Regional Sessions

Kingston

Other (non-CCE) Music Events:

Kingston regular session for advanced players, every Tuesday evening at 8:00 pre-Covid, was hosted by the Tocan on Princess Street

The Kingston Céilí Band holds a weekly practice http://www.ceiliband.com/

A New Irish Trad Session – Erinsville

The session will happen every last Sunday of the month from 2pm to 4pm at the Lakeside Tavern in
Erinsville, right on Hwy 41. Our very first session will start on January, 29th, 2023.

(note: That can be either the 4th and sometimes the 5th Sunday of the month)

Belleville

No active session till Covid restrictions are lifted. Host Venus might be gone, locations times changed

Belleville. Session hosted by the Quinte Irish Canadian Society. Irish repertoire. All levels of musicians are welcome, and the tune book is up on the website at http://www.qics.ca. Pre-pandemic, sessions were Wednesdays, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Engineers Hall, corner of Pine St. and Chatham St. in East Belleville

Contact: Wilfred at sessions@qics.ca for post -plaque information

Cobourg

Will be updated after COVID-19 restrictions.

Hamilton

CCE Hamilton Irish Arts hosted a session every Tuesday from 8:30 to midnight at the Corktown pub, 175 Young St, https://www.hamiltonirisharts.ca/

Ottawa

Sessions most days of the week, check Craig Hamm's excellent site http://www.irishmusicottawa.ca

Also, CCE Ottawa Irish Arts Blog http://ottawacomhaltas.blogspot.com/

Ottawa Slow Session. The tune book of the Ottawa Slow Jam is also up on the web, with chords: http://www3.sympatico.ca/hhtuner/carp/

Montreal

Several sessions and a Tune book are on the web: https://www.montrealsession.ca/index.php

Peterborough Kawartha Irish Session

Mark's Finer Diner. 128 Lansdowne Street East, Peterborough, ON. 1st Saturday each month 1:00 - 4:00 pm</em>For more information, contact: Gerry Mitchell (705)799-5008 lcboo@live.ca

Riverside Celtic College, Elmira, Ontario. We offer weekly group classes in Traditional Irish Fiddle, Beginner Violin for Adults, Celtic Harp, Celtic Mandolin, Irish Tinwhistle, Irish Bodhran, Irish/Scottish Bouzouki, Celtic Guitar, Irish/Scottish Songs, Celtic Keyboard Accompaniment, Tune-Learning/Session Repertoire (for all traditional instruments), Scottish Bagpipes (GHP, Smallpipes and Borderpipes), the Irish and Scottish Gaelic Languages and Ceili Dancing The Grand River Folk Community Calendar: https://www.facebook.com/RiversideCelticSociety/

Toronto

The Toronto "Black Book" has been around for decades, vast repertoire, and good settings. The Toronto Black Book, Peterborough Rendition: http://www.ken-brown.ca/blackbook/

It seems no one in Toronto has thought that a general Irish web portal might be useful, so there is no online listing of sessions, tho the Toronto CCE has some listings. https://www.facebook.com/Comhaltas.Toronto/

These were some of the sessions pre-covid

Dora Keogh. 141 Danforth Avenue. Saturday 4 pm, Thursday 9 pm

An Sibín Pub. 709 Queen Street East. Sunday 4:30 pm

Ceili Cottage. 1301 Queen Street East. Tuesday 'evening.'

