TG4 Irish Traditional Musician of the Year 2001

“The doyenne of Irish harp players” - Scotland on Sunday

"The most interesting & original player of our Irish harp today"
- Derek Bell

About The Irish Harper Volume I

ISBN 1-873077-00-9

Now available in both print and digital formats.

44 pages.

Standard: Intermediate to Advanced.

This book contains the first arrangements of Irish traditional dance tunes ornamented in an authentic style ever to be published, and sold out its first print run of 1,000 copies within weeks of publication in 1991.

The fruit of many years’ experience of performing and teaching Irish traditional music to harpers by the pioneer in the field, it represented the first attempt in print to analyse and explain the aesthetic principles which inform the stylistically correct performance of this music on the harp. Most of these ground-breaking arrangements are of traditional Irish dance music, but also included are two songs and some unusual settings of the music of Turlough O’Carolan.

Máire has recorded most of them on her pioneering1985 solo album, The New Strung Harp, (the first harp album ever to concentrate on traditional Irish dance music), and her subsequent albums with Chris Newman, The Living Wood and The Carolan Albums. Idiomatic and fluent results can be achieved by listening carefully to the recorded versions while paying close attention to the detailed fingering provided in the book.

Go to About Máire and List of Contents

Published by Old Bridge Music, 1991.
44 pages

Contents of The Irish Harper Vol. I

1. Eibhlín Ní Ríordáin’s Slide; 2. Marcshlua Uí Néill; 3. Mairéad’s Mazurka; 4. Julia Clifford’s Polkas; 5. Walsh’s Hornpipe; 6. The Peacock’s Feather; 7. Cuach mo Londubh Buí; 8. Caitlín Ní Aodha; 9. The Sport of the Chase; 10. Fanny Power; 11. Planxty Sudley; 12. Tomeen O’Dea’s Reel; 13. The Bantry Girls’ Lament; 14. Madam Maxwell; 15. The Gander in the Pratie Hole; 16. The Queen of the Rushes; 17. The Boys of Malin; 18. The Old Oak Tree;
19. The Pullet; 20. The Volunteer

About The Irish Harper Volume I

About Máire

Contents:
sixteen traditional Irish dance tunes with detailed instructions on how to play them in an authentic style;

three arrangements of compositions by Turlough O'Carolan;

& two traditional Irish song arrangements