Slow Celtic Sessions

Slow Celtic Sessions

To have your questions answered, or to get added to the email list for the monthly announcement of next month’s Slow Celtic Session (includes directions on how to find the Center), email us here.

These are informal gatherings of local and guest players focusing on Celtic tunes played in the session style. The goal of the Slow Celtic Session is to allow folks to ease into the Celtic tunes at a gentler pace. While the entire CFS Regular Celtic Session tune list is fair game, there are some suggested tune sets listed below that might help you get started.

“Should I attend?” Yep, if . . .

• you’re a beginner who wants to learn to play Celtic tunes (though we assume you know how to play your instrument);
• you’re not a beginner, but you’re new to Celtic tunes and want to ease in;
• you’re not a beginner, but you want a slow pace to work on some techniques;
• you’re conversant in one instrument, but want to dabble in another;
• any other reason I’ve forgotten

Some simple guidelines for our Slow Sessions:

• All acoustic instruments welcome. Fiddles, whistles, flute, bodhrans, bones, hammered dulcimers, accordion, mandolin, octave mandolin, guitars, bass, concertina, harp, and everything else I’ve
  forgotten.
• The format follows a relaxed Round Robin session protocol. Everyone is welcome to suggest tunes, though calling a tune does not obligate you to start it. That way, you can “call” whatever tune you’ve been working on. We’ll figure out how to start/play it!

• Music stands and sheet music (or Tablets) are fine.
• In keeping with the session tradition, we’ve put most of these melodies together into “Sets” of two or three tunes. “Suggested” settings for our tunes are available below for your convenience. Of course, you can pick one tune from a set, and we can play just that one tune. Other sources for these tunes can be found through the following links:
  • “The Bowling Green”, OH Slow Session Tune Page
  • “What is a Session”
  • Irish Flute Tunes
  • “The Session” tune website
  • Vashon Celtic Players

Sessions usually run from 2 PM till 5:00 ‘ish. If your playing requires an armless chair, please bring one with you. All the chairs in the center have arms. Come prepared to play a lot!

Tom Walsh’s Learning and Playing Resources!

Follow this link for a pdf of an Alphabetical list of tunes we play!

At this link, you can find an extensive Session Tune Memory Jogger consisting of the first two bars of each part of all our tunes for those who do not wish to lug around a full notebook of music!

NEW! Tom, for his own use, has created an awesome Dropbox folder containing mp3 snips of a couple times through each tune to use as a memory jogger for the tunes played in our session. He has graciously offered to share that link with anyone who might find a audible source useful in learning how to play and style the tunes in our sets. These snips aren’t the exact versions in the music pdfs on the web-site, but they’re close, and more important, they demonstrate how the tune should sound when you’re playing it.

These links can be opened in any audio player; or in your Amazing Slow Downer ($) or Music Speed Changer (Free in the Google Android App Store from Single Minded Productions) if you want to learn or play along with these snips at a slower speed.

To get the Dropbox link, email Tom at irishsessions@bellsouth.net. You can listen to the snips from the shared folder, copy them to your own device, or link this folder to your own Dropbox account if you have one.