Jack Campin wrote: "Pointing somebody to a large tunebook like Mally's is exactly the opposite of giving a list of current favourites, which is what "strad" was asking for."

A list of 'current favourites' is likely to be true for only one particular session or folk club. Widen your catchment area even to a 'county' and you might as well be looking at a large tunebook. At least the books I mentioned have some currency.

If you wanted to play in sessions in SE England then learning all the tunes in the Lewes tune book would be a good start, but only a start. For my local folk club about 30 tunes would do, but for all I know the next nearest venue favours 30 other tunes. I've been to sessions about 35 miles away where I knew only a couple of the tunes being played...