Great book easy to understand. Thanks!

The piano accordion is commonly treated like the red-haired stepchild of Irish traditional music. This book serves a real need as a detailed and accessible resource for anyone aspiring to play ITM on this versatile but often maligned instrument. The tunes cover a range of material from different regions, mostly reels, jigs, and hornpipes. The left hand chords are clearly written and generally make workable accompniments to the tunes. There are several tunes identified as close transcriptions from well-regarded recordings. I haven't checked their accuracy, but minor bits of wrong information about the tunes or players--John Williams plays concertina and buton accordion, not PA==suggest caution. Ironically, the book's main drawback should be it's greatest asset: the included CD is a poor model for playing ITM on the PA. The author is a very accomplished accordionist playing a wide range of traditional genres professionally, but few seasoned students of ITM will hear a recognizably Irish feel to the playing on this disc. There is excessive reliance on a particular 2-note ornament, a sort of stuttering crann, that is played far too obtrusively, disrupting the rhythmic flow of the tunes. The internal rhythm of most tracks lacks swing and lift--ascending 3-note "triplets," like b-c#-d, are consistently played as written; tradional players generally play them more like 2 16ths and one 8th. I'm glad I bought this book, and I recommend it to others. But if you listen to the CD, do so critically. There are some far better listening models out there, including Oliver Loughlin, Mirella Murray, Colette O'Leary, Alan Kelly, Karen Tweed, and a great new record by the impeccable Dean Warner. Seek them out, train your ear, and use books like this to fill in the gaps.

"100 irish tunes for piano accordion" is the best book I seen about how to play irish tunes on accordion. The book could be even better if it talks more about how to make the ornamentations and how to express the basses to give the tunes a more irish sound.