Sheet Music and Instruments
If you have an
excellent link that should be here, please contact
Ron McCabe
I have tried very hard to post
here only the best links I could find related to folk music,
and have tried to jump into sites on the other side of splash
pages and such. If you find that is not the case, please let
me know, and I will see if I can find a way to vector around
them.
Banjo Links
- Banjo Corner has a variety of banjos for sale with
distinguished styles and discount prices. Only brand
names with quality you can trust like Oscar Schmidt
and Washburn are sold. Banjos can be found for
beginners and professional musicians. All banjos for
sale are brand new, and satisfaction is guaranteed.
- Test your banjo for Y2K
readiness
- Here is a list of links
to information on various stringed
musical instruments - all kinds of instruments.
- Banjo Glossary
- 5-String Banjo Tunings - a large listing of tunings
for 5 string banjo and songs/artists that use them.
- BANJO-L Website Table of Contents. Listserver
site for BANJO-L
- Paul Hawthorne's Website is another fine web site,
aimed at banjo players (no pun intended!), and is
where Scott Zimmerman's Answers to Banjo FAQ's (below)
came from.
- Scott Zimmerman's Answers to
Banjo FAQ's, a
very good page, discussing how to care for wood
instruments, how to adjust the head of your banjo,
what to look for in a banjo, etc.
- BluegrassBanjo website - nice links. Online lessons
- Banjo Information and Trivia from BluegrassBanjo.org
- Private banjo lessons, Video
Banjo Lessons By Mail, Lessons By Mail with AcuTab proprietor John
Lawless - for a fee.
- Bopjo Central - "devoted to furthering
an awareness and appreciation of Jazz and progressive
music played on the 5-String Banjo"
- The Banjo Revolution Web Circle - Links to more banjo
information
- Banjo Hangout - "your helpful resource for
everything related the banjo" - lessons, tabs,
links. Beginner, Intermediate, Expert topics. Very
nice site.
- 5 string banjo anatomy - Pictures and discussion of
banjo mechanical construction.
- Online 5 string Banjo Owners Manual (in progress), and A Look at Banjo Pegs, and Installing a Geared 5th Peg - cool - actually giving
instructions and showing pictures of how to do it! -
from frets.com - excellent.
Their Table of Contents and Index
- Why Our Stringed Instruments
Sound Out of Tune and A Way to Help Correct the
Problem by
Bill Palmer - discusses tuning theory (briefly) and
how to tune guitars and banjos to sound best.
- An Uneventempered Tuning
Strategy and How to Use Electronic Tuners With It by Paul Hawthorne - a slightly
different way to tune a banjo to sound good. No! this
is not a joke.
- Here is a nice link to more banjo links from the Bluegrass
Banjo website.
Fiddler Links
- Not exactly a fiddler
site - more of a violin accessory site - They sell
fiddle parts and accessories worldwide, http://www.muchofinoviolins.org
- Here is a list of links
to information on various stringed
musical instruments - all kinds of instruments.
- Fiddlers Attic - Nice links related to
fiddling, and old time music, Plus classified ads for
violins, banjos, mandolins
- Fiddler Magazine - "to provide an
informative, educational, and entertaining resource
for fiddlers, accompanists, and appreciative
listeners"
- Irish Music Magazine
- Fiddle-L To subscribe to
this list send the text: subscribe fiddle in
the body of the message to: majordomo@fsc.fujitsu.com
- The Virtual Fiddle Camp's - Student Package - sponsored by: The Saskatchewan Cultural
Exchange Society
- Definitions of Types of Old
Time Fiddle Tunes - Very nice!
- The Fiddler's Companion created by Andrew Kuntz is a
huge (>50,000) encyclopedia of fiddle tunes from
the Celtic, British and American traditions. Some the
tunes (several hundred) are in ABC format. See the ABC section below on
this page.
- Fiddler's Sites of Interest links to sites that would be
of interest to fiddlers (and possibly other folk
musicians). Quite a lot of ABC format music links,
but midi and gif too.
- The North American Fiddlers
Association
Dobro Links
Mandolin Links
Guitar Links
 Guitar Lessons - Guitar Scale. You can move forward from boring
bedroom practice and progress quickly and easily with
simple to follow first guitar education tutor
training lessons, for the guitarist who wants to
begin to play and learn.- Here is a list of links
to information on various stringed
musical instruments - all kinds of instruments.
