Welcome to The Small Circle Tune Learning Session website! Do you play, or want to play, Irish traditional music? Come join us!

We're a friendly and supportive group of musicians in the Denver/Boulder Metro area, playing in Lafayette at The Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts. We welcome all skill levels to play at a moderate and steady pace, although our overall pace may change from week to week, depending on which musicians are attending at the time, and we are mainly beginner to intermediate players.

Sessions are every Sunday, time of start generally sometime between 12 and 2 PM (see Yahoo Group for this week's time). Officially, we learn one tune each Sunday and play tunes we've learned the rest of the of the time, but that's flexible depending on who is at the session on any given Sunday. Please contact session leaders to find out if the session is running the week you would like to come (srsly, get yourself onto our Yahoo group list if you'd like notices of cancellation or session time changes), especially around holidays. We hope you'll soon count yourself one of us!

We play Irish tunes (with a very occasional foray into Scotland and, even more rarely, Canada), and any of the usual Irish trad instruments are welcome. Our emphasis is on good crack (or "craic" in Irish, depending on who you ask), playing with a great feel and pulse, and learning some cracking session tunes.

See our Goals section for our history, goals, and other information about our session. Check out our page on learning to learn tunes by ear -- and we now have a page with, not one, but TWO tables to help you decipher the mysteries of key signatures and modes, thanks to Will Harmon of Helena, Montana and Jason Amini, formerly of the BASS Boston players. Be sure to explore all of our site! There's lots of information hidden away here and there.

The RMCMA, at 200 E. Baseline Road in Lafayette, is committed to providing high quality musical experiences for people of all ages, abilities, cultural backgrounds, and financial circumstances. As a full member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, they value excellence in arts education, and access for all members of the community. They turn no one away, with our award-winning Heartstrings program of tuition assistance and musical instrument bank for families in need. We're very lucky to be hosted by such a wonderful organization!

(Warning: RMCMA staff usually knows little to nothing about whether the session is running that week. Really. Get on the Yahoo list. Did we mention you should get on the Yahoo list?)

Beir Bua!