In this portion of the NH Country Dance web site I present a sizable collection of fiddle tunes. Many of the tunes are from the Lamprey River Band Tunebook. The others are tunes I've learned and liked from a variety of sources. Most are New England or Canadian (French and English). There is also a sampling of tunes from the British Isles and the Scandinavian countries. Tunes are organized by type (reel, jig, etc.) and alphabetically by title. The abc files also indicate which tunes are from the Lamprey River Band Tunebook and which are from other sources.
Scandinavian Tunes ◆ Other Tunes
Tune Home ◆ The Tunes ◆ Tune List
Main ◆ Help File ◆ Reference Card
Here's a quick outline of what you'll find on this page.
Tunes are presented in abc format and as standard notation in PDF format. See How the Tunes are Presented & Hints for Using Them (below) for details. Tunes are categorized by tune type (e.g. reel, jig). Tunes from the Lamprey River Band from Seacoast New Hampshire are combined with other tunes I have transcribed.
Here is a set of links to tune web pages and to downloadable tune documents.
The tunes are presented in PDF and abc format. The abc code is presented as text on web pages and as downloadable abc documents. They are presented as follows.
Here is an explanation of the different presentations.
Here are some useful supplementary materials you should know about, including a searchable listing of the tunes.
Headers Page. You are welcome to copy tunes from here for your own purposes. For best results (either printing or displaying on screen), include the header given on this page. There are also instructions on how to copy tunes.
Listing of Tunes (web page). This is a table listing all the tunes, their key and tune types and more. It is searchable and may be sorted on any column. Also available as a spreadsheet.
Tune Sources (web page). A listing of all the records, tapes, CDs, books used to prepare this web site. Also available to download in a couple formats.
Chord Book (PDF). A chord book for all the tunes on this web site. Available as a downloadable PDF.
Contact Me. If you have questions, corrections, constructive feedback, interesting comments, etc., please feel free to send me a note!
About the supplements & utilities. I made these up for my own use. I make no claim to expertise with spreadsheets, but I find them useful and perhaps someone else will too.
Peter Yarensky's abc 2.2 Help File & abc 2.2 Reference Card (both as PDFs). The Help File documents both basic abc workings and some advanced techniques that I used in preparing the web site tunes. I hope some people find it useful. The Reference Card is a much shorter summary.
Extract Chords from abc File: v3.1 (iWork Numbers) or v3.0 (Excel). Paste in up to 600 lines of abc code and the spreadsheet extracts the chords and formats them for use in a chord book or listing. The Numbers version is much nicer to use if you have access.
Chord Chart Transposition 1.0 (iWork Numbers only). This spreadsheet transposes a set of chord names to the desired key. It can handle one chord/measure, although it doesn't seem to be bothered by some extraneous text.
Chord Book Template. This is a template for starting a new chord book, e.g. from chords you obtained using the above spreadsheet. It is in iWork Pages. Again if you don't have Pages you may use it online with an Apple ID.
The Lamprey River Band has been playing for country dances in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire since 1983. Currently we play for a monthly dance in Dover City Hall on the first Thursday of every month. The Lamprey River Band Tune Book has grown over the years; although in recent years our repertoire has moved in various directions and we haven't relied as much on written music. The Online Tunebook is a compilation of a large body of tunes I wrote out for the band as well as a few tunes written by and/or contributed by others in the band. It includes much of the core of the New England common repertoire, and a variety of other tunes suitable for traditional contras, squares and couples dances.
This is a varied group of tunes that I have written out over the years. Some are tunes we used to play at the Wednesday Night Soirée at Marcel Robidas' Barn, some we used to play at the Canadian jam session at the Unitarian Fellowship in Durham, NH, and some are just tunes I've enjoyed enough to transcribe.
The NH Old-Time Fiddle Website covers a variety of topics related to traditional music and dance of New Hampshire and surrounding areas.
Designed & Edited by Peter Yarensky
Contact & About Page + Site News
Use the Menu (upper left) to navigate. Here are the main topics covered on this web site.
Menu
Scandinavian Tunes ◆ Other Tunes
Tune Home ◆ The Tunes ◆ Tune List
abc Main ◆ Help File ◆ Reference Card