Mullins Pub. 1033 Bay Street. Wednesday 9pm </li>

The Black Swan. 154 Danforth Ave . Thursday 9pm.</li>

Irish Music Links & General Music Resources

Irish Music Session video . Amanda, one of our original slow session players now living in Australia sent this link to her well-photographed session. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj5Gu8fAUKQ
A Guide to Irish Regional Styles by Philippe Varlet (link to saved document A WAY WITH THE BOW.htm
Alan Ng’s collection of useful and definitely opinionated material for those who are learning and teaching Irish traditional music. https://www.alan-ng.net/irish/learning/
Tempos (Metronome Setting) for Irish Social Dances - Set and Ceili.pdf Permanent Document Tempos (Metronome Setting) for Irish Social Dances - Link to Saved Documnent - Set and Ceili.pdf
Tunepal – an IOS or android phone app . Tunepal is a search-by-playing search engine for traditional Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Breton, American marching band and Canadian tunes.
MuseScore - Free, open source score writing program: https://musescore.org/en
Chris Walshaw, inventor of ABC notation, has a very good site, Introduction to abc’s tune collections etc. http://abcnotation.com/
ABC Navigator - ABC Editor, generates midi and standard notation (printable, but not exportable). Allows you to slow down playback. Freeware.
ABC Explorer - ABC Editor, converts to standard notation (various file formats), generates midi output, slices and dices, and allows you to slow down and transpose the playback. Also has a built in ABC Notation reference. This is my favourite, but is currently in beta testing (so there are still some kinks to work out). If you find any bugs, please report them to the developer. Freeware.
ABC Converter/Transposer - Online tool (you will not need to install anything on your computer). Converts an ABC file to standard notation (.ps file) and to midi. Allows transposition (of notes and chords) by semitone.
A Collection of O’Carolan Tunes
Our own Greg Forbes has been working for years on O’Carolan Tunes, and is quite an authority on the
man and his music
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLcw_5dGvs-lrQc9z6jkpYjQPMbfMHcs
Bradon Smith - Beginner Irish fiddle tutorial
I have recently started to make videos tutorials for my own students, so that they can practice learning
tunes by ear in between lessons, or revisit tunes that we have learned together in lessons. I am making
them freely available on my website. It occurred to me that some of my tutorials might be of help to
those who come to your session, particularly for fiddlers who might find it useful to see the tune played
very slowly on the fiddle. And also for all the other people that follow your website.
Beginner Irish fiddle tutorial – Paddy Fahey Jig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHkPMVATMMI&t=1667s
You 'll find more of my tutorials on my YouTube Channel
(https://www.youtube.com/@learntoplaythefiddle
Martin Hayes YouTube Tutorials – 50 plus tunes,
https://www.youtube.com/@MartinHayesFiddle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aql8FwhvZWI&list=PLDoTMMj8C22_SDUiMwuSxQDmpCuxFS5s
5

Learning Irish Music

The Online Academy of Irish Music .Top Quality Lessons from World Class Instructors Make Learning Irish Music Fun, Fast and Easy. All Instruments. Sign up for free to gain 14 day access to an limited bank of free lessons or get 'Full Access' to our entire bank of Irish music lessons for only $19.95 http://www.oaim.ie/
Comhaltas Music Archive . The Comhaltas Traditional Music Archive comprises the recordings, documents and images collected by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann during our 50 years of promoting Irish music and culture. The establishment of the new Comhaltas Archive is a milestone in digitization and democratization for the international traditional Irish music community. http://comhaltasarchive.ie
Comhaltas Live - Music and tutor, weekly, archived http://comhaltas.ie/music/archive/
The Irish Traditional Music Archive Digital Library http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/
Learn tunes by ear, and Pennywhistle tutorial: Ryan G. Duns - YouTube
Every month Shannon Heaton teaches a new tune, meant to help people learn by ear. https://www.mattandshannonheaton.com/TOTM/
The Bloomington, Indiana Traditional Irish Music Slow Session – Basic slow session tunes, played at a nice slow pace for learning.
Irish Flute Tunes - Approximately a kazillion tune recordings here, played on the flute. the mp3’s are played slowly and then full speed, and can be downloaded. http://irishflute.podbean.com/
Tradconnect Supporting artists, Connecting musicians, and Discovering great traditional Irish music.
http://www.tradconnect.com/
The Rediscovery of Carolan by Grainne Yeats http://www.harpspectrum.org/folk/yeats_long.shtml
Alan Ng' Tune Index, Recorded Sources of Irish traditional music http://www.irishtune.info/
Henrik Norbeck's Abc tunes http://www.norbeck.nu/abc/

Resources by Instrument

Accordion, Concertina

Bodhran

http://www.ceolas.org/instruments/bodhran/ Information, tutor

The modern Irish word bodhrán is properly pronounced bow-rawn, like Cow brawn, with a slight emphasis on the first syllable.

Fiddle

Flute

Tinwhistle

Brother Steve's Tin-Whistle Page http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/index.html

Wandering Whistler Archives. Whistle-Friendly tunes, scores and sound http://www.tinwhistler.com/music/index.asp

Chiff and Fipple - Post-Structural Tinwhistle http://www.chiffandfipple.com/

Pipes

String Instruments: Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo

Other Online Tunebooks and ABC’s

The Toronto 'Black Book' - a 'must have' for Ontario Irish musicians http://www.ken-brown.ca/blackbook/

Bill Blacks Transciptions to ABC of Major Irish Tunebooks. Ceol Riince na hEireann and other classics – a major resource http://www.capeirish.com/webabc/working/list_of_folders2.html

