Imagine this: you’re at a session, the tunes are flowing and the place is hopping! At one point, someone plays a tune you’ve never heard before, and you love it. “It’s a Liz Carroll tune. I got it from her tune book,” you’re told when you ask the name of it. Now imagine being able to go home, pick up that book, and read and learn the tune, right away. Yes, of course, you can always access a recording of someone playing the tune; but there’s something about learning the tune from the page, in the version created by the composer, that allows you to immediately put your own stamp on it, without the distraction of another musician’s style or interpretation.

And that is why reading music is a skill that is invaluable for Irish traditional musicians.

Learning to read music is about adding to those already developed aural and music memorisation skills that traditional musicians are likely to have. Being able to read music unlocks a whole new world of repertoire, and allows you to discover hidden gems, new tunes and versions of tunes that have not yet been widely recorded – so you always have a few surprises up your sleeve for sessions and performances. Plus, being able to read, allows you to track tunes back to source, to check and ensure that you have learned – and are playing – them correctly, as they were created by the composer (and not the Chinese whispers version, that sometimes becomes standardised).

In this blog post, I want to introduce you to ‘Collected’, the first published tune collection by the wonderful fiddler-composer, Liz Carroll. Chicago born and raised, Liz Carroll is a giant of the Irish traditional music world, both for her unique fiddle style and for her work as a composer, with many of her tunes adopted and accepted into the traditional music canon. Liz was recognised for her significant contribution to traditional music with a TG4 Gradam Cheoil Award as Cumadóir (Composer) in 2011, making her the first Irish-American to be honoured in this way.

‘Collected’ was published in 2010 and contains 175 of Liz Carroll’s own compositions, including 29 Jigs, 120 Reels and 26 Other Tunes (a mix of airs, marches, slow reels hornpipes, polkas, strathspeys, waltzes and more). Each tune, as is typical, is written out once; of course, we know that, in practice, we play tunes through a number of times, and typically as part of a set along with other tunes. Again, as is common in traditional music published collections, suggested ornamentation and variations are rarely included – the idea being that you learn the bare bones of the melody, and then put your own creative imprint on it in performance. For here, the notation is intended to be used as a discovery and learning tool; it should not be used to inform a performance (so don’t plan to rock up to a session with a music stand and your copy of ‘Collected’ under your arm!). 

I can’t recommend this collection highly enough for traditional musicians – not just fiddle players. In it you’ll find lots of tunes that have become classics, such as Wissahickon Drive, The Champaign Jig Goes to Columbia and The Air Tune. Other favourites of mine are The Golden Legs, and two tunes I had the great honour to play as a guest with the amazing String Sisters (a group of powerhouse women fiddlers, including Liz Carroll) – Liam Childs, Balkin’ Balkan and The E-B-E Reel.

Liz has since published a second volume of her tunes, ‘Collected 11’, and continues to compose new repertoire, including one she named for me (thanks, Liz!). This was part of her ‘Homecoming Suite’, a piece that we commissioned for TG4’s Fleadh22 show in Mullingar in 2022 (‘we’ being Power Pictures, with whom I work as Music Producer on the Fleadh tv series). Here are the dots, if you fancy learning it!

To learn more about Liz Carroll and to order your copy of Collected and Collected 11 (hard copy or digital downloads) go to lizcarroll.com  

Can’t read music yet? Our course, Read Music the TRAD Way, is created to help traditional musicians learn how to read music quickly and easily! Sign up HERE so you can master this skill – and soon you’ll be browsing through Liz Carroll’s ‘Collected’ and discovering lots of new tunes to add to your repertoire!

Liz Doherty