Strad wrote: "One thing which is frustrating is not being able to remember the tune names! So you hear a great tune, think I'd like to play that, then no-one knows what it's called. Even worse, you're told the name and have forgotten it by the time you get home. Why don't I write it down? Cos I can't find paper or pen at the time is why!"

I recently bought a digital voice recorder, Sony ICD PX720, for about £35 and I can highly recommend it. It will happily pick up tunes over a full session ina crowded room, and you can download it to a pc later in MP3 format where you can chop it up and edit it. Sound repro is very good for a small item, perfectly good for learning tunes from, although not of course CD quality. Battery life is good and it will record around 70 hours or so in medium quality mode.

Dome of the tunes I have found to be common in various sessions are:-
Soldiers Joy
Le Canal en Octobre
John Ryans Polka
Bear Dance
Planxty Fanny Power & Planxty Irwin (also with South Wind sometimes)
Dorset Four Hand Reel

cheers
Ged