Here are selected public statements by various people about irishtune.info. You, too, are invited to submit a comment. Just use the Feedback Form and say that it's ok for me to publish your comment.
I find your site useful for challenging YouTube when they classify a trad tune as copyright-protected. It's valuable being able to cite the year of the earliest recording or publication. Bill Lynch, Kilfenora
– E-mail to me 12 October 2022This site is a priceless treasure trove of information on Irish traditional music and has advanced my understanding of this art by a huge bound. The Practice Machine has given a systematic approach to my previously haphazard practice "method" that promises to greatly improve my skills. Thanks so much for this site.
– E-mail to me 19 September 2021 from Thomas, on the US East coast.This site has been very helpful for my preparations for the leaving cert as I don’t know much about traditional Irish music and it’s helped me discern the difference between the different tunes, Thanks so much!
– E-mail to me 25 February 2019 from Eve in Dublin, Ireland.Just want to check in and say a huge 'thank you' for all the work you have put into creating this amazing site. It is a phenomenal resource, and it has brought me many, many hours of joy. Thank you!
Ive been playing Irish Trad for over 17 years and this page is an absolute god-send. I visit here at least once a day. Ive been on the net for decades and I have never found a more comprehensive site, on any subject.
Exceptionally well-done. Your are doing the ITM community a tremendous service.
Thank you
Chris Novack [near Washington DC, USA]
You should also check out https://www.irishtune.info/ . There is a feature on the site called the Practice Machine. It will help you retain the tunes you know how to play. Read about it on the site and set it up, log in everyday and play the tunes it tells you to play. This is a very important part of our practice and has been very beneficial for us.
– Public post by DSmoke [Dan Shingler of Pennsylvania, USA] at banjohangout.org, 7 April 2017, accessed 16 April 2017.I am using the practice machine daily and am now seeing the results I was hoping for, to be better able to pull tunes out of memory at session and then lead the tune. It is just like a session with the random nature of the tunes.
– E-mail to me from piper Mike Euritt in California, USA, 21 December 2015.Best site for tunes anywhere to be found. Thanks for painstaking work to create such an edifice!
– E-mail to me from K.B. in Vermont, USA, 20 June 2015.Great site Alan! Lots of effort clearly invested and the info is well organized and very helpful!
– E-mail to me from JD in Texas, USA, 30 April 2014.Thank you! I know tunes in plenty but can never match the name to the tune when people ask me to lead off so this is a useful tool for me!
– E-mail from Pauline in the UK, 21 September 2013.Hi Alan, I should be in bed but I just got absorbed in your site, it's great. [. . .]
– E-mail to me from Keith Durham in Dublin, Ireland, 3:46 a.m.(!) Dublin time, 25 September 2012.I haven't used your site before, only just found it, but it seems a good hunting ground for the obsessives amongst us. Seriously; it looks like the best place for the serious inquirer into Irish music. Maith an fear!
– E-mail to me from Mick Furey in England, 2 May 2011.Brilliant work! I just heard about the my.irishtune.info - it is a brilliant idea to be able to share with other musicians the tunes we know in common, makes organizing/playing sessions so much easier. Well done on a great site.
– E-mail to me from Michael McGettrick of Galway City, Ireland, 26 November 2010.Thank you very much for the excellent information made freely available on your site; it has been a valuable research resource to me.
– E-mail to me from Steve Ducke in France, of tradschool.com, 5 October 2010.I'm delighted and amazed, and very pleased to have finally stumbled upon your site. This is a fantastic resource and a great service... It can be so hard to navigate the complexities of recorded and written traditional tunes to figure out what I'm actually listening to/learning/playing. I love the fact that you've correlated things by listening to recorded sources and keying off the melodic patterns rather than titles -- I'm just thrilled by this whole project, and amazed by the amount of work that's gone into it. Just wanted to take a minute to say a very sincere thank you for this wonderful gift... Thank you!
– E-mail to me from Ernest Kinsolving of California, 16 July 2010.Thank you ever so much for this wonderful site. It is an invaluable tool for Irish music lovers. Congratulations for the countless hours you have certainly put in !
