Paying it forward

For the past couple of years, myself and Jessica have been going to the Belfast Tradfest in the Summer. It’s an excellent event with great workshops, sessions, and concerts. And it helps that Belfast is such a lovely city to spend a week in.

What struck me the first time we were participating in workshops there was the great mix of age ranges. It always warms my heart to see young people getting really into the music.

Then I found out about their bursary sponsorship scheme:

For many young musicians, financial barriers stand in the way of this invaluable experience. Your support can make a real difference by sponsoring a bursary that covers the cost of tuition for a deserving student.

Last year, I decided to forego one month’s worth of donations to The Session—the contributions that help cover the costs of hosting, newsletters, geocoding, and so on. Instead the money went towards bursary sponsorships for Belfast Tradfest.

It was a great success that managed to cover places for quite a few young musicians.

So we’re doing it again.

Normally, I wouldn’t mention the ins-and-outs of TheSession.org over here on adactio.com but I thought you might like to partake in this year’s fund drive:

For the month of April 2025, any donations made to The Session will go towards bursary sponsorships for young musicians to attend workshops at this year’s Belfast Trad Fest:

thesession.org/donate

Maybe you’ve liked something I’ve written here. Maybe you enjoyed Resilient Web Design, the free book I published online. You can also read HTML5 For Web Designers and Going Offline for free now too.

I’ve never asked for any recompense for my online ramblings, but if you’ve ever wanted to drop me some money to thank me for something I’ve put out there, now’s your chance.

Any contribution you make will go towards fostering the next generation of traditional Irish musicians, something that’s very dear to my heart.

Playlist J (part 2) – The Irish Mandolin – a website from Aidan Crossey

I had fun coming up five trad music tracks related to the letter J.

• Jenny’s Welcome To Charlie
• Jayne Pomplas
• Jig of Life
• Julia Delaney’s
• Jim Donoghue’s

geoTrad - Google My Maps

Well, this is a rather wonderful mashup made with data from thesession.org:

The distribution of Irish traditional tunes which reference place names in Ireland

Sessions Map

This is nifty—a map of all the Irish music sessions and events happening around the world, using the data from TheSession.org.

If you’re interested in using data from The Session, there’s a read-only API and regularly-updated data dumps.

Banjos and Discrete Technologies | stevebenford

An examination of how sites like The Session are meshing with older ideas of traditional Irish music:

There is a very interesting tension at play here – one that speaks directly to the design of new technologies. On the one hand, Irish musicians appear to be enthusiastically adopting digital media to establish a common repertoire of tunes, while on the other the actual performance of these tunes in a live session is governed by a strong etiquette that emphasizes the importance of playing by ear.

There’s an accompanying paper called Supporting Traditional Music-Making: Designing for Situated Discretion (PDF).

Illustrated Talk: The Session.org with Jeremy Keith

I’m giving an afternoon talk during Belfast Tradfest—come along if you’re around!

Join Jeremy Keith for an insightful talk about his pioneering work with TheSession.org—the world’s leading online hub for traditional Irish music. Discover how Jeremy helped build this vibrant digital community that connects musicians, shares tunes, and preserves Ireland’s rich musical heritage. Learn about the challenges and triumphs of creating an online space where thousands of players worldwide can collaborate, learn, and celebrate traditional music together.