5,000 Irish Tunes in Your Pocket
Using "TunePal" software written by Bryan Duggan of Ireland it's possible to store and access thousands of Irish tunes on a Pocket PC, and each tune can be played on a whim - at various speeds, in subsections and in alternate keys. This turns a Pocket PC into a very handy learning tool capable of playing an extensive selection of tunes at a volume and pace you find comfortable and pitched appropriately for your instrument. I currently have about 5,000 tunes on my own Pocket PC, including all of the three popular O'Neill's works (the Music of Ireland -1850 tunes, Dance Music of Ireland and Waifs and Strays). Since these are ABC files, they don't take up much space so I'm not taxing the onboard memory of the Pocket PC with this content. I can literally carry all of O'Neill's works and much more in a shirt pocket and I can select and play any tune in just a few seconds.
If you learn by ear, this software will instantly open the door to learning almost any tune by sound alone and you need know nothing of ABC format. If you already know a tune but need a refresher on how a portion of it goes, select it from an alphabetical list and give it a quick listen, looping it if you want it repeated. If you're a bit weak on by-ear learning and want a peek at the ABC notation, you'll be pleased to know that TunePal displays it on screen for each tune selected.
You wouldn't expect to entertain an audience with the tunes as they are rendered on a Pocket PC speaker, but as delivered by TunePal they are clear toned and the software offers many MIDI voices to chose from. I find the PDA speaker is just fine for listening and playing along with, but will acknowledge that the tones sound better if you care to use headphones and of course that route offers options such as positioning the headset to feed the tune in one ear while leaving the other open so that you can hear your own instrument clearly.
While TunePal will interpret and play the typical ornaments included in many ABC files, you should realize that it's up to you to apply your experience, expertise and personal taste to come up with whatever additional decoration you might think suitable for individual tunes. The software will faithfully deliver an audio version of an ABC file, but it's not the same as listening to a recording by your favorite artist and won't offer any specific insight into playing techniques for your particular instrument. But that's no different than referring to any music book to find the basics of a tune; the difference here is that this reference is easy to carry and does far more than simply offer an image showing a sequence of notes on a page (or "dots" as some call them).
You can try a basic version of the TunePal software (capable of playing many but not all ABC files) for no charge. Should you decide you like it, Bryan asks a very modest fee for a more robust version able to take on almost any ABC file and it includes MIDI files offering 128 voices to chose from. Thousands of music files in ABC format are freely available on the Internet, and if you're so inclined, you can use your PC to create your own ABC files and load them onto your Pocket PC as well.
If you're inclined to like large file collections, you should keep in mind that TunePal doesn't like ABC files that contain more than 1,000 individual ABC tunes. For this reason I've divided my O'Neill's 1850 collection into two seperate files, the first contains tunes 1-999 and the second holds tunes 1000-1850. This doesn't limit the overall number of tunes you can access with TunePal, rather it just limits the number of individual ABC tunes you can effectively access in a single file.
If you don't already own a suitable Pocket PC and don't want to purchase a new one, consider exploring the used market on eBay - you should be able to find one for $150 or less. You may already own a device capable of running TunePal and not realize it, some "smart phones" with Windows operating systems are receptive to the software too.
I think the combination of a Pocket PC and TunePal offers a tremendous by-ear learning opportunity. For further information, refer to Bryan Duggan's website and take a look at this PDF text as well.
Finally, for those of you that like what you've read about here, but don't consider it likely you'll be acquiring a Pocket PC anytime in the near future, I'll close this section with a link to a site offering links to ABC software for notebook and desktop computers as well as ABC files:
Chris Walshaw's website offers extensive links to ABC software and ABC tune file collections. It's only one of many such websites, but I've chosen it because it seems quite comprehensive.
For additional insight, try a Google search on the terms "ABC file player" and other such combinations and then explore the results.