I recently found myself wedged between a couple incompatable guitar players at a session. I tend toward a more quite Galway, Clare style when left to my own devices, but when the beat started to drift away I found myself really punctuating the rythemn to get people back in time.
Do people here change their playing style in sessions? If so, how?
(Discuss amongst yourselves 
)
I tend to be a bit of a sponge and try to pick up and fit in with whatever is going on around me - and I mostly follow at sessions - I’m not a big starter of sets, though if I do start something, I’ll do so in my normal style of playing the particular tunes and try to keep it that way. I don’t tend to think about it that much. Then again, I haven’t really been much exposed to or picked up on specific Irish regional styles - wouldn’t really recognise them if they bit me - so that isn’t an issue I worry much about.
I know what you mean about finding oneself trying to push out the rhythm if one is the only or one of a few more competent players in the context of folk who struggle to keep time/a steady pace etc. That’s not push as in force the pace faster, but as in trying to make a clear steady pulse audible in hopes that others will pick up on it and follow. The flute isn’t really a good instrument for that - if you have wayward guitarists/bodhranists (the usual culprits) or melody players on louder instruments like banjo or pipes, you really need a good fiddler or box player to keep them in line! I find pipers are particularly prone to poor timing for some reason.
On a tangential point, has anyone else ever noticed how pipers (including very good ones and not just Uillean/ITM pipers either - it seems to be a general bagpipe thing) very often start a tune in no recognisable time signature/dance rhythm whatever (though not necessarily playing freeform/out of time) and take until well into the second A music to achieve one? Are they taught to do this purposely? I have only rarely heard similar things on other instruments, and one could put that down to one’s own ear taking a while to discern the beat: but it seems to me to be a very common and regular occurence/practice with pipes music.
We don’t often get to play with pipers, here, but it does happen rarely and the pipers I’ve played with have been very advanced players who were very solid: they absolutely precise with the beat and with timing in general.
So I think maybe what you’ve experienced is more a function of the pipers you play with than pipers in general.
I agree with Jem that playing in session requires you to be both a sponge and a mirror: every session has its own feel, its own take on the tunes, and you have to pick up on it and support it.
That’s not to say you can’t play the tunes your own way. You just have to make sure that your way supports and enhances the session rather than working against it.
Just like with playing tune, you always have to listen, and you have to continually adjust to keep things right.
–James
Re the pipers’ openings thing I raised, no, it isn’t particularly the pipers I get to play with (the two I see most often don’t seem to do what I mean here, but aren’t advanced players) - I have often noticed it on recordings too - and as I said, in many piping traditions - Scots GHB, Northumbrian, various European (e.g French, Italian, Galician, Macedonian…). It is not that they play out of time, but that there seems to be a kind of introductory passage where no beat or emphasis is discernible and one finds oneself wondering (especially if trying to join in/play along) what the rhythm/dance form will turn out to be.
I’ve noticed that sort of “falling into the tune” too, Jem; I’ve also heard it in recordings of some of the Flute/Whistle Players Of Way Back When. I’ve wondered about it, but never heard a reason, although sometimes it’s a very nice “intro.”
I play differently in sessions and I don’t like it one bit. :rant:
Yes, I play differently.
I go from the measure of competence I have to complete and utter incompetency when I get to the session. I can’t remember anything I know, I can’t play anything I remember, and anything I can actually play, I can play about 75% of it if I’m lucky.
Also, I use nearly no ornaments at all unless they are there to separate two of the same note, and even then sometimes I don’t use them.
In other words, I’m the one you don’t want to sit too close to. At least I do have rhythm. 
There’s your problem. There’s not a whole lot you can do if backers can’t hold a beat. You’re pretty much forced to resort to attack flute.
Unfortunately, it seems like skill at backing tunes and recognition that only one person should be backing tunes at once are inverse properties. It’s pretty rare that you can find two backers that sound good together. They have to be good enough to adjust what they do and listen to each other. If you regularly have more than one guitar player playing, I’d suggest having them take turns or make the suggestion that they pick up a melody instrument.
B
The recommendations of being relaxed when you play goes right out the window at sessions for me - most of the time. But especially so when speedy players show up. When its off to the races, I revert to half-baked whistle playing. Besides, there are only a couple of tunes that I can play along with on flute so far without being excessively musically destructive.
My living room couch is a really comfortable place to play. A session at a bar is much less so, but of course, much more fun.
I don’t think “falling apart in public” - something which happens to us all from time to time regardless of our level - is quite what the thread originator had in mind by “changing your playing style”!
“Attack flute.” 
, I like that!
Alas, all too often for me, strategy fails and impulse toward muscle takes over. So you see, falling apart CAN change one’s playing style.
With that in mind, I’m off once more to try to outmaneuver the assault banjo.
