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Regional Sessions

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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

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

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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)

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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

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Cobourg

Will be updated after COVID-19 restrictions.

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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/

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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/

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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/

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Montreal

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

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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/

See also http://www.mgl.ca/~jhcole/GRFC.html

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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>

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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&amp;t=1667s
    You &#39;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&amp;list=PLDoTMMj8C22_SDUiMwuSxQDmpCuxFS5s
    5

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Learning Irish Music

 

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

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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/

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

 

 

Song

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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/

Contemplator - Folk and Traditional Music and Popular Songs, with Lyrics, Midi, Tune Information and History  http://www.contemplator.com/

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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