laherty rish usic outh amp iftyix elightful unes 2008-2012 laherty rish usic outh amp iftyix elightful unes 2008 2012 The O'Flaherty Irish Music Youth Camp is held in Dallas, Texas each July. In its fifth year in 2012, the camp hosts 80 to 90 young people from Texas and surrounding states for two days of classes in playing Irish music on traditional instruments. There are also sessions, concerts, Irish social dance classes, and other fun activities which give the students a chance to learn more about the cultural background of this terrific music! For more information about the camp, please visit our website at www.irishmusicyouthcamp.org . Table of Contents Page Tune and Key Tune Type Page Tune and Key Tune Type -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Alexander's Hornpipe (D) Hornpipe 28 Humours of Tulla, The (D) Reel 8 Anything for John Joe? (D) Reel 29 Hundred Pipers (A) Jig 8 Art O'Keefe's Polka (A) Polka 29 Inisheer (G) Air 9 Barney Brallaghan's (D) Slip Jig 30 Jessica's Polka (A) Polka 10 Blacksmith's Daughter (G) Reel 30 John McHugh's Jig (G) Jig 11 Blind Mary (D) Air 31 Kerry Polka (D) Polka 12 Blue Ocean, The (D) Polka 31-32 Kilglass Lakes, The (D) Jig 12-13 Boys of Ballysodare, The (G) Slip Jig 33 Leitrim Fancy (Em) Jig 14 Boys of Bluehill, The (D) Hornpipe 33 Lilting Banshee (A Dor) Jig 14 Britches Full of Stitches, The (A) Polka 34 Little Diamond (D) Polka 15 Brosna Slide (G) Slide 35 Lucy Farr's (G) Barndance 15 Chase Me Charlie (D) Single Jig 36 Maids of Mitchelstown (D Dor/E Dor) Slow Reel 16 Christmas Eve (G) Reel 37 Mick Duggan's Slide (A) Slide 17 Clare Jig (G) Jig 37 Off She Goes (D) Jig 17 Cuil Aodha Slide (D) Slide 38 Out on the Ocean (G) Jig 18 Dan O'Keefe's Slide (A Dor) Slide 38 Pa Paddy O'Sullivan's Polka (D) Polka 18-19 Dawning of the Day (D) Air 39 Planxty Fanny Power (G) Air 20 Denis Murphy's Slide (D) Slide 40 Rambling Pitchfork, The (D) Jig 20 Dinny O'Keefe's Slide (A Mix) Slide 40 Scattery Island (D) Slide 21 Doon Reel, The (D) Reel 41 Sheehan's (G) Reel 22 Far From Home (G) Reel 41 Sonny Broghan's Mazurka (D) Mazurka 23 Fig for a Kiss, A (E Dor) Slip Jig 42 Stack of Wheat, The (G) Hornpipe 23 Gallagher's Frolics (E Dor) Jig 43 Star of Munster, The (A Dor) Reel 24 Galtee Ranger, The (D) Reel 44 Sunny Banks, The (D) Reel 25 Genevieve's Waltz (A) Waltz 45 Taimse im' chodladh (D) Air 26 Glountane Slide (D) Slide 45 Top of Maol, The (A Dor) Polka 27 Greencastle, The (D) Barndance 46 Trip to Durrow (D) Reel 28 Humours of Glendart, The (D) Jig 47 Walsh's Hornpipe (A) Hornpipe About This Book These tunes were recorded for CDs that were given to the students at the O'Flaherty Irish Music Youth Camp, held in Dallas each summer beginning in 2008. In 2012 we decided to put them all into one book for ease of reference. They are terrific tunes, and we hope you enjoy playing them! How to Find the Recordings that Go with this Book If you already own some of the CDs from the Youth Camp, you can look at the top left of each tune printed here, to find which year's CD that tune is from, and what track numbers that tune will be on the CD. If you don't have one or more of the CDs, you can download any of the tunes for free online. Go to this page: www.irishmusicyouthcamp.org/music/audio/ You can download the contents of an entire CD at once, or individual tunes. The tunes are grouped by the year they were released-- check the upper left hand corner of the sheet music for each tune to see which year's CD it was on. A Few Explanatory Notes If you're new to Irish music, please take a minute to read these comments before you start on the tunes! They will explain some things that might be confusing otherwise. First, I wanted to write a few notes about the notation of these tunes. There's no one "right way" for these tunes to go; the actual notes will vary from person to person, and even in one single person's playing as he changes the tune from one repeat to another. So what's written here is one way that you could play the tune. It's usually good to learn it just one way at first, and then you can start making small changes to it as you hear other people playing it and get some ideas for varying the tune. Sometimes what I have written here differs a little bit from how it's played on the accompanying recordings. A lot of these differences have to do with how the tune would have to be changed slightly to be played on different instruments. The flute often has to leave out