Back in the early 1980s, when I playing and learning a lot of the time, I had lots of music books and lots of printed tunes in them, but no easy quick way of finding which tune was in what book and whether it was the tune that I wanted. It may be that I would go and look up the desired title only to find that it was a reel and not the jig that I thought it was. So I slowly typed in all the titles that I had with reference to the book, what page it was on and what type of tune it was.
This was all done on a Video Genie running the LDOS operating system. This PC was a Tandy TRS80 look alike, with 2 x 750k 5.25" floppy disks and maybe one other smaller floppy disk. Naturally I lost most of data one time due to the vagaries and unreliability of that media. A lesson well remembered ever since, as I had to spend hours retyping what I had already done.
The end result was that this database contains 8649 tune titles.
So take a look and see if this is of any use to yourself.
The Books covered are:-
1000
ENGLISH COUNTRY DANCE TUNES |
MCNULTY |
50
OLD ENGLISH AIRS |
NEW
NATIONAL SONG BOOK |
6
DANCES FROM THE |
NORTHUMBRIAN
PIPERS |
AG
DEANAMH CEOIL |
NORTHUMBRIAN
PIPERS 2nd BOOK |
ALLANS
IRISH FIDDLER (PIANIST) |
O
CAROLAN |
APTED
BOOK OF COUNTRY DANCES |
O
NEILLS WAIFS AND STRAYS |
O'NEILLS
1000 |
|
B
& S 1 |
O'NEILLS
1001 |
B
& S 2 |
O'NEILLS
1850 |
B
& S 3 |
PEACOCKS
TUNES |
B
& S 4 |
PENGUIN
BOOK OF ENGLISH FOLK SONG |
BAGPIPE
MCFAYDEN |
PIPERS
DELIGHT |
BAGPIPE
MUSIC FOR DANCING |
PLUA'S
BOOK M1 |
BAND
CALL |
PLUAS
BOOK MIII |
BOBBY
MCLEOD |
PLUAS
BOOK N |
BOYS
OF THE LOUGH |
PLUAS
BOOK P |
CALLERS
CHOICE |
PLUAS
BOOK S |
CALLERS
CHOICE VOL 2 |
POPULAR
SELECTION BOOK 1 |
CANOW
KERNOW |
POPULAR
SELECTION BOOK 2 |
CHARLTON
MEMORIAL TUNE BOOK |
POPULAR
SELECTION BOOK 3 |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 1 |
POPULAR
SELECTION BOOK 4 |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 2 |
RALPH
PAGE BOOK OF CONTRAS |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 3 |
RINGING
STRINGS |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 4 |
ROCHE
COLLECTION BOOK 1 |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 5 |
ROCHE
COLLECTION BOOK 2 |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 6 |
ROCHE
COLLECTION BOOK 3 |
COMMUNITY
DANCE MANUAL 7 |
ROLY
NO 1 |
ROLY
NO 2 |
|
EIGHTY
ENGLISH FOLKSONGS |
ROLY
NO 3 |
ENGLISH
COUNTRY DANCE TUNES RMS35 |
RON
GONNELLA FIDDLE |
EVERYDAY
DANCES |
SCOTS
GUARDS |
FEADOG
STAIN |
SCOTS
GUARDS VOL 2 |
FIDDLE
TUNES |
SCOTTISH
AIRS |
FIDDLERS
TUNE BOOK 1 |
SCOTTISH
CDM 1 |
FIDDLERS
TUNE BOOK 2 |
SCOTTISH
CDM 2 |
FIFTY
OLD AIRS AND DANCES 1 |
SCOTTISH
CDM 3 |
FIFTY
OLD AIRS AND DANCES 2 |
SCOTTISH
CDM 4 |
GLENDARUEL
COLLECTION |
SCOTTISH
SONGS |
GREAT
GAELIC TUNES |
SCOTTISH
VIOLINIST (SCOTT SKINNER) |
HARDINGS |
SKYE
COLLECTION |
HIGH
LEVEL RANTERS |
SOODLUMS
TUTOR VOL 1 |
HIGHLANDS
AND |
SOODLUMS
TUTOR VOL2 |
IRISH
SONG BOOK |
SULLIVAN
1 |
IRISH
SONGBOOK CLANCY |
SWING
PARTNERS |
KERRS
1 |
SWORD
AND CEREMONY |
KERRS
2 |
TIN
WHISTLE TUTOR |
KERRS
3 |
TRADITIONAL
DANCE AIRS |
KERRS
4 |
TREBLES
DELIGHT |
KERRS
CALEDONIAN |
TUNES
FOR THE BAND |
KERRS
COLLECTION OF REELS AND SY' |
TUNES
FOR THE DANCING MASTER |
KERRS
MODERN DANCE ALBUM |
TWELVE
COUNTRY DANCES |
KERRS
PIANO COLLECTION |
|
MARR
& COS ROYAL |
WHISTLERS
POCKET COMPANION |
PLUAS book were notes that Paul Stanbrook had made, maybe they were thrown away after he died.
I guess that ROLY 1 2 & 3 are somewhere in my loft.
Interestingly for me, it seems to have taken almost as much effort in formatting
the original data into a MySql database.
Sending the database content to the Internet server.
Figuring out forms - sort of.
Figuring out Perl - even more sort of.
Figuring out how to create a web page on the fly.
My methods may not be elegant but they finally worked! Thanks to David my son who decided that some more elegance was required.