Books & Media

Traditional music lived for centuries in the ear and the hand before anyone wrote it down. Notation arrived late, and recordings later still. Both have proven enormously useful — a tune book preserves what might otherwise disappear between generations, and a great recording captures something that notation, however careful, never quite can. The resources here span the full range: method books for players learning an instrument, tune collections organized by tradition, cultural and historical writing that puts the music in context, and recordings on vinyl, CD, and cassette that belong in any serious collection of traditional and world music.