Irish Flute Tunes

If you get any playback errors, please let me know ([email protected]) and I'll fix them. Some of the older recordings seem to have gone a bit rusty. I know how they feel.

Hello. This site contains recordings I have made as a source of tunes for people who play the flute, or other instruments for that matter. They are often just versions of tunes as I remember them but, as my memory isn’t the best, in some cases I cheat and find the dots online. As often as not, the online versions and the dots inside my head aren't quite the same so there may be a sort of 'average' appearing.

I usually play the tunes once through slowly (ish) to make them easier to learn, then I have a bit of a run at them to give another view of them. I hope this approach is OK. If anyone has any comments, or tune suggestions, please get in touch ([email protected]).

Thanks, Michael Clarkson (Belfast). 

Here's a tune from flute and accordion player Sean McCusker from the Pride of Erin Céilí Band. More about the tune and the band here and here.

(I hope the photo really is of the correct céilí brigade. Google says it is, so it must(n't) be them.)

Here's a jig I first heard on the record Ceol Aduaidh by Frankie Kennedy and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh. Didn't realise it was in O'Neill's Dance Muisc Ireland (DMI), where it lives at No.84. I wonder what other things about the world I haven't realised yet.

The DMI version is more or less what I hear played at sessions. Maybe just with a-g-e more often than a-e-e to start the second part, and not so many G sharps.

This version is pretty close to flddle player Fred Finn's version in the more than excellent book Trip to Sligo, apart from a few variations caused by whatever eye-failures and brain-wobbles occured across the 8 inch chasm between the book and my head.

The session.org has an entry for it here under the name "Paddy Jim Frank's". It's also related to The Navvy in The Shore. Regarding these names, you can take your pick. Just like the Navvy on the Shore might do; even a pick from 2 shovels.

Here's another great tune for the flute. It's been popular enough to have been included on 20 commercial recordings to date (see here for details).

Here's a great old reel for the flute.  

You can see what thesession.org has to say about it here.

Here's a good flute tune from Co. Galway. I first heard it played on this record by flute player Gabriel O'Sullivan.

There are a couple of versions of it and some background info. here.

This is a tune from the Glencolmcille area of Donegal, named after the fiddle player Patrick "Paddy the Cooper" Breslin.

You can find information about Patrick Breslin here.

Here's a tune I first learned from the book The Northern Fiddler which includes a version from John Doherty.

The Tommy Taylor in the alternative title was a dancer from Teelin in Donegal.

Here's a reel I heard from the playing of James Byrne from Glemcolmcille. It's the first tune on an album of his music that can be got here.

Some other information about it can be found here.