Thursdays, 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm. Email us for directions to our house.
We love having new people! Please email to make sure we’re going to around that Thursday :)
About the Session
This is a traditional Irish session. There’s a lot of talking, and a lot of listening. Nobody minds if you drop out or (quietly) stumble your way through, and it’s expected you’ll get lost occasionally.
There’s always tea for anyone who wants it. Sometimes someone brings snacks, and sometimes there’s a dancer.
Whether you’ve been playing for years, or you’re just dipping your toe into Irish traditional music, you are very welcome here.
Learning
If you’re just learning, we will make sure to go through a couple tunes slowly at the start. We were all brand new once: we get it!
If someone plays a new tune, you can ask them to teach it to you. How this teaching happens can vary, but it nearly always involves the tune being played slower and multiple times, and the learners picking it up “by ear”.
In our first year, we had a “set of the week”. This was a good idea for building repertoire quickly, but at some point everybody stopped doing it. We still carry on this tradition in a way, occasionally deciding on something to all work on for next week.
Etiquette
There are dozens of detailed studies of session etiquette, and even more opinions. We’re big fans of Tara Connaghan’s Session Etiquette Podcast, which explores this complex and varying topic.
Sometimes we play slowly, and sometimes we play quickly. If you can’t keep up or don’t know the tune, it’s your opportunity to listen. Listening is the best way to get a tune stuck in your head, and getting a tune stuck in your head is the best way to learn.
If you can keep up and do know the tune, it’s still expected that you’ll listen. The session isn’t giving a speech on a soapbox, it’s having a conversation. Sometimes that means people whoop when someone says something really cool, and you’ll only know when that happened if you’re listening.
Recordings & Sheet Music
We tend to use sets of tunes from Comhaltas Foinn Seisiún. I recommend learning from the recordings: train yourself now to learn by listening, and you’ll be able to pick up tunes from in-person sessions more quickly.
- Foinn Seisiún 1
- CD, YouTube, Book, PDF
- Foinn Seisiún 2
- CD, YouTube, Book, PDF
- Foinn Seisiún 3
- CD, YouTube, Book, PDF
Other Sites of Interest
- Folk Session
- Every 4th Sunday, 3:30PM, at Bathtub Row Brewing. This is not an Irish session, but Irish tunes do get played.
- Musicians Social Hour
- Last Saturday of the month, 4:00PM, at Bathtub Row Brewing