Comhaltas San Diego Tune Learning Session Tunebook
100+ tunes from the Comhaltas San Diego tune-learning sessions.
Interactive PDF Tunebooks and Websites
Created Using Michael Eskin's
ABC Transcription Tools
Here you’ll find a growing collection of interactive PDF tunebooks and websites I’ve created for learning, practicing, and sharing traditional Irish and other styles of music.
Explore the Tunebooks
Interactive PDF Tunebooks
Download printable tunebooks with interactive tune links.
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Interactive Websites
Browse, play, and practice tunes directly in your browser.
Browse Websites →
Michael Eskin's
Music & Photography Tools Explore my collection of music and photography tools. Browse Tools → Help, Tutorials & More Find tutorials, walkthroughs, troubleshooting tips, and contact information. View Help →
Music & Photography Tools Explore my collection of music and photography tools. Browse Tools → Help, Tutorials & More Find tutorials, walkthroughs, troubleshooting tips, and contact information. View Help →
Interactive PDF Tunebooks
Download the primary PDF edition for each collection, or expand Other PDF Editions for additional versions.
"The King Street Sessions Tunebook"
More than 1,000 traditional tunes, with a wide selection of instrument editions.
CARP Celtic Jam Tunebook
Celtic jam tunes with notation, incipits, and instrument editions.
CCE Dublin 2001 Tunebook
116 popular tunes with notation and instrument-specific tablature.
O'Flaherty Irish Retreat Tunes Played Slowly 2024
2024 retreat tunes played slowly, in interactive notation.
O'Flaherty Irish Retreat Tunes Played Slowly 2025
2025 retreat tunes played slowly, with a browser edition.
O'Flaherty Irish Retreat Tunes Played Slowly 2026
2026 retreat tunes played slowly, with a browser edition.
Songs of the Dupont Music Circle
239 traditional songs from the Dupont Music Circle.
Tune Settings Transcribed and Composed by Mike McHale
Transcriptions and compositions assembled from Mike McHale’s teaching.
O'Carolan Tunes Transcribed by Brennan / Black / Gilb
O’Carolan compositions in harp, dulcimer, and incipit editions.
A Dozen Lovely Waltzes for Box and Concertina
A small collection of waltzes for box and concertina.
Anglo Concertina / Button Accordion "Party Piece" Hornpipes
Arpeggio-heavy hornpipes for concertina and button accordion.
A Collection of 28 Renaissance Lute Pieces
28 Renaissance pieces arranged for different plucked instruments.
Shape Note Hymns from The Open Hymnal Project
Shape-note hymns from the 2014 Open Hymnal collection.
Interactive Tunebook Websites
Traditional Irish Session Tunes
O'Carolan Tunes Transcribed by Brennan / Black / Gilb (over 250 Irish harp tunes)
Interactive traditional music tunebook website.
Other Versions (1)
Hammered Dulcimer ↗Songs of the Dupont Music Circle (239 Traditional Songs)
Interactive traditional music tunebook website.
Other Versions (1)
Chord Chart Version ↗18th Century English, Irish, and Scottish Tune Collections
Other Versions (3)
Volume 2, c1710-1728 ↗ Volume 3, c1713-1726, 2nd edition c1726 ↗ Original ABC Files ↗Scottish Bagpipe Tunes
Classical Arrangements
Most of these include a Master Score, individual Parts
(using the "Split Parts" feature in the tool), and
"Music Minus One" practice versions for each instrument
Detailed webinar on how I created these can be found at the bottom of this section
Hymns from the Open Hymnal 2014 Project
ABC Transcription Tools Ultimate ABC Demos
Michael Eskin's Music & Photography Tools
Click the image below to explore all my music and photography web tools.
Help, Tutorials & More
Expand a topic for the original walkthroughs, diagrams, troubleshooting advice, and contact details.
How to Use the Interactive PDF Tunebooks
Click the << arrows on the left side of the tune pages to jump to the Table of Contents.
Click the >> arrows on the right side of the tune pages to jump to the Index.
Click on any tune name in the Table of Contents or Index to jump to that tune in the tunebook.
Playing the Tunes
Click the title of any tune to immediately play the tune using my ABC Transcription Tools.
