I had tried for several years to get a copy of the tunebook that quite a few people in my area used, but the original "collector" seemed disinclined to be identified, and I couldn't find anyone to loan me one to copy. A friend did get one to copy, and made an extra for me.

I found a "core" collection of fairly legible stuff, with several other independent "additions," some usable and some not. It took about 2,000 hours to punch them all into a good music program and get them organized into a reasonably coherent "book." About a half-dozen tunes were "withheld" because of verified copyrights. So far as I can tell, all the tunes included are trad - but it's really tough to be sure. It is likely that the original "source book" and most of the additions to it came intirely from internet downloads.

806 scores, plus cross-index entries. 614 distinct tune names. (Some tunes appear with more than one title, and some tunes appear in up to 3 different forms.)

The book includes 415 tunes from the original local collections. For tunes known to be played differently in "West Coast" sessions I had attended, 261 "Western Session" versions are shown for comparison. Where the local session version differs significantly from common usage (especially in other local groups), 130 Generic versions are given. Note that this is not a "scholarly" comparison, it's just what seemed interesting while I was cleaning up the collection.

I've included a crude .mid file for each score, in self-extracting .zip file on a DOS format floppy. The .zip (352 KB) opens to about 1.5 MB worth of small .mid files - cluster loss prevents putting them all on one floppy without compression.

It costs me just about $25 per copy to print, whether I do it one at a time on my laser printer (at about 4 hours per book) or "job" them in small quantities to a copy shop. I haven't checked since the recent (July 1) postal rate changes, but could mail a copy (in the US) for $4 before that.

I use PostScript printing exclusively, so the print files wouldn't be useful to most people - and are nearly 50MB.

I did distill a .pdf of an early version, which ran about 8 MB, which is still too large to email through most services.

My intention was to clean up the book and make it available locally. I've placed about 25 copies "in good homes," thus far (it figures to about 100 mh per placement - I feel like a social worker).

PM me an email (or snail mail) address & I can send you a sheet (.pdf) with details for US delivery.

I'll also try to have a few copies with me at the WVA (Winfield KS) Festival Sept 19-22 (I'll probably be there anytime after Sept 8).

John