About my ABC Tune Collection
This is a free online tune book of mostly Irish and Swedish traditional music, containing sheet music and lyrics for more than 2700 tunes in ABC format, collected over more than 30 years by Henrik Norbeck, Stockholm, Sweden.
I started this collection in 1986, when I started learning Irish music, by transcribing every tune I learnt. My tune collection was on papers in a binder until 1995, when I got my first Internet connection and discovered ABC format. By then I had already transcribed hundreds of tunes on paper. I had also invented a format similar to ABC, where I had entered the first two bars (incipit) for all my tunes in a database on my computer, to be able to make indexes and searches. In August 1996 I published the first 300 tunes in ABC on my site. By June 1997 I had converted most of my tune collection into ABC and published it on my site - more than 1300 tunes.
These tunes are available on the web as a free resource. If you like my collection and want to encourage me, you can send a donation through PayPal by clicking the button to the right.
You can click your way through the indexes or search to find the tunes and display sheet music directly here on the site. If you're only looking for song lyrics, you can go to the lyrics page, where the songs are sorted by title.
I've transcribed them as I have learnt them, which does not necessarily mean that I play them that way nowadays. Many of the tunes include variations and different versions. Some tunes appear more than once, if played in different keys or if the versions differ very much. Related tunes and different versions of the same tune are cross-referenced in the H: field. If there is a source (S:) or discography (D:) included the version transcribed might still not be exactly as that source played the tune, since I might have changed the tune around a bit when I learnt it.
The tunes were learnt from sessions, from friends, or from recordings - both commercial recordings and my own recordings from sessions. When I've included discography, it's often just a reference to some of the recordings the tune appears on.
If you know the names of any of the tunes I haven't got a name for, if you find any errors in the transcriptions or the web pages, or if you have some additional information you think might be of interest, please e-mail me at henrik@norbeck.nu.
Thanks to all the good people on the irtrad-l mailing list, TheSession.org and TuneArch.org for many names of tunes, bits of history about them, etc.
And thanks to all the musicians I've met and played Irish music with over the years, in Ireland, Sweden and other countries.
The ABC files and the tunes:- May not be used for commercial purposes (such as printing a tune book to sell).
- The ABC files (or parts of them) may not be made available on a web page for download without permission from me. Exception: individual tunes may be posted to discussion forums.
- The copyright notice must be kept, except when e-mailing or posting individual tunes.
- When e-mailing or posting individual tunes, you must keep the Z:id:hn- line.
- May be printed on paper for personal use.
You can read a description of my approximate text matching algorithm here.
My ABC tune book is free, but if you find it useful, you can send me a donation through PayPal to show your appreciation and encourage me to keep on updating with new tunes and songs.