Coping with isolation

Trad Irish Music
1

This has to be an issue that tons of other people here deal with.

How do you survive never ever having the chance to play music with other people? How do you try to find people to play with (especially when you’re still new and not much good) when you can’t hop down to a local session for geographical, financial, or other reasons?

I love to play but going solo gets really depressing sometimes. I don’t live far from a city with a decent traditional music scene, but I live on an island. Between finances, ferry schedules, and my limited music skills I can’t take much advantage of it. (Which in some ways makes it worse! I try to go to a session/class at a local music school, and manage maybe once a month if I’m really lucky, and get an hour of listening/playing a bit for twice that time traveling too and from, as well as footing boat fare and the class fee. ) :sniffle: . But I desperately need to improve my ability to play with others.

Here’s how I cope:
Practice a lot, and play along with CDs when I can, and listen to ClareFM podcasts pretty much all the time. Try and be grateful that the upshot to all of this is that I actually have time to practice, and remember that living out here is what gave me the impetus to start playing in the first place.

How do you?

What are your sob stories?

2

Here’s my sob story: I work at a hospital, a 7pm til 7:30 am night shift. My schedule is 7-on 7-off, wednesday through tuesday, with a week off after that.
Our session is the 2nd and 4th tuesday of the at 7pm. Every time there is 5 tuesdays in a month, the session flips to my off week to my work week, or vice versa.
So, I end up missing the session for long periods of time because I’m at work.

3

May I suggest adopting nine or ten kids? It worked well for me. I always have someone to play with. :slight_smile:

Homemade kids are just as good but you have to wait longer to play music with them. My 4 homemade ones took about ten years to be good for tune playing. They can start singing and dancing around while you play at about three though and that’s fun too.

Doc

4

I see you already have a saint in the band there, doc, and he can play both mando and fiddle too!

5

Yeah, she’s a good 'un. She’s also an amazing pianist. :slight_smile:

Apparently St. Peter was something of a Goat Beater as well.


:laughing:

Doc

6

Depending on your aims and personality, I think that physical isolation can also work to your advantage. It has given me the space to develop my style without the homogenizing influences of sessions, and to have a stronger element of choice with regards to what I want or do not want in my playing. It also forces me to spend alone time with my instrument, which is essential for musical development - there is a lot you can do in isolation with a bunch of recordings to learn from. I do hope to be able to interact with good musicians in the future, but in the meantime I’ll be woodshedding and making sure I am ready whenever the opportunity arises. At any rate I do derive a lot of enjoyment out of playing even if it was by myself.

As you would know there are drawbacks with the isolation but with the connectivity of the internet, it isn’t that bad. I have made likeminded friends and found mentors, received guidiance when I need it as well as obtained recordings from which I can get exposed to the very best of the music.

7

:blush: Seriously, I’m off to the optician this week to get my specs sorted for close work. I’m having trouble seeing the screen and reading these days as my eyes are ridiculously different. That thing that comes with age, y’know. I hope she didn’t see my gaffe!

8

I’m in the lucky position to be able to attend several sessions within 1-2 driving hours. Basically there are 1-2 sessions per week. The standard varies big time, but most of them are worth the drive (funny, though, that the farther one drives, the better the sessions get :laughing: ).

I hate playing the flute alone, so I mostly play along with recordings when there are no sessions available, or I phone some people to arrange a spontaneous session. I also play the pipes and the concertina, but both more for my own enjoyment (and with way less perfectionism…) than for sessions or gigs, so I’m fine with playing them alone (even though the pipes sound better with drones which I don’t have).

Nevertheless, my biggest sympathies go out to all the poor musicians who are on themselves and never get the chance to play with others!

9

It was once suggested to me that I should put out the word for musicians of any type who want to get together and have them over and hand out some music and see what happens. I could get guitars and flutes and clarinets and whatever and that would be okay. It may not be a session but it would be music. I don’t know who’s on the island but maybe there are a couple of musicians.

10

intrepidduckling,

Have you tried practicing with a metronome? They’re small and inexpensive. They also allow the exercise of a crucial skill: listening to + following a beat. Of course, its no substitute for playing with others, but I’ve found it helps a great deal.

trill

11

Single parentdom isn’t good for social playing either. And I can’t even play at home by myself after bedtime.

I’m tring to persuade my kid to learn the bohdran or even some chords on his keyboard so we can play together, but at the moment all he does is play star wars and yellow submarine on his melodian.

I supose i’d just better join him with that for now, till i find someone with better taste in music! lol

12

Well, there you have it. The scene isn’t going to come to you, so it’s the mountain and Muhammad. :slight_smile:

Self practice is fine and necessary. After all, good musicians may spend far more time in lone practice than they do performing with others or in public. Something positive to keep in mind.

That said, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of at least occasional contact with experienced, real live participants as a potentially huge motiving experience. The lasting contacts you can make, the personal feedback, the recordings and repertoire you come away with - all can keep you going for a long, long time. Even if you manage a visit, say, only 4 times a year, that’s literally an infinite improvement over zero.

As for expense, I suppose that’s unavoidable. But a cost of less than a couple of CDs to attend a real session may repay more than a couple of CDs worth of benefit.

When I hear of the obstacles that some people overcome to seek out occasional sessions, it puts our regular drive of up to 2-3 hours each way to attend a favorite session in LA to shame.

