The Book of SongThe Book of Song is actually a physical collection of typed and hand written lyrics, music sheets, notations, and reference documents. The original Book of Song was compiled by Máinlia, and when Comyn became the bard, he was given a copy of what had become Clann favorites to use as a reference. Many of these original sheets have been replaced over the years with updated versions, though some remain in their original form.

• Get song lyrics
• Buy a paperback copy
• Links to other resources

Bards under the lights: Momus, Asmund, and Kerry practicing some O'Carolan tunes

Access to the Book

The songs available to you in the online version of the Book of Song is dependent upon your membership status on this site. Some song pages may be restricted due to copyright concerns or because they are inappropriate for the mission of this site.

History of the Book of Song

The Book of Song has gotten larger over time. Lyrics have been added as the various Bards of the Clann have discovered the tunes over time. Please only add songs for which there is a serious intention for eventual performance for the Clann as gathered at an official event or meeting. The general format used for the Book of Song is to provide the lyrics with Guitar chords interspersed at the appropriate places. If you are not a musician, it falls to the Bards of the Clann to help provide this information in subsequent revisions of the lyrics as published.

Sometime in the late 90s a copy of the Book of Song found its way online for easier reference and collaboration, though not on the original AOL site maintained by Aonghus because Comyn was ever tweaking it and adding new songs, and so needed direct access to the site for maintenance. Even when Comyn took a leave of absence from the Clann he maintained the Book of Song on his personal web space. Now that the Clann has a more formal web presence that can be directly maintained by its members, it is time to bring this online version of the Book of Song back home.

Comyn had the Book of Song professionally printed several times over the last few years and you may see copies floating around camp from time to time.

Buy a Printed Copy

Most recent Book: 2009 edition
The 2009 Book of Song is available on Lulu! Most of the songs from the 2008 version are included (though some *were* removed, sadly), many corrections were made, new artwork added, chord and lyrics changes made, some new sheet music added. The 2009 edition is 208 pages, 8.5" x 11" paperback.

Hardcover Version

A hardcover version is available as well but it costs $22.70 but a proof copy shows that there isn't very much margin on the pages. If this is a concern, caveat emptor!

Conventions Used in the Online Book

For greater readability, the following convention has been devised. Wherever a Guitar chord should appear in the lyrical line, use the following code to insert it:

<font class="chord">[Am]</font>

The chord should appear just before the word or part of word where it would be normally played when performing the song. An example:

And its [F] all for me grog
me [Bb] jolly jolly [F] grog

note: these chord insertions will only appear in the final published page only if the Input Format of the page has been set to Full HTML. Normal Users may not have the ability to change the input format because this is a security risk.

This character font class is also currently used for notes on the song as well.

For translations, phonetics, and ABC formatted music I've used text inside

<pre>Text to be Formatted like this</pre>

The ABC format is a popular method of notating folk and Irish music using plain text making it easy to share over the internet. There are many different players available which allow users to create, edit, display, and play ABC formatted notation. I personally use Barfly for the Mac. Using one of these players, you can copy and paste the ABC text into the player, and either play the music directly or display it in normal sheet music format for reading (and playing) on an instrument.

Clann Member Resources

The following links point to Google Docs pages that several members may collaborate on. These links will take you away from this website.

Celtic / Folk Bands to Check Out
This page is just a place to keep track of new bands we discover and want to investigate further.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhttdpkx_17d3ff8z

Internet Resources

There is a wealth of information about Irish and Celtic music on the internet, and this page will not attempt to list them all, but some are certainly worth mentioning. The links in this section take you away from this website.

The Origins of Traditional Irish Music

http://www.standingstones.com/irishem.html