Sessions (Dublin) for building repetoire

pog it

Hey all. I play the fiddle (rusty enough at the mo ) and would like to get back into it and playing in sessions. The piano was my first instrument and I never really played a lot in sessions so if I was to sit into a session now I wouldn't know 90% of the tunes I'd say!

I'm not a beginner player or anything though there is definitely room for improvement .. and I do have an okay amount of tunes so I'm not sure a beginner session is what I need, I'm not even sure if a "beginner session" means the people are learning their instruments or picking up the tunes!

Does anyone know a session where there are others like me trying to learn tunes together and be free to play the tunes a few times over in a learner type of way? I figure this would be a nice way to get into the whole thing instead of arriving with my fiddle and knowing hardly any tunes!

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!

mariannewims

Hey there,

I think maybe slow/moderate sessions would fit the bill.
They're just sessions at a slower pace and cover a broad standard of tunes, from fairly novice to quite advanced.
They're not really for beginners, in my experience, as the emphasis isn't on learning the instrument or even starting off on a song from scratch but more on getting used to playing in a session and building a repatoire without the pressure of a fast pace and musicians who know a huge range of tunes and are used to playing together.

2 I know of are with Comhaltas (www.comhaltas.ie) and Waltons (http://www.newschool.ie/)
Comhaltas run sessions on different nights in different locations but the one I'll be attending is in Clasac (north side, near Fairview) on Wednesday nights around 8pm. Other branches have slow sessions too though so you could ring head office and check that out.
Waltons have monthly slow sessions on Friday nights, open to external musicians as well as students of their school. Details on the websites.

Hope this is of some help.

M.

tarbolton

Ceoltóirí Chluain Tarbh run classes (beginner and improver level) and a slow session for learning musicians who want to build up repertoire and get a gentle introduction to session playing. More info here.