All are welcome at our session as long as they follow the most basic rule …

RESPECT THE MUSIC AND RESPECT YOUR FELLOW MUSICIANS

All skill levels are welcome.  We don’t have professional musicians anchoring the group but we do have regular players with a lot of experience playing Irish music.  Students and less experienced musicians are very welcome to join in.  Everybody will be given an equal chance to call and lead tunes.  The tune leader can set the pace for their chosen tune or set.  There is no expectation that musicians should be able to play on every tune.  Feel free to come and play along on tunes that you know and just listen to the others.

The music of the session is Irish traditional music.  The focus will be on instrumental tunes (jigs, reels, polkas, hornpipes, airs, slides, etc.) with some traditional songs mixed in.  There is a wealth of material to choose from.  We’re open to people occasionally bringing in music from other traditions, but this is not the venue for pop/rock/folk music.

We’re open to all sorts of acoustic instruments.  We’re expecting fiddles, banjos, mandolins, accordions, bouzoukis, flutes, tinwhistles, guitars and bodhrans but other acoustic instruments will be welcome too.  Keep in mind that melody is king in Irish traditional music.  Those who come to play rhythm have to recognize that the melody instruments always have to be clearly heard over the rhythm.  

At a real traditional Irish session, there will be no sheet music in sight.  We encourage people to learn tunes by heart, but we don’t have a rule against the use of sheet music.  In fact, we plan to post sheet music for a core set of tunes online to help people get started.  As we play more together, we expect there will be less need for sheet music but each player can make their own decision on that point.  Also note that though we expect that we’ll have a regular group of players who are familiar with a regular group of tunes, musicians will be free to call whatever Irish (or Irish-ish) tune they like when it's their turn to lead.