Francis O'NeillMel Bay O'Neill's Music of Ireland

Upon opening the package i found the back cover bent back at an angel. It was just a slopy or hurried packing occurance. I do like to keep my books nice, so this is dissppointing. At a glance I am thrill by contents and anticipate many hours exploring the contents.

I play the recorder and this is a terrific resource! It gives the melody line only and almost all the songs are within a C recorder's range.Pros:•It's great for sight reading practice and increasing familiarity with Irish music. As I have worked my way through it, I've marked each song so I know the ones I want to come back to. I use the symbols ++ for great, + for pretty or very interesting, √ for so-so, • for eh!, and -- for blech! to serve as my markers for preference.•It's voluminous.•There are hundreds of pretty tunes. They aren't all duds.Cons:•There are typically five songs crowded on a page.•The print is very small and the songs quite short.•To save space, the key signature is only on the first line of each song.•I'm approaching the 400th song and have found a few errors in notation or printing.•The book is an inch thick, stiffly glued, and cannot be made to lie flat.So...Per the recommendation of someone here on Amazon, I took it to FedEx/Kinko's before I had broken the binding or tried to fold it open and had it rebound with a plastic spiral and heavy plastic covers on front and back. It was quick, not too expensive, and Voilà! Now it lays flat.Due to its size, this is not a book you're going to want to tote around with you everywhere, but it can't be beat as a go to resource for Irish melodies.

Mel Bay really needs to get its act together with the bindings it uses on its music books -- this book is an excellent printing of a wonderful old collection of Irish music, but the binding doesn't allow the book to stay open or lie flat on a music stand, making it impractical. And it's not because Mel Bay doesn't know how to bind music books to actually be useful! The binding they used on the Parking Lot Picker's Songbook: Mandolin is excellent and I have no idea why they couldn't have used the same binding on this book (and on Ryan's Mammoth Collection) to make it a practical book for working musicians.I give this book 5 stars despite the binding because it's a more complete collection, a true reprinting and not a modern edition which has left some tunes out, and should be in the library of every musician who is interested in Irish music!

The compilers did the best they could at the time, but they were classically trained and a bit removed from the Irish music tradition when they arranged this music. Therefore, and because of the change of time in the past hundred-plus years, it's a bit different from how Irish tunes are played now. The most striking difference is the keys used: Eb, for example, is common, rather than the usual A and D. Musicians looking to play music closer to the current Irish tradition will need to supplement this book with more common understandings of the tunes -- through interacting with other musicians, listening to recordings, and seeking out written versions on websites such as thesession.org.That being said, Mel Bay's version is a faithful rendering and if you're looking for the historical book, this is an excellent version. Plus, true Irish music geeks will love just flipping through the pages and taking it all in. In the age of electronic metronomes and easy-access ABC notation, there is something fantastic about the tactile sheet music, so tightly wedged in to fit in all the tunes.

This is an incredibly deep resource for Celtic musicians and students to dive into. Yes, there are typos, issues with some of the key signatures, but don't let that deter you from investing in this amazing archive. The wealth of tunes is stunning. The binding is useless, however. I immediately took it to a local printing shop had it spiral bound with clear plastic covers added for another 12 dollars. Small price to pay to have this magnificent book protected and lay flat on a music stand so I can delve into it.

I purchased this for my father, who is a mountain dulcimer enthusiast. It's a nice thick book with soft cover, bound with the cheapness typical of most music publications. It's too big to sit easily on a music stand, so I imagine it's intended as a sort of Irish folk music dictionary. In this capacity, it is excellent. There are nearly two-thousand tunes, indexed by title. These are short- the vast majority only a couple of lines long. A tune consists of melody on a treble-clef staff (if you need tablature, this isn't a good place to start), embellished by 19th-century style ornaments. Each is given both its conventional Irish (Gaelic) and English names and the composer to whom it is attributed. There are no notes about the scholarship behind the collection or how these tunes might be approached in performance. The engraving is nice (done around the turn of the century), and fairly easy on the eyes.

This is a copy of the original version from the early 1900's. It has 1850 tunes of various types. I have just begun to explore it but am looking forward to playing samples from each section on both my tin whistles and my newly acquired mandolin. A lot of bang for the buck if you go by amount of tunes for the price. I will really have to learn my standard notation as there of course was no tablature in use at that time and no CD either which is understandable with 1850 tunes. The printing is quite legible and show the original pages, based on the appearance of the type and general look. This is truly a gem- like a trip back to an earlier time in history.

This is a fantastic collection of Irish music with a great variety. All of it is in the treble clef, and thus perfect for those wishing to play Irish music on pennywhistle, flute, violin or improvising on piano. That being said, I have been surprised at the number of songs that I considered "classic" Irish tunes that are not in it. Are all of these tunes all written by Captain O'Neill? Did he just collect them? Or is my knowledge of Irish music lacking?

What a great book, so full of a huge variety of Irish tunes. I bought it to have some music I could play on recorder. Some of the tunes go out of the recorder range but most of them I can use. I love to just dip in and find things and it's not hard as whatever page I choose I just go for it and enjoy the variety of tunes. If you are proficient on recorder these are great for sight-reading and an enjoyable play. Whilst many of them can also be a fun challenge to improve playing style, especially getting to grips with the timing and the ornamentations. The only quibble I have is that a few of them seem to be written in a weird way that is harder to read.

What a fantastic book, I would highly recommend it to anyone. As a tin whistle player, I have found it to be a superb collection of traditional music. A must have purchase.

Lots of good stuff here, but I would have like more music that is not necessarily attributed to O'Neill. Don't perfectly understand the presentation of the music. I guess what I'm saying is that it's difficult to sort out the 'original' irish music. But it is a great book and I have found many great tunes.

This is a fantastic book with every type of jig, reel etc. you could think of. They are all quite short as well, which makes learning them easy, and lots have ornaments so you can make them more complicated if you want to. All round a fantastic book - more like a library really! Highly recommended.

The bible of Irish music,a reprint not modern in its layout, but everything is there, a absolute must for any devotee of the Music.