2024 Slow-ish Sessions at The Bean

The last Saturday of the Month at The Bean in Fondren 11am-12pm in their large back room or outside patio if it’s warm. Please buy a coffee or come early and have breakfast. They are graciously not charging for the space so it’s very important to support them!

TENTATIVELY Scheduled for January 27, February 24, Skipping March due to Hal’s St. Paddy’s Day Parade (3/23) and Easter), April 27, May 31

The music for the tunes are located on Google Drive, a cloud based application. You can access it HERE.

Historically, the tradition was passed down from generation to generation; budding musicians would learn by listening, watching and being present with the music masters. Irish music is an aural tradition, learned from listening. So while in a traditional session you would NOT see sheet music we are okay with it but do try to memorize at least one tune before a session. The Kesh is a good one to know. This is an Open Session with the intention of learning tunes together but it’s important that you LISTEN to as many tunes as you can either on streaming services or youtube. If you can hum it you can more easily learn to play it.

RESOURCES

An excellent video based resource: Online Academy of Irish Music OAIM.IE

OAIM is headquartered in DoolinCo. Clare, the heart of traditional music in Ireland. Many beginners start off with their popular course Tin Whistle Basics. Other courses offered include BodhranFluteFiddleConcertinaButton AccordionPiano AccordionHarpUilleann Pipes and Irish Song.  Many students are coming from other traditions to learn to accompany Irish music with the GuitarPianoTenor BanjoMandolin and Bouzouki. All instruction comes with easy to follow ABC standard notation downloads,  sheet music, and mp3’s. There are several free lessons to try out before committing to an extremely reasonable membership price.

The Session thesession.org is the go to for ABC tab and sheet music and now includes electronic audio of most tunes which includes a slider to adjust the tempo.

Tune Supply/ Session Tunes

The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) is home to the largest, most comprehensive collection of Irish traditional music, song, and dance in the world. ITMA digitises, preserves and offers free universal access to valuable recordings, photographs, manuscripts, and other archived materials that would otherwise be lost. ITMA is a living archive serving a living tradition, at the core of that is its philosophy to engage contemporary artists with archival materials to inspire new art.