Chattanooga
Session Music
Welcoming you into our community
Every session develops its own repertoire: tunes that musicians return to regularly, local favorites, and sets you're likely to hear when you join us.
Our Chattanooga Session Tune List is a starting point for musicians who want to learn the repertoire and feel more comfortable joining the session. You don't need to know every tune before you come. Listening, learning and picking up tunes over time are all part of the tradition.
Our sessions are held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month from 5–7 p.m. at Wanderlinger Brewing Company in the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Educational Resources
Irish traditional music is an aural tradition, and one of the best ways to learn is by listening: to experienced players, recordings, other sessions and the musicians sitting around the table with you.
For musicians who want to prepare between sessions, there are also some excellent resources available.
Many of the tunes on our Chattanooga Session Tune List can be found on The Session, an extensive community-created resource for Irish traditional music that includes tune settings, recordings, discussions and information about sessions around the world.
Local fiddler and teacher Tom Morley also offers learning resources for many traditional tunes through his Irish Trad Fiddle website, along with regular online play-along sessions. His YouTube archive includes dozens of previous play-alongs that musicians can use for additional practice.
We also encourage players to listen broadly. Different musicians and communities may play the same tune differently, and those variations are part of what makes traditional music a living tradition.
The goal isn't to play every tune exactly the same way. It's to listen well enough that we can play them together.