The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #171336   Message #4143756
Posted By: Helen
09-Jun-22 - 05:39 AM
Thread Name: 10 Best Fiddle Tunes
Subject: RE: 10 Best Fiddle Tunes
Darn-it, I thought I could escape from this thread without having to make suggestions, not being a fiddle player myself, but now someone has gone and mentioned Turlough O'Carolan.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but:

(Note: the numbers are those used in Donal O'Sullivan's comprehensive book Carolan: ) The Life Times and Music of an Irish Harper

039 - Luke Dillon
068 - Mrs Judge
087 - Miss MacDermott- The Princess Royal
121 - Michael O'Connor - 2ndSet (one of my favourite O'Carolan tunes)
150 - Eleanor Plunkett
171 - O'Carolan's 1st Untitled aka O'Carolan's Welcome
182 - Blind Mary
188- O'Carolan's Farewell to Music
202 -Sibeg And Simohr (lots of spelling variations for this title, e.g. Si Bheag Si Mhor etc)

Some of those tunes are less well known.

There is an excellent resource at The Old Music Project The Complete O'Carolan Collection with MIDI files, ABC files, and GIF files of music notation.

Then the first fiddle tune which sprang to my mind was Hector the Hero
performed by Jenna Reid with Aly Bain in this video.