How it started
While leaning the 5 string banjo in finger picking bluegrass style I became interested in playing a wide variety of tunes. However, I ran into various problems with this. The tunes I was interested in were mostly American traditional pieces that had become popular in bluegrass and old-time music circles. First I had problems tracking down any kind of music for many of these. Some were available in tablature form, only trouble was, I found I could not get on with tab. With most tab, not only do you have to struggle with a tune you don't know, but you are also supposed to play it in the style dictated by the tab - the style favoured by the writer of the tab who is probably a very expert player. Occasionally one would come across tab that gives only the main melody notes so allowing you to do your own thing for the rest of the bar, this is the type I favour and the tab you will find on this site is this melody only style.
LEARNING BY EAR and SIGHT READING
What seemed to work best for me was a combination of by-ear and a standard music score to help me find the right notes more easily. Those not familiar with bluegrass banjo might say "why not just sight read from a score?". Well this would be possible with some banjo styles but the bluegrass style usually involves splitting each bar into 8 note rolls, and at the same time some how fitting some appropriate melody notes at the right point in the bar, and this does not really lend itself to sight reading. In fact most of the bluegrass musicians I know do not read music much at all, and learn everything by ear.
This by-ear method also has problems, as finding a suitable recording to learn from can also be difficult. Many recordings are very stylised, so that figuring out what is the tune, and what is the style, can be a problem. Then there is the matter of "not quite on key recordings" requiring annoying instrument re tunes, and the often breakneck speeds on recordings.
As I was working in the computer field I though it worth while to see if applying some computer technology might help with learning tunes. I found it worked well and set out to put together my own traditional music library. Firstly this was to cover bluegrass and oldtimey (these being my favourites), but also to eventually cover a whole range of folk and traditional music.
The bluegrass collection was the first part to go on-line, followed by sections for Oldtimey, Session tunes, Irish, Scottish, Stephen Foster songs, cowboy songs, bawdy songs, folk songs popular in the 60's, well known traditional tunes, and Christmas carols. Since I started around 6 years ago the site has grown "organically" and now has more than 30,000 files - hence you will find some old dusty neglected parts of the site in need of modernising - this is getting done but I tend to give precedence to adding new stuff.
THE MIDI MUSIC
Mostly I have provided a simple chord and bass line backing on the right channel and the melody on the left so you can set your balance control to suit your needs. Everything has been kept as simple as possible and I have chosen simpler versions of the tunes where options were available. In a few cases you will find more than one version of a tune where for some reason I felt this desirable.
KEEPING IT RUNNING
This on-line Traditional Music Library project started as just a minor hobby, costing nothing but my time, and using just the free web space provided by my ISP. However, somehow it got out of hand and kept growing, and encouraged by lot of positive feed back from users I took the plunge and got it a proper domain name and more expensive hosting. This is a labour of love and not a commercial enterprise - I hate to think how many 1000s of hours have gone into it - but I do need to try and offset my expenses somewhat hence the adverts and the fact that I do sell some "registered" versions.
It's a sad fact, that despite the huge growth of The Internet, the number of websites actually providing real content, is I think, if anything, reducing. Anyway, my object is to provide you with yet more useful content, and I have several projects lined up for the coming year. These new items like most of my content will be free, so please don't begrudge me the few chargeable items, and the adverts.
USING MIDI & GRAPHICS FILES FROM THIS SITE
Website owners are granted a free licence to use midi files and graphics files from this site on their personal websites providing an acknowlegement of source is given (one for each item used) and a link to my home page is include on each page where one or more items is used. This invitation is only extended to sites with content suitable all the family.
Suggested sample code:
"Example" is used by permission of
<a href="http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk">Traditional Music Library</a>
DON'T BE OFFENDED - DISCLAIMER
Books and song lyrics tend to reflect the cultural values and attitudes of their time and circumstance. Some of the attitudes and values expressed fall short of what we would today consider acceptable, and the fact of the existance of such on this site should not be construed as agreement with any such views. Rather, you should consider this site as what it is, a library, so please don't shoot the librarian if you don't like what you find in the books.
COPYRIGHT
In general the materials on this site are provided for personal, non commercial, research and educational purposes. Some items e.g. books are covered by particular or public commons licensing. (see below)
To the best of my knowledge all the music included come under the traditional category and is out of copyright* or otherwise within the public domain category. My arrangements are intended to be generic, and do not represent the performance of any particular artist, band or version. The arrangements and midis are all my own work and my copyright. However, you are welcome to use these scores and midis to help with your personal music training and development, and you may pass them to your musician friends for their personal training purposes. I would also recommend that before using this material as the basis for any public performance or commercial exploitation you check the copyright status with HFA, BMI, ASCAP and similar agencies. The other lists and information on this site have been generated by me from my own researches, and is my copyright material.
BOOKS:
This site also includes many musical reference works, most of these are my OCR conversions of scanned image versions of PUBLIC DOMAIN status or out of copyright* books either from my own copies of the works or from various internet sources. Unfortunately, the scanning OCR process is far from perfect and I cannot guarantee them to be free from errors.
* The fact of items included on this site being out of copyright in the U.S.A. where this site is hosted does NOT mean they has the same status in other countries, you should check you local copyright laws before using these materials.
If you feel that any item on this site contravenes some copyright or has a similar problem with it, please email mail me with the details and I will remove it if applicable. However, I will require that you identify yourself properly to me, (name address phone etc) before I take any action.