The player control bar has mouse hover tooltips on all the controls explaining what they do.
To change the play speed, use the speed control highlighted here in the playback controls:
Value is a percentage, set a value of 60 or 70 to slow a tune down for learning.
Click the Start Tune Trainer button to open up a "step-up" tune player with the tune where you can practice playing along with the tune looped with increasing tempos.
Click Export Audio or Image to save the tune either as a .WAV or .MP3 file, or export an image of the tune in PNG, JPG, or SVG formats.
Click the Settings button to set the playback instruments.
Opening Tunes in the Tune Trainer Instead of the Player
If you want to have it so that the tunes always open in the Tune Trainer, you can enable this option in the tool's Settings dialog:
Open exported PDF and Website play links in the Tune Trainer
If checked, when opening play links using share URLs, for example from PDF files or websites with play links, the tune will launch into the Tune Trainer instead of the standard Player.
This will allow you, for example, always have an initial play speed of 50% or 70% by setting up the Tune Trainer however you want.
If the start and end speeds are the same in the Tune Trainer, the tune will just continuously loop at the selected speed forever.
Editing Your Own Versions of the Tunes
If you click "Close" in the player, you will be in the ABC Transcription Tools full screen tune view.
From the full screen view, you can open the player again by clicking the Play button in the lower right corner, or create a PDF of the tune by clicking the PDF button at the lower left corner.
Click the zoom arrows in the top right corner to close the full screen tune view and open the tune editor.
Once in the ABC Transcription Tools tune editor, you can view, edit, save, or create a PDF of the tune.
For complete information on editing the tunes, please check out the:
ABC Transcription Tools User Guide
Don't Forget to Save the PDF to Your System
Be sure to save the PDF file to your system after downloading if your browser doesn't automatically save it for you.
How to Use the Interactive Tunebook Websites
This video is a walktrough of the 2025 O'Flaherty Retreat tunebook website, but the same operations apply to all of the websites below.
Common Questions About the Tunebook Websites
How can I print or create a PDF of a tune on one of the websites?
How do I see more of the tune at once on the website?
How do I change the instruments used for playing the tunes?
How can I customize the website exported by the tool?
Something just looks wrong or isn't playing correctly
Printing or Creating PDFs for Tunes on the Websites
This can be nice for printing an individual part for "Music Minus One" practice when you want to read off a physical version of a score rather than trying to keep up with the autoscrolling in the Player or Tune Trainer.
When viewing a tune on any of the websites, you can generate a PDF file of the score using the PDF exporter built into my tool by:
Close the Player
Click the "PDF" icon at the lower left
If you want more control over the PDF layout or just want to print a score:
Click the "Full Screen" button at the upper right of the website
Close the Player
Now you can use the browser's built-in Print functionality to print a copy of the score or (depending on the browser) generate a PDF as well.
Zooming Out to See More of a Tunebook Website
When working a very wide but very short screen,
you'll want to zoom your browser out to see more of the tunes.
Additionally, you can try clicking the → ← or ← → buttons at far left and right of the buttons in the Player to decrease or increase the width of the player in 10% of the browser window screen width increments.
This video shows the process:
Changing the Instruments Used for Playing the Tunes
Generally, the instruments used for playback are "baked-into"
the exported website ABC share links.
You can override the instruments used for playback by
following the procedure demonstrated in this video:
Customized Tunebook Website Demo Video
Something just looks wrong or isn't playing correctly
Most likely, the tool just needs to be updated to the latest version and the tunebook website reloaded.
Close the tunebook website and open the ABC Transcription Tools in a new browser tab:
Click here to open the ABC Transcription Tools
Follow the procedure described here to force an update to the latest version of the tool:
Reload the tunebook website and then do a hard refresh of the page:
Launching the Websites from the iOS Facebook App Doesn't Work
Some time in November 2024, Facebook changed something about how their embedded webview works and now my tool doesn't work in that context.
For iOS 17 and 18, you will be presented with a button to click to open the page in Safari instead.
For earlier versions of iOS, you'll be prompted to click on the ... menu in the Facebook webview and then "Open in External Browser" to use the tool or the exported tunebook websites.
