• The focus is on music from the Celtic traditions:
  • Irish
  • Scottish
  • Canadian Maritimes/Quebecois
• Although Bluegrass and Folk are fruits that fell from the same tree, they are discouraged at local Irish sessions. There are incredible jams in the region here and here where Bluegrass/Folk musicians can let their spirits soar with kindred souls.
• The emphasis is on melody instruments. Please limit rhythm instruments, as we already have excellent guitarists and bodhrán players. If you do play a rhythm instrument, please know the tunes, the chords, and most importantly, the correct rhythm. “Boom-chuck” is not an Irish rhythm! You will otherwise incur the never-ending wrath of the other players. Other wrath-incurring items are “foreign” instruments like bass, brass, electric keyboard, dobro, oboe, ocarina, didgeridoo, etc.
• We are in endless pursuit of the elusive “lift,” and reading from music is discouraged. Irish music is an aural tradition; the complex rhythms and nuances can only be communicated by listening. We find that, unless the player has extraordinary sight-reading skills combined with feel for the music, reading from notation results in listless, lifeless music which sucks the very soul out of a session. Sheet music should be used sparingly at home to pick out tricky parts of tunes that you’re learning by ear.
• Sessions are at the pleasure of the local tavern owners and staff. Treat them well. Play good music that keeps their customers happy.
• Singing is welcome, as long as the song is in the Celtic tradition. I concur that “Sugar Magnolia” is an awesome song, but this isn’t the place.
• The sessions are welcoming and inclusive. Players of all experience levels show up to these sessions. There will be times when less-skilled players sit out a tune listening to more advanced players put the tune through its paces. There will be times where accomplished players will feel unchallenged. That’s OK. Relax and enjoy your Guinness.
• We welcome and encourage beginners, but unless otherwise indicated, these aren’t “learning sessions.” If you’re new to Irish music and want to play, we strongly urge you to come to a session to listen. If you like what you hear, introduce yourself to one of the more seasoned players. Don’t be shy–we don’t bite! Most players are willing to help out a newcomer, and some are even willing to do one-on-one playing and tutoring apart from the session. Some are professional teachers. When you’re back home, go to your CD collection for some solid, traditional players, listen to a few good tunes, learn them well and at speed, and then give them a whirl at the next session. We have all been there.
• Noodling: Discouraged. Discouraged strongly. If you don’t know the tune, sit it out and enjoy listening to the other players play it. Unless prearranged with the singer or soloist playing an aire, don’t “play backup” or harmony behind the player. It’s extremely distracting, not part of t/he tradition, and mostly sounds terrible. Lunasa and Solas can pull it off, but it doesn’t work here. A few of our local players pull off backup and harmony with aplomb, but they’ve got the killer chops, and they’ve got the permission.
• Pwnage/Session Piracy: This isn’t a competition; nothing is gained by commandeering a session. If you want to play a tune that no-one else knows, just run through it once or twice. We’re eager to learn new tunes, but the other players’ enjoyment fades fast as the tune drags on. Stringing unknown tunes into a ten-song set that only you can play is a drag for everyone else, and it’s no fun. That being said, we don’t mind if you want to whip out a couple rounds of a flashy, show piece–we love to be entertained, too!
• Tunes. The tunes are not in any set order. Most of the time, choice of a tune is up to the player, and, around here, the opportunity to call a tune moves around the circle. This way, everyone gets a chance to play a tune they want. Other times, to make the session move along faster, the first person to think up a tune just launches into it. Tunes may be played by themselves or with other tunes to make a set.

The Firkin and Fox
(across from the NV State Legislature)
310 South Carson Street, Carson City map
Every Wednesday, 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Contact: Sean

Murphy’s Pub
(inside the Rockwater Restaurant)
787 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe map
Every Thursday, 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Contact: Sean

Auld Dubliner
(The Village at Squaw Valley)
1995 Squaw Valley Rd, Olympic Valley, CA map
Every Sunday, 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Contact: Bev

Comma Coffee
(On the main drag, next to the hookah bar, across from the Nevada State Legislature)
312 South Carson Street, Carson City, NV map
Fourth Friday of each month, 7:00 PM
This session has different rules: No singing, tunes only. Both American and Celtic tunes welcomed. There is also a “Beginner’s Session” on an as-needed basis before the main session.
Contact: Chris

