Irish Melodies for Alto Recorder

For your money you get 16 heritage or folk-style tunes each taking up one page of the book. On the CD you hear the same tunes played in full and then there is a second track with just the backing instruments of accordion and drum for you to play along with after practice. This second track is at the same pace as the first tune rather than being a bit slower as is usual - this makes it harder for learners to make full use of the CD and I think I'll be using a metronome rather than the CD most of the time - making the second track rather pointless. The pace on these tracks can be quite fast, over 100 BPM, though a few of them are a good bit slower. Three of the tunes are in B flat, one is in D and one in E flat. The others are in the easier keys of C F and G. Most of the tunes are between 40 and 50 bars. The highest note in most of the pieces is high D but one of them goes to high E flat and another to high E. The example tracks feature well-executed ornaments (the twiddly bits that make irish music distinctive) but there is no indication in the book of how to play them. (If you’re interested search on Youtube for Sarah Jeffery’s film on trad recorder). I’ve been working hard at recorder for a year and I think that after a lot of work I’ll be able to play the three or four of the tunes which are reasonably slow using the backing track, but for the others even those slowed-down tracks will still be too fast for me so I’ll probably end up using a metronome app instead.One of the tunes, “Wi a Hundred Pipers” is actually Scottish, and I’d always thought of another, “The Devil’s Dream” as American, though I’ve just googled it and it turns out to be Scots in origin. Two of the tunes, “Planxty Irwin” and “Sheebeg and Sheemore” appear in the Mel Bay Carolan tune book that I’ve also reviewed recently. I’d always thought that another tune, “Give me Your Hand” was by Carolan, though Wiki tells us that it was written by Rory Dall O'Cahan. Three of the tunes were written by the person who compiled this book.I’ve got mixed feelings about all this. I certainly don’t mind the Carolan, Scots and American tunes, and there is no reason why people of our era cannot write first rate folk tunes - if you don’t believe me just listen to the track “Snow on the Mountain” by the fabulous Scots group the Battlefield Band. On the other hand, hogging three out of sixteen tracks for your own work seems pushy to say the least, and while there is nothing actually wrong with the tunes Johow has written for us, there is frankly nothing so great either, and two of them looks extremely difficult to me. It’s also a bit misleading to call all these tunes Irish. If the product had been called “Celtic-style Melodies” this might have been more honest.There’s more - most Irish music these days is in the keys of D and G. D is a problem key for alto players. Ideally, to play trad music, we want to be able to play two full octaves or failing that an octave and a half, with the half octave lieing above the full octave - but the alto being what it is, the half octave lies below the full octave in the key of D. To get round this the compiler has simply moved some tunes into keys that work well on the alto, transposing from D into F, C, or B flat. This will be OK for those of us who are approaching this product as enjoyable practice material for the recorder, but if your ambition is to play in Irish sessions then this would be a problem, as theoretically you might show up at a session and try to play a tune in a totally different key to everyone else. (Though not many of these tunes are played in sessions, so I suppose the two errors here cancel each other out).Even harder to understand, Johow gives us only one tune in G, the only key that is easy on the alto and actually used by Irish trad players. (Here I think he has pointlessly transposed a tune from D to G rather than simply giving it to us in G, it's usual key, though I’m not sure about this).Apart from the tunes mentioned above and the three tunes by the compiler, tunes on the book/CD are - the Irish Washerwoman; Buachaill on Eire; Sweeney's polka; Buttered peas; Mason's apron; the Steamboat; and Soldiers Joy. I don't recognise the versions of the Masons Apron or Soldiers Joy as tunes that I know - rather they seem to be tunes that the Johow has adapted heavilly for no obvious reason, not just changing the key (moving Mason's Apron into E flat) but the tunes themselves. Again, I have mixed feelings. I'm firmly opposed to bigotry against people from central Europe - on the other hand, I don't think Johow's background as a classical violinist and fiddle player in a klezmer band in Germany has helped him pick tunes that are played frequently in Irish trad sessions. This shows through in the tunes that he has written which sound more like pastiches (someone from outside taking the elements of a style and chucking them together) than the authentic thing. He calls one of his tunes "the fiddling gun" which perhaps shows that he does not understand recent Irish history very well - after all, the peace in the Northern six counties is by no means guaranteed. Could he not have chosen a more tactful title? And is he really more interested in fiddles than recorders?There are chords such as D, Am etc above the stave for guitarists, so this product could also be used to learn or practice a voice and chording instrument such as the accordion or duet concertina. Bizarrely, though, none of the chords are sevenths - they’re all just major or minor chords. Don't ask me why - I've stopped trying to work it out.If you’re interested in this product you might like to look at my review of the Mel Bay book “O’Carolan’s tunes for Treble/Alto Recorder”. Two of the tunes are in both books, one in the same key and one in two different keys. The Mel Bay book does not come with a CD, though all of the tunes on it seem to be on Youtube. The keys in that book are easier and it does what it says on the tin in a way that this product does not. This product is perhaps fair practice material for people who have been playing recorder three years or more, and who have only a passing interest in Irish trad music, but it is definitely not a good route into Irish trad music for the trad enthusiast. The book for alto recorder players who want to play trad remains to be written. A pity.PS On the recording of one of the tunes the recorder player is breathing in where the sheet music tells us to play the notes legato, or slur them. Given that the limited use this product offers is practice material for classical players, this is unacceptable. On another the ornaments are so intrusive that I can't get the tune itself into my head, even though we get no advice on how to play ornaments. As if the product were not poor enough already these are further flaws. Two stars is generous.