I went to my first session last night. Here is my story:
So I’ve been looking for months for a session in the area. It was sort of a stretch, since I don’t have a car, but I worked feverishly nonetheless. I did find several, only to learn that they’d since liquidated, leaving me at square one.
One day, the roommate takes me down to a local irish restaurant, and tells me that I’m “just going to love the atmosphere.” So we go in, and we’re eating, and these two guys go up on the little stage and start playing irish music. One guy played a guitar and sang, the other played a mandolin (and I think he sang harmony on one song). They also played a lot of tunes without singing. When we were leaving I snuck over to the stage and asked them if they knew of any local sessions, and he said that they have one in that restaurant on the first tuesday of every month! This was it, I could tell.
The problem was the it was two full weeks until the first tuesday! So I waited, and finally, last night, I had my chance. I walked in, and there were six violins unpacking, as well two guitars, a bodhran, and me on whistle. So I ask if I can sit in, and they say “SURE,” and I can tell I’m in for a good time.
Now, I knew going in that, since I’ve only been playing for maybe a year and a half, that I wouldn’t know very many tunes, and I probably won’t be able to play the ones I do know, so I stuck myself into a corner (which was as far removed as I could get from the crowd; it was a very intimate setting). The bodhran player came and sat by me, saying it was too loud, and he didn’t want to overpower the players. So they play a few tunes I don’t know, and I wrote all of the names down so I could learn them before next time. What made me feel better was that several people there were pretty obviously beginners, as well. They knew the tunes better than I did, since they’d been coming for a while, but they were beginners. And that made me feel better. Finally, someone suggested Banish Misfortune, which I know fairly well, and I picked up the Burke. After the tune, everyone was very complimentary of me, and really seemed to enjoy having a whistle to change the sound a little. The lady in front of me with a guitar said she really liked my whistle, commented on the sweet tone, and showed me her whistle (a sweetone). She said she only knows three tunes on whistle, but really enjoys playing it. We talked for a bit.
The night goes on like that, me playing maybe 1/3 of the tunes being played (which I think is fairly respectable), and then some three hours later, people start packing up. The bodhran player next to me had pulled out a mandolin at some point, and he started playing The Boys of Bluehill, and asked me if I knew it. I said I did, and played along, and we had a little fun. I played Over the Bridge, and he joined in. Then a fiddle player from across the room came over, and he asked her to play Carolan’s Concerto (which she had played earlier) for him. She did, and we listened, and then I played Lord Inchiquin, and this went on for a bit with just the three of us.
At some point the bodhran player had told everyone that he was born in Limerick (in the country, he says) and raised in London. His father had apparently drug him to whistle lessons starting at nine years old. At one point (and yes, I’m bragging now), he asked me how long I’d been playing, and when I told him he said, “Wow, you’re a natural. You should really stick with it!”
I blushed until I could feel it on my cheeks.
All together the most fun I’ve had with music in my entire life.
