Bill Black's
IRISH TRADITIONAL TUNE LIBRARY
update 6/17/26
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Welcome to the Irish Traditional Tune Library home page.


This is a secure private site with no logins, cookies, ads, or other annoying dreck. I don't keep a record of who visits. Nobody will try to sell you anything. If you don't know or care about Irish traditional music, you might want to move on.
 
The ITTL contains ~10000 tunes, with additional material being added on a regular basis. If you're a composer or collector, I'm always open to contributions; you'll get full attribution for anything you send me.

This site is an expansion (and improvement, I hope) of my former webABC site. ITTL remains a work in progress. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

I'm presuming a basic knowledge on the site user's part of how to handle ABCs.  If you need to know more about the topic, a search on "ABC music notation" will provide helpful links.

The new site continues the original procedure of arranging contents in folders, which usually correspond to individual tune sources. All folders presently in ITTL are listed (and linked) here.

More details on the folder structure are here.


Each folder contains these basic elements:
# an index page in PDF format
# HTML files combining notation and sound using Michael Eskin's ABC Transcription Tool
# text files for use in other ABC translators (in the tune folders, I use .rtf files which support links). Click here for a very basic primer on how to use ABCTT.

Individual tunes in ITTL can be accessed using the alltunes folder, which contains subfolders of text files arranged alphabetically. Once you've opened the alfa file, using a search/find with a title (or string - doesn't have to be the entire name) will quickly locate any tune for copying/pasting into your preferred ABC translator app. 

Procedure sounds complicated but it really isn't. I'd like eventually to have an "easy access" function (think session.org) but right now that's above my pay grade!

A couple of additional notes:
# You can export tunes easily from Eskin's app ("export PDF" > browser > "save as" > hard drive). The embedded sound function stays active while the tune is on your device, but (Captain Obvious speaking here) it doesn't survive being printed.
# The various items of "tune notes and commentary" a/k/a "liner notes" are available only via the tune folder .rtf entries, NOT via the alltunes .txt links or the Eskin HTML files.
# Once you've downloaded the tune, it's yours to experiment with (e.g. change speed or key). Nothing you do can affect what's on the website, so if you mess up (unlikely, I know) you can always go back to the source and download it again.
# If you're familiar with ABC formatting and see some weird-looking additions in the tune file headers (usually preceded by % or %%), don't worry about them. They exist to do good things for the way the tune will look and sound.

FOLDERS: The "shelves" of the Tune Library
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The tune folders represent a system of organizing tunes based on their sources.

These sources might represent a printed volume (e.g. folder 11, Allan's Irish Fiddler) or a  collection of tunes by a particular composer (e.g. folder 34, Joe Liddy tunes, or folder 12, Bill Black tunes (who?)).

Each folder contains separate sub-folders for the ABCs and HTML files as described in the first section of this page. Depending on the amount of material involved, these folders may be subdivided alphabetically (e.g. A to F tunes). The subfolders will also contain ABC and HTML files.


Right now there are over 60 individual folders mainly representing various printed tune sources (O'Neill, Breathnach, Bulmer & Sharpley, etc.) Many of these are out of print or not readily available.

The folders may also contain accessory information regarding the particular volume. An example of such information would be Paul de Grae's fine explanatory notes on the Ceol Rinnce na hEireann volumes (folder 18).

A complete list of the folders available (and links to them) are on the Folder Key page.  Feel free to "browse" - there are loads of wonderful tunes there that you might like! (The Folder Key file is in PDF and sortable Excel [.xlsx] format.)

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