Irish music for guitar
Traditional music, song-airs and O'Carolan tunes. Music notation and guitar
tab. Pieces range from from very easy to recital standard. Recording included
From the Sean Nos - the unaccompanied style of singing
f rom the west
coost, with its Arab/Indian overtones - to
the Anglo-Irish ballad tradition
and the magnificent art of
Irish harpers, Ireland yields a rich harvest to
those
willing to undergo its musical spell.
Many f orms of music dating back centuries have survived in
Ireland due
to its geographical position on the f ringe of
Europe and also because of
the traditional element in cultural
and other matters.
Apart f rom adding to the repertoire, the arranger hopes
that this volume
of Irish pieces will also stimulate the
player's curiosity so that he or she
may want to find out
more about the many facets of Irish music.
The completion of this work would have been long and
tortuous without the
heip of Simon Toylor who, as well as
performing all of the pieces on the
accompanying CD, found
the time and energy to straighten me out on f
ingerings and
many of the practicalities of writing for the guitar.
Thanks are also due to Douglas Gunn, an expert on Carolan's
music, who
himself arranged many Carolan pieces for a
variety of instruments. Andrew
Shiels - himself a composer
and musician - expertly looked after the
music-typesetting
and helped out in so many other ways.
Do feel f ree to experiment with the music; many pieces can
be played
using different techniques, different emphasis and
repeots moy be adlibbed
too, I've given guidelines, but it's up
to you to make these wonderful tunes
your very own !
John Loesberg
Cork, Ireland 2005