Judging entirely from my own experience…
There are a few wonderful evenings where everything just “clicks,” ten (or however many) musicians all “share the same brain,” everyone is on tempo and in rhythm and nobody can play a note wrong.
We all live for those times. That’s when everybody stops talking and socializing and eating / drinking / whatever, and they all just stop and turn to look and listen. The look in their eyes on these rare moments is worth pure gold.
That said, those times are rare. Most sessions are wonderful in their own right but not quite as spectacular as what I just described.
And then there are the sessions where no one can seem to play a single note right.
Those sessions get saved (if they are saved at all) by strong players with loud instruments who start playing aggressively enough to pull the session back together.
When you have a player that can do that, treat them nice and buy them a drink or something from time to time, because players like that are worth even more than gold.
My $.02; your mileage may vary.
–James
Interesting post and thread. Last Thursday’s session was the worst for me and few others, with two bodhran players and I use that phrase loosely and three guitarists who don’t know the tunes! The bangers bang in every tune with no mind of the beat and the guitarists are either playing ahead on in the wrong key. On the flute I start driving the notes loudly with a fiddlers help and if they don’t get that, I put the flute down and pick up my bodhran! The two other bodhran players will immediately put their bodhrans down and or away, then I let the guitarists have it while I call out the key of the tune. Sadly another mate of mind told one guitarists to leave, it was to much and we still had five guitarists to go!
Anstapa
Recently I was playing a set which I started, and it sounded absolutely great just to the right of me, and just to the left. The fiddle and guitar and my flute all seemed to be in sync and I was savioring every pulse and note we were playing. When the set ended, I turned to the person next to me an commented, “that was a great set, eh?” To which he replied, “except for the fact that you had two different timings happening.” Indeed, it is such a large group that it is often quite difficult to hear a set started at the other end of the table.
Arbo
When strapped for words…toot.
Ah, yes, I know what Arbo means! I suppose this is drifting off topic a bit, but I’m sure that many of us will have experienced at times not only the split-timing between subgroups at a session phenomenon Arbo describes, but even worse, the dreaded Secessionary Session! 
… 
It is fortunately rare in smaller sessions/compact session rooms where all the players can both see and tolerably well hear one another - what Arbo describes can simply be down to poor listening skills, though bad acoustics can make it impossible to hear in some situations.
I’m thinking of something that usually only happens in very large rooms, or in marquees at festivals, or possibly in long but narrow or L shaped rooms, where what starts as one session somehow splits into competing mini sessions with different tunes going on against each other because people in one part of the space can’t properly hear those in another. Someone starts a set into a quiet patch and everyone picks it up, but then when the tune change comes, only those near the originator can hear and follow him/her; elsewhere in the room someone may habitually follow the first tune with a different one than that the set-starter has switched to, and there’s your split.
Or again, in a noisy crowd, someome may have started a set and be well away but elsewhere in the room it can’t be heard and another group will start up - not deliberately rude, just circumstantial. But such situations are pretty frustrating and rarely make for a classic sesh such as James described. Those are great when they happen - definitely to be savoured.
But this hasn’t really got anything to do with changing the way one plays, be that to compete with others or to try to “drive” the session, or to fit in with a local style or whatever. Sorry!
Success!
After Test 5 or 6, I’m thinking it’s safe to say my dark plan seems to be working (at least with this lot). I just play softly enough that if they want to hear the tune they have to listen. Doesn’t work all the time, but …
At least it’s not messing up my playing as badly. I’ve got enough problems there as it is without trying to honk out every beat.
Gemtheflute: about what you bring up about the beginnings in various piping traditions, that’s an interesting thing. I’ve listened to a TON of Scottish, Irish, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Spanish piping and I think I know what you’re talking about. It’s actually different in each tradition, but analagous enough to make one wonder about connexions.
Here’s what’s going on:
Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe: at solo piping recitals and competitions it is standard for the pipers to play for a period, sometimes several minutes, to ensure that their instrument is perfectly in tune. Each piper has a distinctive “tuning phrase” that becomes their hallmark, though these tuning phrases have a certain similarity, in that they always hit all of the notes of the chanter to check tuning (or at least all of the main notes) and they always contain fancy ornaments, usually “edres” and “bubbly notes”, and usually end with low A being peppered with a dazzling sequence of gracenotes, taorluaths, and birls. The piper may combine his tuning phrase with fragments of various tunes, random scales, etc etc and at the conclusion of this extended period of noodling, when he feels that his pipes are going perfectly, he will go right into whatever piece he will be playing without any break. To the initiated there is no confusion as to what is the period of tuning and what is the actual piece.
Bulgarian gaida: perhaps for similar reasons, perhaps not, Bulgarian pipers precede their dance tunes with a “bavna pesen” (slow song). This is a song air, exactly in the nature of an Irish “sean nos” air. I suppose to someone not familiar with Bulgarian music it too would seem to be aimless noodling, but it is not. Once again, to the initiated there is no confusion as to when the bavna pesen ends and the horo begins.
