Irish Fiddle Solos

Book excerpt: This collection includes many favourite Irish fiddle tunes. Some are easy to play, others more challenging. the bowing techniques, ornamentation and other aspects of playing style summarized in the introduction will be familiar to readers of Pete's earlier book, the Complete Irish Fiddle Player, as will source musicians like Julia Clifford, Tommy Peoples, Lucy Farr, John Doherty and Padraig O'Keeffe. Here though, instead of proceeding in 'fiddle method' style from simpler to more complex tunes, regional repertoire and styles are explored. Grouped in sets for performance, the tunes from any one tradition can be of varying levels of difficulty. Less experienced players may find sets 5, 6 and 29, for example, quite approachable, as well as the first reel in set 14 and the second single jig in set 15. All tunes included on companion CD.