Changing the Instruments Used for Playing Tunes from the Tunebooks
It's easy to have your preferred instrument sounds used for the tune playback instead of the instrument sound that may be specified for a tune in the Interactive PDF tunebooks.
Here are the steps to follow:
1) Play a tune from the PDF tunebook by clicking on its title.
2) Click Settings at the bottom right of the Player. The Player Instrument Settings dialog will appear.
3) Set the Default abcjs soundfont selection to your preferred soundfont from the dropdown menu. The different soundfonts provide different sounding versions of each instrument.
4) Set the Melody and Bass/Chords MIDI instruments to your preferred instrument sounds from the dropdown menus.
5) Set the Bass and Chord volumes. Values are from 0-127. Generally values from 32-64 work best.
6) Important: Click the checkbox labeled "Override all MIDI programs and volumes in the ABC when playing tunes"
This will force the Player to use your preferred instrument instead of whatever instrument might be selected by the tunebook.
7) Close the Player Instrument Settings dialog.
Now, going forward, all tunes you click in an Interactive PDF tunebook will use your preferred instrument sounds and volumes.
To turn off the instrument and volume overrides, repeat the process, and uncheck "Override all MIDI programs and volumes in the ABC when playing tunes" in the Player Instrument Settings dialog
How to Read the B/C and C#/D Box Tablature
B/C - Shows standard notation and tablature for a standard 21-button B/C tuned box.
The button numbers and pitches used for the tablature match those on this chart:
Notes on the C-row are indicated by numbers: 1, 2, 3, ...
Notes on the B-row are indicated by numbers in circles: ①, ②, ③, ...
Push is indicated with a "↓" arrow.
Draw is indicated with an "↑" arrow.
Click here to download a PDF of the B/C tablature chart
C#/D - Shows standard notation and tablature for a standard 21-button C#/D tuned box.
The button numbers and pitches used for the tablature match those on this chart:
Notes on the D-row are indicated by numbers: 1, 2, 3,...
Notes on the C#-row are indicated by numbers in circles: ①, ②, ③, ...
Push is indicated with a "↓" arrow.
Draw is indicated with an "↑" arrow.
Click here to download a PDF of the C#/D tablature chart
Assumptions about the B/C and C#/D Box tablature solutions:
The tablature solution assumes that the "magic" notes (E and B on a B/C, F# and C# on a C#/D) that are available on both rows, will be played on the C-row on a B/C box and on the D-row on a C#/D box.
Use of the B/C and C#/D Box tablatures on a 23-button instrument:
If you are playing a 23-button instrument, you will need to shift your start position one button higher when playing.
Consider your first button as "button zero".
How to Read the Anglo Concertina Tablature
Older Tunebooks
Newer Tunebooks
Wheatstone Layout
Jeffries Layout
Click here to download a PDF of the Anglo Concertina tablature chart
Using the PDF Tunebooks on iOS and Android Devices
While the PDF tunebooks are generally intended for desktop or laptop use, in most cases they can be used on mobile devices with some caveats.
Tune playback may not work in some iOS or Android app embedded web browser views, like the one in the iOS Facebook app.
If opening the PDF tunebook from Facebook on a mobile device, use the "Open in system browser" option (click the ... at the lower right of the web view) in the Facebook embedded web browser to re-open the file in Safari (iOS) or on Android on the device's main browser.
If using the tunebook on an iPad, be sure the PDF reader you are using is set to open web links in Safari, not an embedded browser.
On iOS, the tunebook has been tested and works with Safari, Books, Files, and GoodReader if you enable "Open web links in Safari" in the GoodReader app preferences.
Also make sure you haven't turned on the Mute control in the iPad control panel or the Mute switch on the side of an iPhone.
I have done limited testing on Android devices, unsure of the behavior on the various browsers on those devices.
Both the ABC Transcription Tools and Interactive PDF tunebook playback have been verified on an older Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge running Google Chrome as the default web browser and the "PDF Viewer" Android app:
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These tunebooks as well as my ABC Transcription Tools are completely free.
If you find these tunebooks useful, please support ongoing development
of my ABC tools and tunebooks through a donation:
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https://paypal.me/MichaelEskin
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@MichaelEskin