– E-mail to me from Jean Lhuillery of France, 23 December 2009.Alan, this is an absolutely amazing resource. I have wished for something exactly like this for years [. . .]. What a mind-boggling amount of work, and what a treasure for people who play the tunes. Thanks!
– E-mail to me from Angie Mariani of Lubbock, Texas, 15 March 2009.The times that I visit irishtune.info I'm always impressed and overwhelmed by the amount of work and dedication that you have consistently put into the transcriptions, identification and systemisation of all the tunes there seem to be. It really is monumental.
– E-mail to me from Albrecht Bastemeyer, 2 October 2008.Wow. Amazing site and congratulations on your work.
– E-mail to me from Alph Duggan, of Ennis, Co. Clare, sent on 5 June 2008.I wish I could hire you to organize my life like you've organized the tunes! :-) [. . .] Your page is one of my favorite models for beautiful simplicity in organizing so much information.
– E-mail to me from Lia Zito of Anchorage, Alaska, 12 February 2008.An excellent site with a lot of thought put in. Well done, and I shall be telling a lot of people about it!!!!
– E-mail to me from Catherine McEvoy, of Co. Meath, Ireland, 1 January 2008.Sender: Irish Traditional Music List
From: "Smith, Christopher"
Subject: another public thank-you to Alan for irishtunes.info
Alan:
I'd been aware, as a result of passing comments made by other list-members over the past few weeks, that you'd added a tune ID/incipit function to irishtunes, but today was the first day I've had the chance to pay a return visit. What an incredible, invaluable function! Now one can search for recordings of the tune (as one should), without the bottleneck/crutch of full notation, but at the same time have the confidence that the tune and title are correctly married with one another, via the incipit. Your use of database technology to further not only the archiving but also the *currency* of tunes is absolutely brilliant. I say this as someone who's been on usenet since and on Irtrad since around 1996, and has observed the proliferation of online tune-collections (and their abuse) for nearly as long: I think irishtunes.info just might be one of the most important visually-based tools for the Music since O Neill's.
Thank you.
chris smith
an encyclopedic source of information on tunes, albums, tunebooks, etc.
– Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann Sean O’Riada Branch, published on their page <http://www.albanycce.com/favorite.htm>. Appeared there at least by 10 October 2006.[. . .] exemplary online database indexing recordings of tunes. An invaluable resource for learning.
– Chris Smith, published on his page <http://coyotebanjo.com/links.html>. Appeared there at least by 14 February 2006, according to web.archive.org.Everything you wanted to know about a tune: different names, who recorded it, what and who else is on the album, identify tunes on a recording, document a tune's history, find out if there's a composer, locate transcriptions in books. An amazing web site. thanks, Alan!
– David James, published on his page <http://www.tiompanalley.com/index_files/LINKS.htm>. Appeared there at some point after Mar. 12, 2005, according to web.archive.org, and before 26 November 2006, when I found it.It's an amazingly detailed and complete index of traditional tunes, cross-referenced with recordings.
– Baxter, in a posting on 28 January 2005 at <whistletutor.com>an amazing database of traditional tune sources
– Navan, published on their page <http://www.navan.org/links.html>. Appeared there at some point between 6 June 2004 and 23 July 2004 according to web.archive.org.Alan Ng's Tunography, irishtune.info, the Irish Traditional Music Tune Index, by whatever name you call it, you won't do it justice -- this is a simply amazing concordance of Irish music on record overflowing with all sorts of tidbits on the playing, history and culture of Irish music. I now know the difference between a barn-dance, a slide and a single reel ... and why so many tunes are called Gan Ainm! (it means "title unknown")
Scholarly, detailed beyond belief, comprehensive and exact, Alan Ng has cataloged thousands of recordings, cross-referencing songs, correcting mis-edited song-lists, and taking no one's word for the identity of any tune until he's heard it for himself. [. . .]
If you need to find a tune with only the barest fragment of even an obscure name for it, or if you're looking for recorded examples, this is your first best stop to shop.
– Gary Lawrence Murphy, published 26 April 2004 on his blog at <http://irish.teledyn.com/node/30>.
See also the old Guestbook entries.