- Acoustic_guitar -
Listserver contact - acoustic_guitar-owner@onelist.com. An open, unmoderated
discussion list about playing the acoustc guitar.
Discussions about every genre are welcome, finger-style,
flatpick, flamenco. The list will focus on learning
to play in various styles and on sharing TAB and
other educational learning material. List owner: nature@wxs.nl (Gert Braakman)
- FLATPICK-L - Listserver
for the discussion of the style of acoustic guitar
playing known as "flatpicking." This
includes bluegrass, old-time, fiddle tunes, swing,
"new acoustic music," newgrass, and
flatpicked Celtic styles. To subscribe, send email to listserv@LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU and in the body of the message,
put subscribe FLATPICK-L
- Flatpick-L Website
- GUITARIST-L A listserver
for guitarists, both amateur and professional. Topics
can include instruments, amps, mixing, effects, or
anything else related to the art of playing the
guitar. To subscribe, send email to - listserv@MANA.LANDOFHAZE.COM and in the body of the message,
put SUBSCRIBE GUITARIST-L Firstname Lastname
- GuitarSite - a very nice guitar oriented site
- GuitarNotes - another nice guitar oriented site.
- Here are more Guitar links
- Flatpicking Irish and Scottish
Music on Guitar
- OLGA, the On-Line Guitar Archive. OLGA is a
library of files that show you how to play songs on
guitar.
- Online Steel String Guitar Owners
Manual from frets.com - excellent. Their Table of Contents and Index
- Online Classical Guitar Owners Manual (in progress) from frets.com - good. Their Table of Contents and Index
- Jazz (archtop) Guitar Owners
Manual (in
progress) from frets.com - good. Their Table of Contents and Index
- Why Our Stringed Instruments
Sound Out of Tune and A Way to Help Correct the
Problem by
Bill Palmer - discusses tuning theory (briefly) and
how to tune guitars and banjos to sound best.
- An Uneventempered Tuning
Strategy and How to Use Electronic Tuners With It by Paul Hawthorne - a slightly
different way to tune a banjo to sound good. No! this
is not a joke.
Upright Bass
Links
 Here
is a list of links to information on various stringed
musical instruments - all kinds of instruments.- Bass Archive listserver -
The Bass Archive is a gathering of Bassists who want
to discuss what's on their minds. Feel free to post
whatever you want, as long as its content is
appropriate to the list. Hopefully this list will be
more of a learning tool, than a place to talk with
your friends. The Bass Archive will come to you every
business day, Monday through Friday in an environment
friendly digest version. So enjoy, and tell others!!
To subscribe, send email to majordomo@valinor.eldar.org and in the body of the message,
put subscribe bass_archive
Dulcimer Links
Hammered Dulcimer
Both
- Here is a list of links
to information on various stringed
musical instruments - all kinds of instruments.
- Dulcimer Players News (DPN) has guided
players, builders, and dulcimer enthusiasts on their
musical journey. Devoted to both hammered and fretted
dulcimer with tunes, tips for beginners, reviews,
instrument care and repair, interviews, festival
information, dulcimer history, and more. Quarterly,
52-page issues are mailed to subscribers in January,
April, July, and October.
Mountain
(Lap) Dulcimer
Miscellaneous
Instruments
- Here is a list of links
to information on various stringed
musical instruments - all kinds of instruments.
- The bodhrán is the heartbeat of Irish
music. This ancient framedrum is traditionally made
with a wooden body and a goat-skin head, and is
played with a double-headed stick called a cipín,
tipper, or beater.
- The Hardanger Fiddle Association of
America
- Ceolas Celtic music instruments
- The Button Box - specialize in accordion and
concertina sales and repairs and have a great
selection of books, recordings and accessories in
stock. "The web site is great for anyone
interested in traditional music - it has that rare
combination: pretty, fast-loading, and lots of useful
links and information about hard-to-find recordings,
etc."
- Musical Instrument Makers Forum - an online forum for the
discussion of making musical instruments, for those
from novice to expert/professional. They have a nice links page. They also have a book store, tools
store, and FAQ.
- The Autoharp Page.
- Wither Zither - Zither - the world famous Peter Berryman's look at the zither - with
links.
