The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #143710   Message #3319710
Posted By: Jon Corelis
08-Mar-12 - 09:37 AM
Thread Name: A folklore book shelf
Subject: RE: A folklore book shelf
Since there's some interest in this, here's an update.

I've decided that for the Celtic traditions bookshelves, I'll only include books that have at least some musical scores. For the Greek shelf, I'll continue also to include text-only books.

I'm going to have to be more selective with the Celtic traditions shelves, particularly the Irish one. My searches have revealed that the nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the publication of a large number of Irish (and some other types of) songbooks, many of them apparently aimed at the "Victorian parlor piano" market and consisting mostly of material of dubious authenticity and often of embarrassing sentimentality. I doubt many people would be interested in these things today, so I'll try to limit those shelves to books the authors of which show at least minimal folkloric orientation. This will be a quick, on the run judgement, but I hope I can at least more or less keep the quality level high this way.

I hadn't realized that full preview Google books were limited by country. So far as I can tell, there's no way to determine from the book shelf list if you can access the full preview from where you are sitting; you have to try to read it. The best I can do is to put a warning at the head of each shelf that books aren't guaranteed to be full preview readable outside the US.

I'll be glad to receive suggestions for additions here or by PM, but please keep in mind the parameters of the shelves: they are for books containing words and music of Greek or Celtic-tradition folk songs, which are available via Google Books in full preview in the US. (I know that if you are not in the US you may not know if a book is available there, but go ahead and suggest it anyway and I'll check.) It may take a while for suggestions to get added.

The shelves are still in the process of being constructed and polished, so if people are interested in them, please check them occasionally in the future. I hope they will be in more or less final form in a few weeks.


Jon Corelis
Celtic suite in G major