Spanish gaita: Gaiteiros precede their dance tunes with a stereotyped flourish. Galician pipers I’ve heard tend to do a fairly brief flourish which begins on the low tonic, rises up to the highest possible notes in the second octave, then works its way back down to the tonic, which is held for a moment while using strong vibrato done with the little finger. Asturian pipers tend to do a longer prelude, in which they show off the staccato fingering of the Asturias gaita to wonderful effect.
In a way, other traditions do similar things, as I’ve heard uilleann pipers precede dance tunes with an air, while Cape Breton fiddlers might precede a group of strathspeys and reels with an air or “slow strathspey”.
Now, all of this is probably not what you mean when you talk of uilleann pipers who play in such a way that the “1” of the measure, or in fact whether they are playing in 6/8 or 4/4, is not immediately obvious. I think this comes from a number of causes 1) the pipes don’t have dynamics so there is not an obvious pulse 2) pipers like to sometimes emphasise the off-beat which throws off those not familiar with the tune in question 3) the entire notion of bar-lines is a foreign one imposed on Irish music from the outside anyway.
Thanks Pan for the consideration of my observation. Some very interesting and helpful information there. You are right that I wasn’t thinking of the kind of specific slow introduction that you described, or even the GHB warm-up routine. Without necessarliy knowing the idiom and therefore quite what is going on, I think I would (and have done so) pick up on the general idea and that the main tune has not been started yet. I suspect that your last few observations come somewhere near the truth, perhaps in combination with my one about the ear of the listener taking a while to pick up what is going on. However, if the latter is a significant factor, one should be able to flip back to the beginning of a recorded track once one has perceived the rhythm and then hear it from the start - and I don’t think that works!
It has also occurred to me that, where launching pretty directly into a tune, a piper may have a kind of settling in period where, as he balances his bag pressure, listens to his drones etc. and gets going properly, he is playing without full attention to the feel of the melody, that his fingers are on auto-pilot while his attention is elsewhere. Sometimes it seems more deliberate than that, though, to me at least.
Two points you make that I’d query:-
Perhaps the arhythmic start-ups I’ve observed are down to playing absolutey even length notes, unstressed in any way - but if so, why does such an introductory phase only seem to happen with pipes? I have hardly ever observed it in any other instrument.
ITM and most traditional dance musics have strongly stressed rhythmicality fundamental to their nature (can’t think of any that don’t!). So I’m still wondering why pipers, almost alone of instrumentalists and regardless of their type of pipes or native musical tradition, have this habit I think I have observed of often (but by no means always - it’s not that they have to do it, they just frequently seem to) playing the first dance section or two arhythmically before settling into a discernible pulse. I do keep open the possibility that it is my perceptions that are at fault in this, though if so, why only with bagpipes? And I’m not having a go at pipers either - I like and enjoy bagpipe music (well, maybe not Highland Pipe Band type stuff, but most other).
JeffS
I’m not quite sure what you mean by people changing their playing style in sessions, if you mean adapting to each particular sessions speed, then that is a given. We all have our own ‘style’ and as such I would venture that most people would try to fit their style around any given session dynamic happening at that time.
The comments on pipe players seeming to meander into a tune (my phrasing there) are interesting. I know where you are coming from with your comments jemtheflue, I played in a few sessions where at the beginning of the night it was ‘pipers choice’. There were a lot of people there and there was a lot of noise so it was very difficult hearing the start of a (Uillean) pipe tune. The rest of the players in the session would wait until the pipes had gotten well into a tune ( the b’s) before joining in. Now what I noticed was, there was no metronomic beat coming from the piper, it was very hard to pick up a rythym never mind make out what tune it was he was playing. A fiddle player would start playing along and all of a sudden I could make out what the tune was! Is this similar to what you experienced? The pipers were very good.
There is one particular tune, St.Annes reel, that I particularly like to play, but most of the time in sessions I have been to in Australia (where I now live) it is played with the wrong feel for me and I struggle to play it. I am used to the way it was played at the sessions I would go to in Ireland. I was at a folk festival in Port Lincoln, South Australia a little while back and there was a great box player there called Pat Organ, he went into St.Annes and I was in heaven, he played it just the way I knew it and flew from my fingers! Maybe it is just the way that it is played in sessions here and that is the way it has always been?
Yup, that’s it exactly - and well described. I am not alone!!! Thanks, Ceili_whistle_man!
Maybe they play the ‘North/American’ St. Anne’s in Australia (I say ‘North/American’ because while it’s become a popular tune with American Bluegrass players, it seems to be a staple of the Cape Breton players I’ve met, too)? I know I’ve encountered two distinct versions with variations in both the A and B parts; the beginning of the B in particular is notable.
You can hear the tune’s the same, but there’s a whole lot of different fingerwork getting there!