13

Step 1: Get less shy
Step 2: More rice & beans=more disposable income=chance to go out .
Step 3: Continue with mission “whistle as birthday presents for island children , please don’t let all parents hate me and run me off the rock.”
Step 4: actually head to bright lights big city when I can. work at it.
Step 5: practice
Step 6: practice
Step 7: practice
Step 8: practice

:stuck_out_tongue:

14

I know what you mean. I am living in Mozambique and find it hard to find anyone who can play any insrtument that is not a drum, people also dislike irish music here, it is just not something that resonates with them (understandable). I practice alot and the context made me choose the flute, but man I would love to have someone to chat with about music and to give advice and just play with.

15

My position is a little different.

I suffer from (enjoy!) Aspergers Syndrome. I’m a High Functioning Austitic. The mad scientist is me.

We have poor innate understanding of facial expressions and idiom. We compensate intellectually for our innate lack. The problem is if there are a bunch of people who aren’t doing much the same sort of thing, it becomes a kind of sensory overload. It’s like a bad headache, or being confronted with five chess problems to do at once while there’s a motor race at top volume on the TV.

Ceilidhs (and ceilis) are a gift to me. Everybody doing the same dance at once? Wow! It’s so relaxing! And there are people!

Parties are the worst. So many people, so many different moods and attitudes. Arg!

I’ve been to a couple of sessions, and found them very difficult. So I play in the park at lunchtimes, pretty much for my own amusement. One of my friends has taken up the pennywhistle, and although her improvement is accelerating, it’s still slow. My children also have Aspergers, and object to the whistle. I’m not allowed to play it at home. I still play my guitar. They have to put up with that. It’s a balance.

The park is largely empty and most of the time I have it to myself. The local children recognise me, and have asked me about the music and the instruments. A few of the dog walkers recognise me as well and give me a friendly nod. Maybe one day there’ll be more than just me whistling in the park!

Currently practicing “Smash the Windows”, “Slan chun Carraig an Eige”, “The Crested Hens” and “Dusty Windowsills”.

16

Seems like many of you could find a way to a session at least once. I have yet to get a car, or even my license :smiley: . The only way I’ll get to a session is if my parents actually agree to drive me, and if I can find one that’s not on a weeknight (though that won’t be a problem soon). We all have our own stories I guess. Personally, I’m hoping to get some other highschoolers around here to pick up a whistle :slight_smile:.

17

You could always try the BBC’s virtual session:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/sessions/swf/folkmenu.html

18

When I first started out I was the only flute or whistle player around, it seemed, so life was pretty lonely (I hadn’t discovered this place yet, either, so I was also totally clueless!). Anyway, when I finally got to take my first flute lesson, I remember bemoaning the dearth of sessions, other players, etc. and asking my teacher didn’t he mind that? Well, I must admit he shocked me a bit when he told me that he thought sessions (at least as they’re often done here) are pretty darned overrated. Then he went on to explain further, and what it really came down to is that he didn’t have much interest in playing with others for fun anymore because working on his own playing was the most fun of all. That way, he said, you could really think about things, “really get inside a tune,” and really get good and solid at your own pace. (I suppose it’s like getting serious about golf)

Since then some of us got a couple of sessions going within an hour’s drive of where I live; there are even some flute players in the neighborhood now too, and they’re a joy! … But I’m also starting to see what my teacher meant. There is great value in playing with others sometimes, but honestly, it can ALSO be a huge distraction. In my case I’ve ended up halfway learning a whole bunch of tunes, just enough to get by but never enough to play well. And a whole lot of them are tunes I don’t even like much or have much use for except one needs them if one is to play with others. … Of course, if I’d sit down and work on them more I might like them better, etc., etc., but there are OTHER tunes I’d rather spend my time on. And it just goes round and round from there.

And then there’s the job of trying to keep a group sane/happy/making decent music – that takes a fair amount of work too. People come to sessions for different reasons, and their reasons may not match mine. And all that being social wipes me out, too – I really understand what IB’s saying about parties because sessions feel just like that to me!

Nope, what I really enjoy anymore is sitting home and sorting things out on my own, finding tunes I like and trying to play them better. I’m fortunate to have a fiddler as my beloved, so we play together too (though I still mostly like playing alone the best – sorry, honey).

I just feel like I can get a bit more into it when I don’t have to consider anyone else. (evil selfish woman am I!)

And of course, I LOVE playing along with my iPod – who doesn’t like having Jackie Daly or Kevin Burke or the Mulcahys or Paddy Carty or James Kelly or Grianán drop over to one’s ear for some tunes? (I’ve found it’s good to have tinwhistles in alternate keys for this purpose, FWIW)

Not to mention the fact that, unlike in a session, you can hit your iPod or CD player’s “repeat” button as many times as you want. :slight_smile:

Sometimes I like to meet up with a few like-minded “much better than me” friends in a small group for sort of a “tune exchange” – often this involves a long drive but it’s OK, it’s TOTALLY worth it.

So maybe you can just make the most of your time playing alone for now? You’ve got great teachers in your recordings, and you’ve got this board for conversation. And because you’re alone, you’ve got a very precious thing … time to focus. Meanwhile, save your pennies and see if you can get to a workshop or tionól (you might be surprised to find one closer to you than you think; there are odd little festivals, etc. all over the place). There will be some session opps there; maybe even enough to keep you going until you can swing another weekend of music.

I don’t know if this is of any value or not – after all, it’s coming from one who does have access to some session activity – and I DO think there’s value in hooking up with like-minded folks, but I guess I’m just trying to help you feel better. Ya never know, but you could be exactly where you need to be to create the kind of music you’re after! (But only if you keep playing. :slight_smile: )

Good luck and keep at it!

19

well Cat,

That was just disgustingly reasonable!

:wink:

20

This thread makes me feel really fortunate.

David