Luthier Links
- Not exactly a luthier
site - more of a violin accessory site - They sell
fiddle parts and accessories worldwide, http://www.muchofinoviolins.org
- From the great land 'downunder' Ellis Guitars in Willetton, WA (near Perth,
Western Australia). Here is an interview with Andrew Ellis in Tradmusic magazine - "... I realised after some
time that with my woodworking skills I could build
myself a guitar. My goal was to build something I
would be proud of and want to play myself. It took me
five guitars and every spare minute of time
researching to come up with a guitar which I was
proud to play. Today I have the same goal - making
the best possible guitars for my customers." Services, Guitars, Contact, Email - info (at)
ellisguitars (dot) com.
- Frets.com - an excellent site - "An Acoustic
Instrument Textbook for Musicians and Luthiers."
- Information on fretted instruments, care, repair,
upgrading, accessories, Luthier Technical Q & A, "The Owner's Manual You
Didn't Get", Items for Luthiers, Vintage Online Instrument
Museum -
guitars, banjos, mandolins, ukes, more!, What's New Page.
- Hoffman Guitars - has an excellent restoration
project - a 1908 C.F.Martin 0-17 - documented online,
they also have guitar making documented online. This
is a frames based site - I can't jump into pages
directly. This site is worth it!
Music Links
- The Journal of Music in Ireland (JMI) is a Bi-Monthly Music
Magazine that publishes a range of articles and
reviews on traditional, classical and contemporary
music in Ireland. Issued every two months, JMI is
available by mail subscription and in selected shops
around Ireland. JMI’s multi-genre approach makes it unique,
bringing you debates on all issues relating to music
in Ireland, from Irish traditional music to
contemporary composition, sean-nós singing to music
education, and music history to music criticism. From September 2004, JMI, in co-operation with the
Irish Traditional Music Archive, will also bring you
listings of new traditional music CDs and books,
vital for all those who wish to keep up-to-date with
the latest releases.
- musiclessonsource.com offers live private music
instruction via internet videoconferencing. It is a
new concept in musical instruction and is perfect for
those that can't find or can't get to a qualified
instructor, or those that just freeze up in a normal
learning situation. Randy is teaching Guitar,
Mandolin, Banjo, and Dobro and concentrating on
Bluegrass, Folk, Blues, Jug Band, and Celtic. Have a
look www.musiclessonsource.com
- North American Folk Music and Dance
Alliance -
"...exists to foster and promote traditional,
contemporary, and multicultural folk music and dance,
and related performing arts in North America. The
Folk Alliance seeks to strengthen and advance
organizational and individual initiatives in folk
music and dance through education, networking,
advocacy, and professional and field development."
- Old Time Music Home Page - "is a web site devoted
to the preservation of American traditional music,
especially the music of the Appalachian Mountain
region"
- Old Time Music Sites - more links to old time music
- from the Fiddlers Attic.
- Old Time Music
- rec.music.country.old-time
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Definitions of Types of Old
Time Fiddle Tunes
- A Folkie's Dictionary, a comprehensive glossary of
musical terms related to folk and roots music.
- Here is a short History of Bluegrass Music
- BlueGrassRoots - don't let its location (Estonia)
fool ya, this is one amazing web site.
- The International Bluegrass Music
Association (IBMA) is a professional trade
association dedicated to promoting and expanding the
success of bluegrass music.
- If you have a band and no
name - The Random Bad Bluegrass Band
Name Generator
- Ceolas.org - Celtic Music
- Tunes at Ceolas - their tunes (in Acrobat format,
graphics (gif), ABC (& postscript), MIDI, Bagpipe
TeX), software links page, and songs and lyrics
- Celtic/ British Isles Music For
Finger Style Guitar
- FolkLib Index: A Library of Folk Music Links
- Songs.com - folk artist list
- Musi-Caltm - Search for concert schedules
for your favorite musicians, check out festival links
or browse club listings!
- Homespun Tapes - Music Instruction on
cassette, CD, and video tape
- Dirty Linen Magazine - an e-zine out on the east
coast of the US
- Dirty Linen listing of concerts in
Wisconsin. - GOOD
- Southern Wisconsin Bluegrass Music Association,
Inc. - a great
organization, and a wonderful site.