Tunearch - traditional instrumental music with very informative annotations, formerly known as The Fiddler's Companion. A Truly valuable resource, much used for the historical information in the Kingston Irish Session Book https://tunearch.org/wiki/TTA

The undated Glasgow publication Allan’s ‘Irish Fiddler’ has been an entry-level tunebook for aspiring fiddle players of Irish traditional music for over 60 years now https://www.itma.ie/features/notated-collections/allans-irish-fiddler#

Henrik Norbeck's Abc tunes http://www.norbeck.nu/abc/

Tunefinder. John Chamberlain's index of all abc's on the web. http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind/

The Greene Tunebook, Tunes from the Red House, from the great Michigan 'Sessionite' website http://www.sessionite.com/docs/green.pdf http://sessionite.com/

Kingstreet Session Tunebook – More Tunes than are good for you http://www.m-d-long.com/

Alf Warnock's ABC Files. Ottawa http://www.alfwarnock.info/alfs/index.php

Richard Moon's TUNEdb http://www.worldtrad.org/

S O'Neill's Music Of Ireland ("The 1850") http://www.oldmusicproject.com/ http://www.oldmusicproject.com/oneils1.html

Ceol Rince na Eireann. Translation to English of the notes in the 5 volumes http://www.nigelgatherer.com/books/CRE/

The Complete O'Carolan Collection http://www.oldmusicproject.com/OCC.html;

Allan's Irish Fiddle rhttp://www.oldmusicproject.com/allans.html

O'Carolan's Tunes http://www.contemplator.com/carolan/caroltun.html#top

Belleville, Paul and Peggy's Tunebook http://poweroffice.ca/irish.nsf

’The Session’ Web site http://www.thesession.org/index.php

AUDIOVISUAL RESOURCES

There are some truly great programs on Irish Music on Teilifis Gaeilge, The TG4 Irish Language Television Channel. The commentary is all in Irish, with English sub-titles. The music is all inspired. Teilifis Gaeilge - TG4

Céilí House is one of RTÉ Radio's most popular programmes of traditional Irish music and song. You can join in the enjoyment every Saturday night as presenter Kieran Hanrahan and producer Aidan Butler travel the length and breadth of Ireland and beyond, in search of a good session to bring each week to the many loyal listeners https://www.rte.ie/radio1/ceili-house/

RTE’s Rolling Wave, an excellent program on all things Trad https://www.rte.ie/radio1/the-rolling-wave/

Clare FM’s “The West Wind’ archive http://www.clare.fm/listen-back/the-west-wind/

Irish Music from the Kennedy Centre - Video and audio http://www.stresscafe.com/music/kennedycenter.html

Ted Talk, How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain, 5 Minute talk</ https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-playing-an-instrument-benefits-your-brain-anita-collins

The Rattlebag – A collection of random music links, videos etc

Kingston Public Library Books

Ciaran Carson - Last Night's Fun.

•CCE Foinn Seisiun Volumes 1 - 3. tunebooks, tunes in set. Donated by CCE Harp of Tara

The Pogues and Shane MacGowan - Borrowed Music Names of the Irish tunes played by the Pogues on their various albums http://www.dzm.com/~zuzana/pogues-borrowedmusic.

An article on the Inuit accordion tradition explaining that there might be a connection between the music of Sliabh Luachra (it only only mentions Kerry and Cork, but these are in the region) and both the Newfoundland and Inuit traditions. http://cfmb.icaap.org/content/34.1-2/BV34.1&2art7.pdf"

Blackie O'Connell and Cyril O'Donoghue. Photos from the 2014 Kingston House Concert, by Randy Elzinga. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjelz/sets/72157642564080485/

Fiddler on the Road - 1972 Johnny Doherty documentary on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiehZZ2tXKg

Irish Dance Music from the 1920s - 1970s http://juneberry78s.com/sounds/ListenToIrishDance.htm

The Joe Heaney Song Archives

Welcome to the Joe Heaney Archives, where you can explore the life and artistry of Joe Heaney (known in Irish as Joe Éinniú or, more formally, Seosamh Ó hÉanaí or Seosamh Ó hÉinigh), one of Ireland's finest and most famous traditional sean-nós singers. Experience his singing, storytelling and traditional lore in both Irish and English through a wide variety of audio and video recordings, accompanied by transcriptions, translations and notes https://www.joeheaney.org/en/

Library Ireland: Irish History, Genealogy and Culture http://www.libraryireland.com/

Song