I do not play in a session nor do I have the opportunity so go and sit in on any so I was wondering how many repeats of a tune are usually played during a typical sesssion?
Thanks 
In our sessions, usually a minimum of three times through each tune.
–James
3-parters twice
2-parters thrice
…
though it’s often a few more, especially if a new tune is introduced - to give folks a chance to become a bit familiar with it.
edited for accuracy… but not necessarily of spelling. 
We play most tunes twice, and 2 or 3 or 4 tune sets once through. Some of the single reels we play thrice.
We usually do two or three, unless it’s a short tune or people are really getting into it or it’s only on the third time round that people finally got it, and then sometimes will do more than three.
Ah! You people are no fun! What happened to Kid On The Mountain and The Bucks Of Oranmore 3 times through! Hell! Even double the Bucks to get more bang for your buck! 
I think the general “rule” - custom really - most places is 3 times through for a normal 32-bar 2 part AABB tune. 3 or 4 (or more) parters may only get twice through. Hornpipes seem more often only to be done twice, O’Carolan and similar tunes ditto. “Single” reels and slip jigs (4 bar sections) may get 4 times through. Local customs do vary - for example, Chester (N.W.England) sessions seem, relatively unusually, to have a norm of only playing tunes twice through regardless. Personally, I find that too little and rather irritating, especially when trying to pick a tune up on the fly or get into one I only partially know.
Thank you all. I wanted to practice my tunes to the same sort of rendition of a session - just in case I ever get my chance to join one!
Should add that, with the exception of the proverbial extendable, never ending, add-on-the-next-one-you-think-of set of polkas (!!!) Jigs and reels, hornpipes and polkas most often get played in sets of three or maybe four tunes, sometimes only two, and normally all of the same dance form. Sometimes there may be a locally known set of mixed dance types, usually in origin a “concert” set played by specific members of a sesh in other contexts that they bring to the sesh, or lifted wholesale from some well-known band’s recordings, and that gets taken into local practice as-is. Slow air into reel(s) is fairly common. O’Carolan type tunes, waltzes etc. may get played alone, as may very long tunes e.g. Strayaway Child. It is rare to play just one 32 bar jig or reel on its own. Most regular sessions develop a core repertory of sets (usually brought originally by individuals) that are well known and stable in that locale - so when visitors play one of the same tunes intending to go off into their different regular/familiar combination, it can cause temporary problems/confusion. (Not to worry - if it’s a nice sesh, no-one gets the hump and it sorts itself out…). There are some fairly generally known everywhere “stock” sets, but playing those can often elicit a groan! (Ditto some “hack” tunes.) On the other hand, they are part of the common currency and the ongoing tradition.
So if you want to emulate session playing alone, you’ll need to compile sets - but then, so you have to if you want to perform formally. It doesn’t hurt to start out borrowing complete sets from recordings, but it’s also fun to go through the sources available to you and put your own together, see what you can make work. There’s an art to getting good links melodically and key-change wise etc.
Thanks - sound advice - he he
Seriously, just what I was looking for so now I know what to do to get ready for a real session one day, if I should be so lucky as to find one - and not have to drag my kids into a pub! Maybe I should just busk - still useful to have a set organised even for a party of 1. Would one of those artful things be to put tunes together that may all play c nats and then the next set all have c#. Switching Cs one tune to the next messes me up a bit.
We do Kid on the Mountain and we do O’Farrell’s Welcome to Limerick, and I’m trying to get us to do them as a set. Next time we do one I’ll just go into the other afterwards. Twice each. That’ll kill a half an hour.
Hi Boatgirl,
Sessions are not so planned as you might think. Well, some at least. I’ve heard of sessions where they are pretty rigid, but I’ve not sat in on one (yet.) Mostly the dynamic nature of the pace and reps is what makes each session different. “Played that one enough times did we?” “Yeah, well I was trying some variations.”
If you have a tune down pat, play it in practice twice and move on to the ones you want to work on and play them at least three times. Change it up too. Don’t always do this one two and that one three. And at the end of one of your tunes/sets, as you are playing the last B part think up a new tune to change into. Thinking of a new tune while playing the current one is great fun. I don’t always manage it, but it’s a skill worth having.
When you do find a session, watch for a bit, and notice the signals different players use to signal the tune switch is nigh. The fiddler may shout “HUP”, the banjo player may make a large head bow, and the whistle player may shake a leg if there’s no table in the way, or they might just raise eyebrows high and look at someone they expect to know where they are going next.
