I was at a session of sorts on Friday night. It was a bit unusual. It was kind of a mix between a beginners ,normal, soloist and singing session (there were microphones so that soloists and singers could be heard above the din). It was a fairly structured affair.
That’s fine with me, run it how you want. What I was a little unsure about was that the session leader would start a tune at about normal session speed, then increase the speed significantly each time through to the point that by the third time, he was playing it so fast that only one or two people could could keep up with him. He did this on almost every tune. His instrument was amped, which didn’t help matters.
Most of the people there seemed to be regulars, so the leader must have been aware of their playing ability. I’ve been to sessions where a tune is sped up on the last time through, but it’s usually still within the reach of the regulars.
I was wondering if this sort of thing happens a lot elsewhere, as I’ve never really noticed it to this degree before.
We’re at this very moment wrestling with the spontaneous tune combustion/speedup thing in our session, and it’s generally regarded as a nervous habit/overenthusiastic mistake unless the speeder-upper makes it clear they’re ramping up the pace (i.e., eye contact, nodding, more-pronounced foot tapping, etc.).
I’m assuming if the session leader is amped (in the electronic sense of the word), that’s the program, but wow, that doesn’t sound like much fun for the music.
At this point, we’re choosing to address the need for excessive speed in our session by quitting playing and sometimes saying “too fast for me” in a mildly wry, self-deprecating fashion. Then we’ll start a mazurka or slow reel or hornpipe or something really rhythmic to try to restore a bit of lift.
I probably won’t go to that session too often. The speeding up was deliberate and geared at “losing” everyone else. Nice enough group of people, just some weirdness going on.
Sounds like a great way to ruin a tune.
Speeding up on each repeat? I mean seriously what kind of crap is that? If it were me, I’d be avoiding that “session” or whatever you wanna call it.
Sounds sorta self-serving to me (not you, Jonathan; the “session” leader’s antics).
Still, now, we HAVE conducted sessions once in a while in such a way, but that was a matter of special circumstances, having beginning fiddlers sit in as a class to see what a session was about. We let them know that we’d start tunes they knew at a slow pace (almost all polkas, for some reason…SLOW POLKAS? Aieeeeee), then speed things up gradually as an exercise. They came in all very slow players, but most were surprised to find they had the stuff to play in a sprightlier manner than they thought they could. It was an educational sort of exercise, and empowering to them. The session in the initial question above sounds like something else.
VERRRRY slow. The majority wound up being able to do not badly at some pretty fast paces, although we told them not to be put off if they couldn’t keep up at times. They were beginners (although some had been playing at that level for a rather long while), after all, and it was an advanced session; the final speeds played were to show them how session playing can get when things are smokin’. We raised their levels of confidence by giving 'em a little push, and had a turn to satisfy ourselves. It wasn’t about grandstanding, but about giving them a goal after showing them they were further along than they knew.
I don’t even see how they could be a nice enough group of people. I think a group certainly has the right to play the way they want, but it sounds sort of nasty to not just come out and say what the heck is going on. Then at least you know what the deal is. Yuck.
I can say I never experienced such a thing. Weird!
I mean it’s a tune, right, not a juggling act. What is the musical value of slowly ramping up the tempo? Such a thing would probably grate on my ears. Do they also sing songs in pig latin, or transpose up a half step with each phrase?
I’m trying not to get too specific, because there could be people here who go to that session, and I don’t want to offend! But there are other wierd practices there. I’ll leave it up to your imagination…
In normal cases, no value, I think. That sort of thing suggests that the tune itself has arguably lost its importance for the sake of the player’s ego.
Still, there can be the rare exception: there was one time at a small session here where a piper started in on “Dingle Regatta” at a stately, deliberate pace, and with each new go-round ramped it up with an evil grin on his face, on and on until we were playing at a ghastly insane clip, and everything of course fell apart to much hilarity. That was good craic, but we haven’t repeated the experience since. Once seems to have been enough, thanks.
