Learn to play Irish music: 
- Honestly evaluate your innate musical talent. If you are a person who can play a Christmas tune on the piano, or can play around with a harmonica and play a tune, well you have some God given ability. We all can play to some extent, the important part is to know at what level to start.
- As a complete novice try some of the different instruments out. A tin whistle can be purchased for as little as $10.00, with a little cd and finger book For around $30.00. Go to a beginners session and ask to try a fiddle, harp, bodhran, accordion. Ask these people what they found helpful and harmful when they started.
- Listen to Irish music or more specifically to Irish tunes, learn the rules of session etiquette, rent an instrument to start with.
- Check out your local chapter of Cohaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann which is basically the Irish music society. they should have classes in Irish instruments and singing depending on the availability of instructors.
- Do not put up with bad or bullying instructors, I consider music to be a sport, you are playing because you enjoy to play, if an instructor is pushing to hard or overly negative, Fire them! Do not allow your love of playing to be lessened by an instructor or coach.
- Know that Irish music and tunes are learned by ear, classical playing is learned through music theory and reading sheet music. It can sometimes take a long time for a quite accomplished classical player to let go and play an Irish tune correctly. In sessions you will be joining in the melody of Irish session players the feel of the music is what you are aiming at.
- Start—–this is the hardest, the most intimidating, and actually easiest part to do, learn one basic tune, (hopefully from an Irish music instructor) go to a beginner’s session, sit , listen, play along softly when the tune comes up. By going to the beginner’s session you can chat with other beginners. They will suggest other tunes to play, what they found easy, hard, fun. There will be suggestions on which instructors are helpful, awful, cheap, or expensive. Plus it is a good way to get out of the house.
- Once you have a tune or two under your belt a little natural ability and joy of playing can go a long way, I’ll look forward to listening to you down at the pub.
Shannon Heaton gave an interview to the Boston Irish Reporter newspaper about how she started, here’s an exerpt;
SH: My mom started me out on the piano when I was three. But the first instrument that I really connected with was the tin whistle when we were, strangely enough, living in Nigeria. We had a neighbor who played recorder and tin whistle, and my Grandpa played tin whistle, and so I just kind of took to it. Then when we came back to the states, my folks had a bunch of people living with us here, one of whom, John Tunney, is the son of the great Irish singer, Paddy Tunney. John had a bunch of friends in the Irish music world who’d come and visit us. And he’d take us to concerts. I happened to have Irish in my family, but it was really being exposed to the tin whistle in Nigeria, and being exposed to the Irish singers and players who happened to come through our house. . . . The music is great, but what I loved most about it at the beginning was the social aspect.