Most played Celtic fiddle tunes?

May 3, 2012 at 07:56 PM · According to www.thesession.org, the most popular dozen Irish session fiddle tunes, on a global basis, are:

Drowsy Maggie

The Kesh

The Butterfly

Cooley's

Morrison's

The Silver Spear

The Maid Behind The Bar

The Banshee

Banish Misfortune

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Out On The Ocean

The Connaughtman's Rambles

If you join thesession.org , a process which is free and virtually instantaneous, you'll be able to download the sheetmusic of the above tunes, and about 10,000 others (literally!)

May 3, 2012 at 08:47 PM · Lark in the Morning

Merrily Kiss the Quaker

Merry Blacksmith

Tipping Up the Stairs

Balleydesmond Polkas

Musical Priest

Butterfly

May 3, 2012 at 08:52 PM · My Darling Asleep

Cliffs of Moher

Kid on the Mountain

Julia Delaney

Health to the Ladies

The Scholar

I'll keep adding if I think of some.

May 4, 2012 at 01:36 AM · Here's a list of some common Scottish tunes:

40CommonScottishTunes

May 4, 2012 at 02:04 AM · Thanks all! Happily I started on Lark in the Morning already. One down, many more to go!

May 4, 2012 at 12:08 PM · We've attended sessions all over the US and Ireland and find that different tunes are played at different sessions. Each session seems to have its own basic repertoire of tunes/sets they regularly play with some variety added in here and there each week.

If you have a session you plan to attend regularly, I would recommend asking the session leader or one of the regulars for suggestions on tunes to learn so you are able to participate as much as possible.

Oh, yes. I have learned they are "tunes" unless you are singing them...then they are songs.

May 4, 2012 at 10:30 PM · Well, learning the standards listed above is worthwhile, but you'll find that in many sessions they aren't played all that much. They're great tunes sure enough, but they've been done to death so more sophisticated players will often avoid them.

In my own area there's a player who rolls his eyes and puts down his instrument if anyone plays the Balleydesmond Polkas! The local hard-core Irish session plays few, if any of these.

As Donna says, there's considerable variation of repertoire from session to session. You just have to go along and get your feet wet. Most sessions would be happy to let you record, and give you some of the tune names if you ask politely. And before you go, you can always work up a couple of sets you can lead so there's at least something you can play with them.

But most experienced traditional players will know some hundreds of tunes and roll them out at the mood takes them, so there's no real shortcut. The long-term answer is to learn to pick tunes up by ear, in real-time.

This is a skill you can pick up like any other - it's not as hard as it seems. When I started out with sessions a few years ago I could hardly pick up a note. These days I can have a pretty good go at anything short of the trickiest fast reels. These are sessions, not performances, so it's fine to skip notes etc, so long as you're not playing out of tempo or out of tune.

A local band recently sent me a list of 100 tunes so I could sit in as an occasional. I wan't going to bother, but to my surprise I found I already know most of them. Just sitting in with good musicians and giving it a go is much the best way to pick up new tunes, I feel. And if a really difficult one catches your fancy, someone will usually email you the dots to practice, as happened to me just yesterday.

You'll find that most sessions are very welcoming to newbies, and will go out of their way to offer help and support. After all, this is how the tradition is sustained!

May 7, 2012 at 12:25 PM · Here's more standards. You can easily join in almost anywhere, though sessions may or may not play them regularly. Irish music is beautiful, and I find it a joy to just pick up the violin and play without sheet music.

Fermoy Lasses

Dick Gossips

Swallowtail Jig

Humors of Tulla

Father O'Flynn

Blarney Pilgrim

Donnybrook Fair

Golden Keyboard

Boy's of Bluehill

Jig of Slurs

Last Night's Fun

Toss the Feathers

Moon Coin Jig

Mist Covered Mountain

Old Favorite

May 7, 2012 at 03:28 PM · By the way, if you search for "irish session tunes" and "scottish session tunes" on Amazon you'll find a wide selection of "greatest hits" type collections.

But if your background is mainly classical be wary of learning from the dots without a lot of listening to real traditional fiddlers - you have to pick up on the radically different phrasing!