manx celtic music and dance

NEW BOOK BY DAVID SPEERS

03 Aug 2013


Manx Traditional Music for Sessions is mainly aimed at musicians who want to play Manx traditional music in sessions, whether in the Island or elsewhere. It contains 60 tunes, mostly dance tunes in sets, with a few airs. The book is not just a tunebook.  As well as the tunes, the book gives a detailed background of Manx traditional music and dance, where it has come from, how it has developed and how it is structured, plus discussions on the nature of traditional music and music sessions.

While in Ireland recently, David Speers delivered a copy to Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, Archivist at the Irish National Folklore Collection at UCD Dublin. Crístóir had kindly given permission for an image of wren boys in Limerick, taken in 1947, to be used in the book to illustrate bodhrán playing, as well a tradition familiar to us in the Island.

The Manx archives at MNHL have also provided a wealth of material, which has been used in the book, as have the National Library of Scotland and the Bodleian Libraries, which provided some interesting connections between titles found in the Clague music manuscript books and ballad sheets published in 19th century Britain.

The book is priced at £12 and will be available at local bookshops or from the publisher, Callag Press
 

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