That’s actually part of the charm and enjoyment in our local session. The one who starts the tune calls the change and starts the next tune. There are “expected” sets, but it’s fun and usually welcome to fool the folks and put something else there rather than what they were expecting. The number of passes thru the tune changes based on how it’s going. If someone has obviously lost the tune we’ll frequently add a rep so they can quit the tune on a success. Then there are days everything is clicking and we’ll just do two times on the “standards” and then three or more on the ones just a couple people know so other can pick it up. If you start the tune, you make the call for switches.
Oh, you might want to practice lifting a foot to table height somewhere in the last B part. When I first started doing that I could lift my foot or play the tune but not both. Sorta like walking a chewing gum I guess.
Tune sets with all the constituent tunes in the same key/mode can be a bit monotonous unless they are very distinct melodically - especially boring for any chordal accompanists (who of course will tend to make the monotony/boredom worse for everyone else unless they are particularly adept and inventive). It is usually best to have at least one mode/key change in a set - so you’ll just have to practice those C switches! (Plenty of tunes that call for both anyway!). Of course, you can get away with keeping to one sort of C by switching between relative major and minor keys (Gmaj/Emin for Cnat, etc.) or equivalent modes.
Depends. A general rule is that each tune is played thrice. But there are those tunes that are over way too fast (single reels at high speed for example, Drowsy Maggie is a common one), and they are repeated several times, four to five times isn’t that uncommon here.
And there was this session where we played The Gold Ring four times through. All seven parts. Followed by The Hag at the Spinning Wheel. Again four times. Gosh, that was fun.
Jem’s observations seem to be spot-on, at least as regards the sessions here.
Here most tunes are played thrice.
Ususally the tunes are not in sets, and at the end of each tune there may be a moment of nothing until somebody starts a new tune.
However sometimes a musician will go straight into another tune, either something they habitually put after the first tune, or something that just popped into their head.
Three of us have played together for many years and have a number of sets that we foist upon the session.
Those short “single reels” can go four times.
Extended tunes- Trim the Velvet, the Gold Ring, Cherish The Ladies etc tend to go twice.
This wouldn’t ever enter our heads, I don’t think, as the C’s are always switching back and forth within the same tune, so the tunes themselves couldn’t be categorised one way or the other.
I haven’t had that much trouble with the cs - I am afraid that makes me sound brand new to whistle when I’m not. It is just that from one tune to the next (jigs) occassionally I’ll key first c wrong. I was just tring to figure out what jem meant by artfully putting tunes together. I think I have an idea with everyones responses though. great stuff, much appreciated. I am also extremely shy when it comes to performing - actually I get all nervous and cease to make any nice music if anyone other than immediate family hear me. So this is my effort to overcome that. I would like to play a priv session of 1 on the dock one day and brave the dockwalkers to build up my confidence.
I’m so lame. Now you all know my shame.
In my experience the 2- or three-times-through convention is an American one. In Ireland, tunes frequently get played several times in a row, with no quizzical eyebrows like what you might get over here. The difference seems to be that if you’re just playing a rote repetition of the tune, two or three times is plenty. If the musical conversation is deep, you won’t want to hang up so soon. I know there are deeper sessions in the U.S. as well, but I’m sure it doesn’t take too much imagination to conceive that, in Ireland, it’s more the rule than the exception, though by no means a given. Cheers,
Rob
An artful example might be Cooley’s into The Otter’s Holt, I just love the keychange you get from that, puts a nice lift on things, plus Cooley’s flows real nicely into The Otter’s Holt, so another thing to notice.
Remembering the C’s just comes with practice if you’re having a hard time remembering them.
As for being nervous, I totally understand, but that’s one reason I decided to go to sessions anyways, was to help get over that nonsense. I still haven’t fully cured it, and I’m envious of those who don’t even have the words “stage fright” in their vocabulary, but I’m getting better. What usually helps is a shot or two of Jameson.
I go to some old time fiddlers conventions and sometimes run across some ITM’s and we play a lot of crossover tunes (played Irish style, hornpipes pointed, etc) old timey style, IE a bunch of times through and one tune at a time.
When we do an ITM set, some of the old time players say they can’t “get their head around” the tunes with them just played 3 times through (twice for the big tunes, 4 times through for single reels).
Most of the sessions I have been to play the two part double jigs, hornpipes, polkas and reels three times through and the big tunes twice through and single reels 4 times.
After the old time players hear and (re)learn the hornpipes played bouncy and with lots of triplets, they love them! Most old time players play hornpipes at reel speed, perhaps a good bit faster than ITM reels.
For building sets, try to switch modes between tunes. An especially good one set IMHO is a major mode such as D or D mixolodian, followed by E mode tune (play it slightly faster with the change) then followed by an A (or D Dorian, sounds A minorish) tune. It sounds happy, then moody then furious (A releations tunes seem to be the fastest.
Just make sure you change either modes or tune speeds for good sets.