The Copper Top Lounge
(first location for the re-formed “Stonehouse Session”)
133 Neal Street, Grass Valley, CA map website
First Thursday of the month, 6:30 PM

Holbrooke Hotel
(second location for the re-formed “Stonehouse Session”)
212 W Main, Grass Valley, CA map website
Every other Sunday (“seed date” is April 26th, 2009), 3 PM

Latitudes Restaurant
130 Maple Street, Auburn, CA map
Every Sunday, 5:30 PM

Sessions nearby, but outside our “Sphere of Influence”:

The Fox and Goose
1001 R Street, Sacramento, CA map
Contact: Linda Relph

Delta of Venus
(Beginner-friendly. Jamaican food.)
122 B Street, Davis, CA map
Every Wednesday, 7:30 PM
Contact: Delta of Venus, 530.753.8639

The Beach Hut
(in the Arden Town Shopping Center, behind the Arco station)
510 La Sierra Drive, Sacramento, CA map
Every Thursday, 7:00 PM

Duffy’s Tavern
337 Main St (4th and Main), Chico, CA map
Contact: 530-343-7718
Every Friday, 3:30p – 7:30pm

deVere’s Pub
1521 L Street (between 15th and 16th), Sacramento, CA map
Contact: 916-231-9947 website
2nd and 4th Sunday: 4 to 7pm

Sharon and Jaya’s Irish Session (Seisiún)
1665 High St., Auburn, CA map
Contact: 530-885-4292 website
4th Saturday Every Month, 4 PM – 9 PM

Local, Eastern Sierra venues that host Irish music

Ceol Irish Pub, Reno
Brewery Arts Center, Carson City
Great Basin Brewing Co., Reno
Comma Coffee, Carson City
Eddy Street Books, Gardnerville, NV
CVIC Hall, Minden, NV
Carson Valley Arts Council, Minden, NV
Center for the Arts, Grass Valley, CA
Auburn House Concerts – Top tier musicians in an intimate setting, Auburn, CA

Reno Celtic Festival
Grass Valley Celtic Festival

First off this is only a list of tune titles that show up at our local sessions. If you’ve come here looking for the music to any of these tunes, go to TheSession.org or JC’s tune finder and do a tune search. These sites will return tunes in sheet music and ABC format. If you’re hunting for tablatures, these are difficult to find without buying a book or simply buckling down and learning the tune by ear with the help of a slow-downer program.

This tune and song list is ever-changing. Players are always introducing new tunes, and other tunes fade away. This is a snapshot of our list at this moment in time:

Irish Musicians in the Western NV and Eastern Sierra

Bev Palfreyman
Fiddle
North Lake Tahoe, CA
The Ragged Rogues

Bentley Palfreyman
Banjo / Bouzouki / Mandolin / Guitar / Vocal
North Lake Tahoe, CA
The Ragged Rogues

Keith Shannon
Guitar / Vocal / Bodhran / Mandolin
Truckee, CA
The Blarney Band

Murray Donaldson
Guitar / Vocal
Nevada City, CA
The Ragged Rogues

Dick Johnson
Mandolin / Guitar / Vocal
Ashland, OR

Joe Bly
Whistle / Guitar / Vocal
Carson Valley, NV
The Ragged Rogues

Dana Dapolito
Carson Valley, NV
Rhythm Mandolin

Don Cooper
Guitar / Vocal
North Lake Tahoe, CA

Mary Lou Cooper
Fiddle
North Lake Tahoe, CA

Sean Cummings
Bagpipe / Bodhran
South Lake Tahoe, CA
TahoeBagpiper.com
Ol’ Cheeky Bastards
Sierra Highlanders Pipe Band

Wyatt Troxel
Fingerstyle Guitar
Truckee, CA / Alta Loma, CA

Peter Grant
Fiddle
Reno, NV
The Ragged Rogues

Chris Bayer
Fiddle / Concertina / Guitar / Banjo
Carson City, NV
NevadaMusic.com

Dan Shannon
Guitar / Vocal
Truckee, CA
The Blarney Band

Charlene Adzima
Fiddle / whistle / vocals / step dance
Reno, NV
614-507-7071 (cell)
The Sturdy Beggars
personal page
buy my CD!

Tom and Mary Kay Aufrance
Accordion / Guitar / Vocals / Bouzouki / Performance
Carson City, NV
Gairin Celtic Music

Do you want to be included here? Go to the “About” page and send me a private message. Include any info you would like to have included, such as instrument you play, if you teach, if you’re in a band, your website & email. I will not publish home addresses or phone numbers; mobile or work numbers, maybe. Email addresses are converted to spam-resistant images.

