I got my Clarke Celtic whistle finally and I started practicing. I thought I was doing pretty well, so I went to the virtual session. I had seen somewhere that the songs are way slowed down. Boy, if those are slowed down, I’d hate to see normal speed. I am able to play many of the songs about 1/4 the speed that they do. I don’t see how I will ever be able to go that fast. Is there hope?
There is hope.
Keep playing. Don’t try to play fast yet, just keep playing the tunes. Get them so ingrained you can play them in your sleep.
Once you are there, once you know every note and you’ve got it down clean at the speed you can play it, try to increase your speed about 25%. And keep practicing it at that speed, until you have it down and clean again.
Repeat until desired speed.
By the way, I love the virtual session! I’d say the tunes are about 80% of session speed. But the good news there is that last 20% is a lot easier to get than the first 20%.
Keep playing–it’ll start coming together quicker than you’d think.
–James
Your post reminds me of this-
I got the No Excuses Celtic music cd tutor for Christmas. Since I read music well and can pick up jigs, polkas etc. pretty quickly I played through the polka set fine in practice/learn mode, then switched to the session.
Oh my!! Not quite up to THAT speed yet…
I will try to find that No Excuses CD, I also read music, so I have the mechanical ability, but not the speed or feel yet. I have a much harder time with the 6/8 and 3/4 time pieces.
I was able to play along pretty well with the “Peg Ryans” song on the virtual session. Of course it was under the category called slow reels.
That site is well constructed. They have slow stuff and intermediate all the way up to fast. In some places the tunes diverge from the sheet music, which adds a little challenge.
I started with the slow stuff and worked my way up. Unfortunately I’m not fond of some of what they offer and I have a hard time learning tunes that I don’t like (meaning I won’t learn them).
unfortunately, sometime last year or so, their Gravel Walk has developed a skip that makes it hard to play along to 
If you read music, only read it enough to memorize a tune. Trying to play full speed off the page makes for poor practice and amusicality.
Cheers,
Aaron
I thought the skip was to prepare us for the real world. Playing with that skip is a lot less bothersome than some fiddlers I’ve known.
I’m pretty sure I know those same fiddlers 
I’m in the process of recording many of the tunes on there and converting them to mp3 format. You can then use some software to slow it down if you want.