will take sheet music like this and produce a midi file or similar. Would be nice to hear a song as it's written and would make learning much easier and more accurate.

[dcuttler]

Nice set songs and enjoying taking a stab at a few. Is there software that will take sheet music like this and produce a midi file or similar. Would be nice to hear a song as it's written and would make learning much easier and more accurate.

If a person is relying mostly on tabs, midi might be a big help, but in my case coming from classical guitar and able to read standard notation I found it easier to get the timing correct, but being new to mandolin, I am still trying to find my way around the finger board, and have a long way to go. Big fingers don't help either.

If you have Spotify or similar, you can listen to all kinds of Renaissance, and Baroque music played by other instruments, and will find that just as in today's music there are certain patterns that keep reappearing.

[mandolin breeze]

I'm not so much focused on tab or standard, but since we live in the age of software / apps, was wondering what might be out there that would accomplish the task. I know of TablEdit, but not familiar with all it's capabilities. If you could scan sheet music (O'Carolan Project for instance) into a program and have it return a midi file, that would be a great learning aid - and esp so for any genre that we don't often play.

[Don Grieser]

Here's a bunch of O'Carolan tunes in abc with sheet music and midi files. http://www.oldmusicproject.com/occ/tunes.html

[Joseph Baker]

Thank you for this thread !
I love O'Carolan music. I did not know about the O'Carolan Project on the Mandolin Cafe. What a wonderful resource!
I use the same site as Mr. Grieser for my source of O'Carolan sheet music.

Joseph Baker

[Mandolin Cafe]

Saw this initial post awhile back and never got around to replying. Thanks for the comments. Guessing most people on this site don't know this exists (or care, lol...), so here's the link for anyone reading that doesn't: The O'Carolan Project. As it says on that page, I had been into this music well before the web took hold, and that page hadn't been updated since 2015, so really, about 40 years of dabbling in this music from time to time (made that edit). Some of the creation dates on those files are as early as 2009 when I started entering them into the Finale music editing program, which I no longer have installed. The original intent was to teach some classes locally and then author a book for Mel Bay on O'Carolan's music that included 50 of my arrangements. That never happened and for reasons I won't need to go into, I don't regret that decision.

This collection is simply a culmination of lots of personal arrangements of that music as I wanted to play it, crafted over time, and musicians coming to my gigs back then kept asking for arrangements. I don't claim to be any kind of authority on Carolan's music, just a long-time participant in the music and serious student of everything in the Donal O'Sullivan book. Shortly after I entered self-employment January 1, 2010 (running this site) I taught a series of 8-week classes on this music and had around 25 people per class I recall. Creating these served a dual purpose. I added the original cover of the book below.

I had somewhat forgotten about these files after creating that page. Going back a week ago I discovered there were another 18 arrangements not listed on that page, which I've yet to see, because I no longer have Finale. Being curious, I asked someone I consider the very best in the mandolin transcribing business to take a look at all of these, edit the layout, clean up the look, etc. (someone who has the highest level of Finale chops), and to make new PDFs and Midi files for eventual presentation on that page. And yes, I'll pay them well, as I do anyone that works for this site. So, if and when this is completed and those additional tunes are actual arrangements I can bear to play, there will be 42 tunes instead of 24, including a Carolan inspired compositiion I created with my wife in mind. But when this gets done I can't promise. When it is and I've updated that page I'll make sure it's known.

For anyone wondering, I rarely play this music these days, but still can, and these arrangements are always there when I decide to. My head is currently occupied by a gypsy jazz band and one I consider the group I've wanted to play in my entire life. But that O'Sullivan book, that's something. A very deep well, highly recommended.

[dcuttler]

Thanks Scott for the arrangements, I have found many of your arrangements to be fun for me as a new mandolin player.

Regards - David Cuttler