Harp Book Recommendations

It is possible to spend a great deal of money on books that you will never use. If you start to study with a view to making your own arrangements - highly recommended! and yes you can do that - you can have access to a huge portion or Irish Music by buying just a few publications.

1. O'Neill's Music of Ireland.
A great number of the "session" tunes are taken from this book. They contain melodies only - so you'll need to be able to add your own left hand. At first - perhaps you can have a teacher or fellow musician help you.

NOTE: There are 3 versions of this book! Buy the "Tim Collins" version.

2. O'Carolan Collection.
Again a book with right hand notation only, however, it contains virtually every piece that O'Carolan ever wrote.

3. Roche Collection of Irish Music.
Áine's favorite collection - full of beautiful airs, as well as a wonderful collection of dance tunes.

4. Tomas O'Cannain collection of Irish Airs.
Tomas is a wonderful piper and scholar - full of those beautiful sounding "Celtic" pieces that often draw people to Irish music in the first place.

The advantage of buying these books is that the versions are excellent. Books which have a portion of these tunes with other arrangements are often inaccurate. If you decide to learn an "arrangement" from another book - always refer back to the "Original source" to double check for accuracy.

The best source for these books is Ossian U.S.A., run by Mary Lou Philbin. Ossian is an Irish Company and Mary Lou runs their U.S. operations. She also has an amazing collection of books and tapes of the "real thing" - and most of it is directly from Ireland. Ossian can be reached at 603-783-4383 or e-mail at ossianusa@aol.com.