Often times when we discover a genre of music we enjoy we decide to immerse ourselves in a tradition.  Perhaps we decide to take up a certain type of instruments or musical style.  It certainly helps to find a teacher or attend a workshop.  However, if neither of those options are available, instruction manuals often do the trick.  Irish piper/teacher and recording artist Grey Larsen's The Essential Guide to Irish Flute & Tin Whistles offers beginners and an advanced musicians a thoughtful set of lessons to get them from point A to point B.  And along the way, musicians, music fans and journalists glean historical, practical information as well as, tricks of the trade.

This essential guide marks Larsen's fourth book with Mel Bay Publications  (publisher of instructional music manuals & encyclopedias) and he previously recorded 10 CDs.  Born in New York of Irish origin, Larsen took up Irish flute as an adult.  Over the years, he has become an expert on Irish flute and tin whistles.  His years of teaching workshops, writing manuals and his own musical discoveries certainly enhance the pages of his insightful manual.   The book includes helpful photographs, diagrams and notations as well as, numerous pages of transcriptions of traditional jigs, reels and other forms.  Various techniques such as tonguing, rolls, strikes, slides and slurring are included as well.

The book is divided into sections that focus on history, theory, the instruments, ornamentation, phrasing, articulation and breath.  The section eight focuses on various pipers (1925 to 2001) and includes brief biographies and transcriptions of songs transcribed digitally from previous recordings.  Larsen emphasizes that the best way to learn Irish traditional music is through immersion or listening to recordings from both contemporary and performers from the past, also referred to as our elders.  Musicians who read music and the ones who play by ear can benefit from the lessons in the book.  However, Larsen encourages musicians to learn to read music to get the gist of the songs and for those who read music to learn to play by ear and improvise.  After all, improvisation is an important element in traditional Irish music.

There is little doubt in my mind that if someone who truly desired to learn Irish flute or tin whistle could do so by practicing the exercises in this manual and following Larsen's advice.  And it wouldn't hurt to pick up a couple of Larsen's recordings to further enhance the experience. www.greylarsen.com, www.melbay.com and www.rockpaperscissors.biz