- folkmusic.org, the comprehensive source for folk and
acoustic music resources on the World Wide Web.
- The Folk File - A Folkie's Dictionary - nice link.
- Barb Diederich's Handy
Bluegrass Links - Excellent Link - over 2000 links to
bluegrass stuff on the web.
- A Link to more Links on acoustic, folk, and
bluegrass music.
- Northern Lights Link to more acoustic, folk and
bluegrass music links.
- Cybergrass - "The Internet's Best Bluegrass
Music Source".
Lyrics,
Recordings, Labels, and Other Resource Links
- Mudcat Café - an e-zine - has folk/blues
online forum and DigiTrad Lyrics Search
- Bluegrass Lyrics - from Japan! Very thorough
- Folk Music - An Index to
Recorded Resources - from The Johns Hopkins University and
the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. This is a excellent
resource for American folk music recordings.
- Dirty Linen's - Folk Record Company (Label)
Addresses -
huge!
- The Witz End - list of Wisconsin music venues, record
companies, recording studios, music stores and
agencies with websites.
- Folk Era Records, based in Naperville, Illinois,
has 70 albums currently in print on the label, though
that number is ever growing. They feature a selection
of both reissues and new releases.
- Mugwumps Online Classified Ads - Banjos, Concertinas,
Dulcimers, Fiddles, Guitars, Mandolins, Ukuleles, and
more
- Net Instruments - Online musical instrument
classified ads
- efolkmusic - MP3's, CD's of Folk, Bluegrass,
Celtic, etc. music.
- The Fiddler's Companion created by Andrew Kuntz is a huge (>50,000) encyclopedia of
fiddle tunes from the Celtic, British and American
traditions. Some the tunes (several hundred) are in ABC format. See below.
- Guitar Gallery Sheet Music - Has a great selection of
folk/bluegrass sheet music for Guitar, Banjo,
Mandolin, Dobro and Fiddle.
- Free Sheet Music - links to free
sheet music from freesheetmusic.net, much of it is in
ABC format
Instrument Suppliers, etc.
- Not exactly an instrument
supplier - more of a violin accessory site - They
sell fiddle parts and accessories worldwide, http://www.muchofinoviolins.org
- Deal Turtle -- Ethnic and Mid-East instruments
dealer. Their central focus is any type of ethnic,
world, or middle-eastern music or musical instrument,
but They go far beyond that. They are a global dealer
of unique and hard to find products and merchandise.
- Selling Music Instruments. They are a simple to use UK
online trading advert site for musicians, instrument
manufacturers and traders, where items can be
displayed for buyers and sellers to purchase or
exchange. Our buy or sell categories cover all
musical instruments and accessories.
- Carousel Publications, Ltd. specializes in making music
fun. Here you'll find djembes and talking drums from
Africa, doumbeks and tablas from India and Pakistan,
gongs and cymbals from China and Indonesia,
tambourines and drums from Egypt and Morocco, flutes
and ocarinas from South America and China and many
more percussion and musical instruments from around
the world.
- Mid-East Mfg., Inc. "Ethnic musical
instruments from around the world"
ABC Notation
Links
- The ABC musical notation
language is
described in detail. "It was designed primarily
for folk and traditional tunes of Western European
origin (such as English, Irish and Scottish) which
can be written on one stave in standard classical
notation. However, it is extendible to many other
types of music and recently Steve Allen has coded Beethoven's Symphony No. 7,
Movement 2 in
abc!". Although it may not be very easy.
- The Fiddler's Companion created by Andrew Kuntz is a huge (>50,000) encyclopedia of
fiddle tunes from the Celtic, British and American
traditions. Some the tunes (several hundred) are in ABC format.
- John Chambers' ABC music
collection -
If that name rings a bell - you have been in Madison
a long time! He has a huge collection of folk
music (in File, ABC, PS, EPS, GIF, and MIDI formats)
from all over the world, a large amount from
the Balkans, also a lot of contradance, Irish,
Scottish, and other that you might find useful. If
you haven't heard about ABC music yet (it is fairly
new!) read John's FAQ about ABC Music Notation. It is a simple, transportable
music notation system that was developed on the net.
