100 Essential Irish Session Tunes

It is as advertised, session songs, one after the other.

A great buy for those trying to learn some good irish songs. Its best for concertina, but you could adapt it to any instrument you want. Works best when paired with the song book of the same name.

wonderfully simple and great selection of truly popular tunes.deb

This is a good book for beginners, but you must listen to traditional Irish music to understand the proper rhythm of the tune.

This companion CD makes the tunes more accessible to beginners. Both the book of this name and the CD will present many tunes commonly played at sessions. But don't be surprised when you hear the tune you memorized from this book played expertly at a session or in a recording with slightly different notes or emphasis in rhythm. It is just that Traditional music is a living thing and a bit of a moving target, and there are regional differences in detail. That being said the CD is are a great way for a person to develop an "ear" for the music as well as reading since all the tunes written in the book are played once through on the CD. If you are not a great sight reader this is a great safety net for comparison. If you are a good sight reader it is an opportunity to try to play it by ear first, then look at the book. For ornamentation instructions for your particular instrument, and placing the tunes in "sets" played together, you will have to look elsewhere, but this book and CD gives you a strong vocabulary to tunes to work with.