notes in order to have time for a breath, so I have put some of those notes back in, for the benefit of others who don't have those constraints. Likewise, the fiddle often goes too low for the flute's range, so flutists have to make adjustments for that. If there are other differences between this sheet music and the recordings, feel free to choose the version you like best and learn it that way! I have included suggested bowings here for the benefit of fiddle players who are learning Irish bowing styles. Bowing is extremely important in getting the right sound in Irish music, so if you're new to Irish music, try out these slurring patterns so your right arm can get used to them. These are only an example, of course-- once you get the idea of what kind of slurs to use and where to put them, you can move them around and improvise as you like. The main thing is to vary what bowing you are using-- repeating the same pattern too much (like all separate or all slurred) sounds more like classical music than like Irish style. I should also say that there are differences in bowing style in different parts of Ireland, and among different players. In some of these tunes I wrote down a version of what our camp director, Gordon McLeod, played when he recorded the tune. In other tunes, I patterned the bowings on the bowing styles in Matt Cranitch's tutor The Irish Fiddle Book . Lastly, even though I've written this sheet music down for you, I want to encourage each of you to work on developing your skills of learning music by ear. Not only is that a very common learning method in Irish music, but there are many nuances of style that you can pick up when you learn music by ear, that you will miss if you only learn these tunes from a piece of paper. (The one exception to this is fiddle bowings, which are probably easier to learn when written down than trying to pick them up from a CD recording, at least at first.) So I'd encourage you to try learning at least one tune from the CD, without looking at the music. The best way to do this is to listen to the tune over and over (you can listen in the car or while you're doing chores), until you know the tune so well that you could whistle or sing it. Then try it on your instrument-- just hunt around until you find the first note, then play that one again and try to find the second one, etc. It helps if you think about whether the notes go up or down, and whether they sound like a scale pattern (every note in order) or whether there are notes skipped over. That will help you know in which direction to look, and how far away from the previous note you should look. If you get lost and can't remember where you are in the tune, just go back to the beginning and start over. If you get the notes in the first phrase, then repeat that a bunch of times till you have it down, so you don't forget it when you start on the second phrase. And just remember that Irish music tends to reuse phrases of music throughout the tune, so once you get one or two phrases, sometimes you know almost half the song already! So give it a try, and just keep working till you get it! Learning by ear isn't nearly as hard as it seems-- the first couple of songs you try might seem kind of difficult, but it just gets easier and easier to do. Above all, have fun with this music, and maybe we'll meet at a session sometime! Clare Cason Assistant Director, O'Flaherty Irish Music Youth Camp Great Starter Tunes for Beginning Fiddlers and Whistlers While most of the tunes in this book were chosen for accessibility and ease of learning, there are some that are particularly good tunes for those just starting out on the fiddle and whistle. I'll make a list of them here, from easier to harder. Learning these first would help you develop the technique to play all the rest of the tunes in the book! The Dawning of the Day 18-19 The Blue Ocean 12 Britches Full of Stitches 14 Out on the Ocean 38 Pa Paddy O'Sullivan's Polka 38 Lucy Farr's 35 Chase Me Charlie 15 Humours of Glendart 28 Kerry Polka 31 Leitrim Fancy 33 Dinny O'Keefe's Slide 20 Little Diamond 34 Hundred Pipers 29 Boys of Ballysodare 12-13 Barney Brallaghan's 9 Sonny Broghan's Mazurka 41 Blind Mary 11 Boys of Bluehill 14 Cuil Aodha Slide 17 Stack of Wheat 42 Inisheer 29 Denis Murphy's Slide 20 Dan O'Keefe's Slide 18 Scattery Island 40 Off She Goes 37 Galtee Ranger 24 Jessica's Polka 30 Sunny Banks 44 7 Alexander's Hornpipe Key of D 2011 CD Tracks 27-28 D A # œ.