It is probably not sophisticated enough to do
classical music scores easily, but it seems to work
well for folk music. There are Windoze viewers,
players, and printers available at his site. His 'Tune Finder' will locate tunes for you so
you can retrieve them in - File, ABC, PS, EPS, GIF,
or MIDI format. Excellent job John!
- The ABC2Win program provides a means of
translating standard ABC notation into standard
musical notation which may be viewed on screen in
Microsoft Windows®, and/or printed out. It comes
with a player program so you can hear tunes you
collect or write yourself. It is shareware - $20. It
is an OK program, sample musical staff print out is excellent
quality, playing music through the PC speaker is
functional, but a little hokey.
- Another decent ABC
program is - AbcMus. It is shareware - current price of
version 1.1 - $10.00 (US dollars). It runs under
Windoze and will play the music to a midi device with
some style, it can automatically add chords, and has
other useful features.
- ABCTools, is a 16-bit Windows program
that lets you transpose ABC tunes, make cheat sheets,
check the syntax of your tune files, and more. By
Elizabeth Scarlett. Freeware?
- ABCFind a 16-bit Windows program that
lets you search ABC tune files for text or tune
fragments. You can look for tune titles (or any text
string) in your ABC files, search for tunes if you
know the first (or any) bar of the music but not the
title, compare tunes, and more. By Elizabeth Scarlett.
Freeware?
- abc2ps - A program from Michael Methfessel,
which converts from ABC to postscript directly, for
various platforms - Unix, Mac, DOS, Windows 95, NT.
For Widows you will need to get Ghostscript and GhostView to be able to view/print
postscript.
- Links to ABC music, and fiddle music
- A large list of Links to ABC music.
- Free Sheet Music - links to free
sheet music from freesheetmusic.net, much of it is in
ABC format
Other Useful
Music and Audio Tools (Software)
- Musician's CD-Player for
Windows from Roni Music in Sweden - speed up or slow
down wave files, and CD music without changing pitch.
Excellent for practicing along, or for learning or
teaching dances. They also have other nice shareware
audio and midi software for Windoze and Atari
- Syntrillum Software - the makers of CoolEdit - a Windoze software package
for editing all types of wave files, signal
processing abilities include noise removal, speed up/slowdown
waveforms with or without changing pitch, FFT
filtering, cue lists, play lists, crossfade splicing,
plus more. Shareware. Ver 2000 is $69, upgrade from
Ver 96 is $29
- Metronome by Nick Baciu is shareware $9,
it will do irregular rhythms (9/16, 11/16, etc)
- CDex is a is utility which can record
Digital Audio (DA) tracks from CD into files. The
recorded audio tracks can be stored as WAV or MP3 (MPEG-1
Audio Layer-3) files. Freeware
- Go!Zilla - Adverware(no charge)/Shareware($30)
Automate your downloads - nice, powerful - especially
nice for downloading lots of ABC files at one time.
You can "leech" an entire FTP directory.
- Spectrogram by R.S. Horne - Freeware
- display spectrogram of sound coming into your PC's
microphone.
- Frequency Analyzer A Windoze sound frequency (spectrum)
analyzer, Freeware. Needs a sound
card, and a microphone.
- Tuner - A Windoze "guitar" tuner, Freeware.
Needs a sound card, and a microphone.
- NoteCard is a Freeware
music-reading drill utility for Windows. Comes in 16
and 32 bit versions. It's an ideal tool for anyone in the
first stages of learning to read music. It can
significantly shorten the time it takes to learn to
recognize the notes instantly, an absolutely
necessary ability for fluent reading. Practice the
bass staff, the treble staff, or both at once, Three
input modes, including piano keyboard style, Detailed
on-line help. If you are new to downloading they have
a short tutorial to help you.
- WinAmp - I got it from TUCOWS - "An outstanding MP3 (Mpeg Layer-3)
audio player. Includes spectrum analyzer, graphic
equalizer, playlists, and more! You can rewind and
fast-forward the files by its handy bar at the bottom.
Great user-interface!" Freeware.
- Shareware Music Machine - "The World's Biggest
Music Software Site" - Definitely check this out
if you are into music or audio. Plenty of tools here.
- Transkriber SLOW DOWN the music without
changing the pitch using your computer!
- Windows Annoyances a site devoted to coping with
Windows annoying "features".
Folk Music on the Web
 It is truly
a World Wide Web!
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Here is a list of links to 
