The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) is committed to providing free, universal access to the rich cultural tradition of Irish music, song and dance. If you’re able, we’d love for you to consider a donation. Any level of support will help us preserve and grow this tradition for future generations.
The Irish Traditional Music Archive welcomed in a group of six fantastic transition year students this February for a week of work experience in the archive. Apart from being great students, all six of these TYs are also talented young musicians. Below is a reflection on the experience from each of the five students:
My name is Donnadh, I did transition year work experience in the Itma this year.
I learned a lot about traditional music and how an archive works for example how things are organised and logged in the archive.
I really enjoyed the week and look forward to learning more about trad music in the future.
My name is Seán, I came up from Kerry for this Work Experience in the ITMA for a week. I thoroughly enjoyed my time here where I learned how to transcribe music, locate items in archives, and help set up themed exhibitions for events such as St. Patrick’s Day. I got to tour around the ITMA and see the array of records, tunes, images/illustrations and artifacts. I really enjoyed this week and I would definitely recommend it to any other TY students that are interested in similar fields.
Hi my name is Piaras O’Melia and I did my week 3 placement in ITMA, in my time here I learned how to transcribe music, sort posters, improve my ability to play with others and how to use a library catalogue.
This week in the Irish Traditional Music Archive, I have learnt so much! We were shown how to reshelve books in the library in the particular order so that they can be found again after. We had Breannach codes explained to us, which was super helpful when trying to identify unknown pieces. The studio in the basement was really interesting, where we were shown reel to reel tapes and played audios from 60+ years ago! Transcribing pieces on Soundslice was challenging, but extremely rewarding once we got the hang of it. Our project of making displays for St. Patrick’s Day were so interesting because we had to sort through old artefacts. The highlight of the week for me was the trad session in O’Donoghue’s pub. I really enjoyed my week here and would recommend it to anyone else that’s interested!
My name is Manus and I had work experience in the itma this year. I learned how to use sound slice to digitise music. I enjoyed learning about the historical documents and archives. I learned how the items were stored here in the archives. I was interested in how old recordings were digitised and played here. I really liked my time here in ITMA.
My name is Aodh Taylor and I spent a week doing work experience here in ITMA, where I learned to locate and reshelve tunes and tune books in the archives library and research topics using itma catalogues to set up an exhibition. Are exhibition was on st Patrick. We also learned how to digitise notations by transcribing onto soundslice , which is a great tool I will definitely use in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed when Iarla showed us around the recording studio and talked to us about a few recordings. I also enjoyed when Treasa brought us down to O’Donohues pub for a session.
ITMA’s work experience has really enhanced my understanding of all the work they do here. It was a wonderful experience and I will be back to use the libraries amazing resources.
