Chris (L),
While you make some good points, I think that for many - if not most - people, that kind of thinking would totally ruin their enjoyment of the music. I certainly play with the intent of having fun, and I certainly think it’s the most important part of playing: but I don’t think that this is necessarilly a path to bad musicianship, or that becoming a decent musician can only be done by putting your nose to the grindstone and work, work, work. Or, more to the point, I don’t think one has to -think- of it that way. Yes, I think I have to spend time playing with a focus to my rhythm, to my tone, to playing in tune… yes, I think I have to get my cuts and taps snappier (since they’re my fundamental articulation) before I worry too much about my rolls, and yes, I’m dissatisfied with my level of proficiency on both whistle and flute.
But, I don’t feel a need to stop playing for fun to go ‘work’ on my playing before I can ‘really’ play. I play now as well as I can, and enjoy it for what it is… but I’m also not unrealistic about my level of playing… I’m good in comparison to other 1 year and less beginners, and nowhere near the level of most sessions, much less the recorded ‘greats’. On the other hand, I can still hear my own progress on an almost daily basis (of course, it’s the rare day that I don’t play for at least a couple of hours, more if I can!). It’s semantics, really… but -everything- on this board is semantics, since all we have is words… but, I think that playing to have fun and improving at your own rate is not any more or less likely to make someone a good player than working like the dickens to become good. And, while maybe I’ve not been around long enough to have my opinion count for much, I think that one of the great things about the Irish musical tradition is that it’s learned by playing, taught by playing, and all about playing. Scales are not part of the tradition except inasmuch as it’s an obvious way to first learn how to voice an instrument… there are no drills, no ‘methods’, no institutions of correctness (despite attempts in recent decades to create them); there is only the sound, and the only way to learn what the sound sounds like is to listen to it, and the only way to learn what the sound sounds like is to play it, which, as it happens, are wonderfully enjoyable activities both.
Classical music has been filled with drills and rules and ‘musts’ until the life has been driven from it (though some, obviously, can find the spark still or no-one would be drawn to it!), and jazz, while also very much a listen-and-play music has ascended to amazing heights of theory and complexity (though many of the historic greats were ‘intuitive’ players and some today still recognize that) and is in danger of going the way of classical.
Irish music is, ultimately, a folk tradition, played by people in their spare time, on what instruments they had to hand, for their own enjoyment and the enjoyment of their neighbors. It is all -about- having fun, and improvement should come -while- having fun. That’s what get-togethers like the one that launched this thread are about: playing together, having fun, and learning from each other and from the experience, all rolled up into one. That’s what kitchen-sessions, at least, are about, and I hope it’s what any session I eventually join is about.
Whew! Anyway; when you talk about needing to ‘work hard’ and ‘be serious’, it makes me want to run far, far away… and play my whistle all for myself as unseriously as possible. 
I think, going out on a limb here, that you feel exactly the same about people with my attitude… but, the real point that I’m trying to communicate here is that it’s not whether one is ‘working hard and serious’ or ‘playing and having fun’ that matters, it’s the desire to improve. If one -really- desires to improve, and really loves the instrument, then one is going to put in the hours necessary to become better.
And, I think, unless you’re obstinately refusing to try, it’s really hard to not learn something from every act of playing; if the people that started this thread end up playing one lead and one harmony, then they’ll learn something about harmony… which may help them if they take up, or play with players of, uillean pipes or guitar. Even if it doesn’t, it will improve their ear, and make it easier to play by ear a tune that they heard originally in a different key. Whether they play harmony or together, it will certainly teach something about blowing into tune (it’s pretty well necessary to play two whistles together!). So, just because people are trying to have fun, please don’t think that they’re not committed to the music, or not going to learn anything, or are not trying to improve.
Personally, I’m very committed to having as much fun as possible while playing as many tunes as I can get my hands on, and playing as best as I can, and I expect that one day I’ll be able to sit into sessions with reasonable confidence that I’m adding something to the music.
–Chris, a very ‘serious’ advocate of having fun.
PS: None of this is to say that you can just be a good musician by just wanting it, of course; I’m very frustrated by a friend of mine who could play the whistle without a squeak within minutes of picking it up, can pick up tunes at the drop of a hat… and never puts any time in except when around me or another player, so his rhythm is terrible, and he loses the tunes almost as fast as he learns them… It does take time in actually playing the music to learn to play the music, no matter how much ‘natural’ talent you start with!
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisA on 2002-07-01 22:25 ]