This list promises to be the most controversial. Every player has their heroes, and I mean no offense by not including a player. I wanted to start with a short list. If you have any players you’d like to see added, please leave a comment.

I’ve been asked a couple of times what the difference is between these two music program types and what the advantages might be of one over the other. If you’re interested in learning traditional music, you’ll eventually run into a group of people online discussing “ABC” files along with a side discussion on slowing down music so it’s easier to learn.

First off, there are significant differences between ABC programs and slow-downer programs. The ABC format was developed as a way for people to send musical notation over the internet via email and simple text messages and to be able to edit the tune. These are simple strings of letters instead of large, non-editable images of scores and notation created with expensive software. A side benefit of ABC format is that it makes it easy to store the music in a database. Disadvantage: ABC programs play tinny, computer-generated music by using MIDI output, which completely fails to capture the spirit and lift of a tune and doesn’t convey nuances well at all. However, ABC programs can display the visual tune information as it has the actual notes, either through the raw ABC text or by converting the ABC to a musical score.

As the ABC format has developed over the years, it is now capable of remarkable feats of scoring and musical representation.

[ - ] And here’s the score of The Long Acre based solely on the jumble of letters above.

[ - ] And the printout of the score of the Canzonetta.

This page isn’t intended to be a tutorial on using ABC notation. Check this out for further information on ABC notation, directly from the fellow who invented it.

Slow-downers are simply a way to take an actual performance and slow it down without changing the pitch, so that a musician can practice along with, say, Kevin Burke at one-fifth the speed. Disadvantage: no visual notation of the music, and totally non-portable without involving music piracy. However, it works with any music that you can get into your computer either via MP3 files or audio CDs that you can put in your computer’s CD-ROM drive.

In other words, ABC and Pitch-changers both work with music, but entirely different results and output. I use both freely.

Some popular ABC programs:
abc2win
abcmus
ABCExplorer (my personal fave)

Speed-changing software:
Amazing Slow-Downer
Transcribe!

Amazing Slow-Downer is probably the most popular. Instead of Amazing Slow-Downer, I use Transcribe!. Although they have the same concept, Transcribe! has a couple of nifty extra features, such as ‘Karaoke’ mode where a song can be played while stripping out the center mix, leaving only audio information that’s panned off-center. In other words, it can strip out vocals while leaving instruments behind. It can save loops in a list so that you can simply click on the loop you want to practice. It also has a large keyboard graph so you can click on the keys and get the notes. It analyzes the music and comes up with chords. Finally, it has a visual waveform representation of the music. If you ever wind up doing transcriptions of tunes and songs, Transcribe! is the flat-out choice.

SeventhString, the maker of Transcribe!, has a link list of all the software out there that slows down music so you can choose what suits you. For slow-downers, *my* main choices would be between Amazing Slowdowner and Transcribe!.

Finally, I use MusicCAD, a cheap Music publishing software package, for writing out scores and such. It isn’t intuitive, and doesn’t have the same horsepower as the “Finale” program, but it’s a way to prettify ABC files on the cheap, and I use it as the way to transcribe tunes onto an actual stave while listening to the Transcribe! program. Disadvantage: It’s not as intuitive as I would like. Some of the instructions don’t translate so well. Transcribing tunes from what you hear onto a stave is a good way to train your ear.

These programs are not substitutes for actually getting out there and learning tunes and songs from other musicians. For musicians that don’t have the benefit of attending nightly sessions or strolling into Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann, using both ABC and slow-downers is a way to easily learn tunes without having to spend time and money finding local instructors.

• Learning by ear makes you nervous? Here are some tips.
• www.thesession.org Website for tunes, contacts, sessions, discussions.
• Michael Eskin’s TradLessions Videos of tunes played slowly for easy learning.
• The Chiff and Fipple Focus is on the whistle, but has a great discussion forum for all types of instruments.
• Tinwhistle Fingerings Visual representation of whistle fingerings.

“This one time, at Band Camp…”

• The Swannanoa Gathering Wonderfully intense music workshops in Asheville, NC
• Lark Camp Groovy music workshops in the Redwoods
• Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp Music immersion in the Rocky Mountains
• St. Louis Tionol Irish Music workshops in the Heartland