I go to quite a few sessions in the UK and have a couple of friends who play the music really really well, being Irish, but although I listen and listen to them, I can’t join in with most of their music. Their repotoire is so vast they seem to play something different all the time, and at such speed.
I know quite a few tunes, mostly the popular ones, but the stuff they play I just feel I could never hope to keep up with. It’s got a bit depressing to be honest.
I don’t want to try and noodle along in the back ground, a constant annoying out of tune trilling. I’ve heard them comment on another player for this so I’m accutely aware that I could be ruining it for everyone. I’d rather let them play and just actively listen as hard as I can. But I’m not sure I’m getting anywhere with this technique.
For a few days after the last such session I was so dispondant I didn’t play at all which is completely out of character for me. Now I’ve decided to get my metronome out and find all the places I’m wobbly in the tunes I do know and nail them a bit better. Metronome is good for pin pointing these. I don’t like to let things get me down for to long.
Well, sorry to moan. I was hoping that you would have something positive to say or a suggestion I hadn’t thought of. Do you ever feel this way? Has anyone ever told you to stop that infernal tootling?
Ditch the metronome: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/so-how-do-you/70837/1 Why don’t you record the sessions, subject to agreement of those there (usually fine if you’re discreet) and nail the tunes when you get home. It isn’t the same as playing in the session bearpit but it’ll give you a bit more confidence. Or play the harmonica - you can noodle very quietly with one of those!
I know how you feel. Sometimes I come home feeling really good and other times feel quite depressed. I seem to be at a stage where my expectations of myself, and my skill and repertoire levels, don’t meet. It can be quite frustrating
Is there another session in your area with different people who may be less intense? I go to a couple of different sessions, one where you need to get it right (I don’t play that much on those evenings, my repertoire isn’t big enough yet and that’s the session where I can get despondent) and the other is smaller and less intense. At that one I play more, try out new stuff, and screw up more but that’s ok. The thing is we’re all having fun trying and when it works it feels great.
The other suggestion is to maybe find a slow session (or set one up as I see has already been suggested).
There’s lots of good advice here! I think Steve’s about recording some of the tunes and learning to play along with them is especially helpful.
And good on you for being sensitive to the “noodle factor.” That’s a major music-killer. You can finger along on the tunes you know while you record them, and then just pick one per week or month to work on at home. But listen, listen, LISTEN to all your recordings over and over again. You’ll get better and better at the tune you’re working on, and your ear will start to learn some of the other tunes, thus growing your repertoire. Eventually you’ll realize that a lot of tunes are bits and parts of other tunes and you’ll be able to “fake” your way through them better.
In the meantime, count your blessings that you have such good music to learn from. Someone whose playing I admire once told me he’d rather be the worst player in a great session than the best player in a bad one. I thought that was kind of wacky at the time, but now I know exactly what he was talking about (though I’d rather be a middle-of-the-road player in a great session, thanks ), and if you keep at it one day you’ll look back and feel very lucky to have had the problem you presently do!
One health warning about honing tunes at home. You think you’ve done a great job of learning a tune, you feel really secure about getting through it…then you go to the session and it falls to pieces as soon as you hear others joining in, especially when you hear guitar chords! I reckon we’ve all been there so don’t let that put you off. Just keep at it and you’ll get there.
Lots of places develop “closed” or “by-invitation” sessions, where the advanced players go, and “open” sessions that are more forgiving and intermediate-friendly. That works well in my town, where we have public jazz, blues, bluegrass, old-time stringband and Irish sessions weekly.
For a while, our “open” Irish session had an instructional hour followed by the actual session. There were some good aspects to that, but it eventually fell apart. Now we just make a conscious effort to mix in a few slower, easier tunes along the way, so everyone gets a chance to play. That provides enough encouragement to keep people coming back.
Allowing an “open” session to become unfriendly or intimidating pays disrespect to the spirit of the music, IMHO.
I do already record tunes, usually ones I have heard a few good few times and which I like the sound of (Siobhan O’Donnell’s is my current one I’m learning as it comes up quite a bit). I use my Blackberry which means I’ve always got some snippets to work with where ever I am.
There’s a really fab variety of sessions in my area at the moment and I do go to some that are less intense and felt a lot happier after the last one of these I went to. English tunes are incredibly easy to pick up compared to Irish and there’s lots of that played because, well, this is England afterall.
I know Mr Shaw hates those metronomes but I think they help identify areas you really aren’t secure in by making you maintain the same speed throughout so when you stumble you can fix it. A bit of judicious usage does no harm.
On honing tunes to session usage, you’re right, they do often go to pieces when others join in. But then it’s back to the drawing board and more practice when I get home. Also do you find you sometimes introduce a tune before you are really ready? When people join in it’s a disaster?
edit to say astonishingly I was invited to an invitation only session, so I must be doing something right (keeping quiet?)
I hate metronomes so much that I actually own two of them, one of them a lovely and elegant wind-up one that sits proudly on my bookshelf. I used it a lot when I first started to play Irish tunes and it did point out to me that my internal rhythms were rubbish. But I could hear that, much to my distress, anyway in recordings of myself playing, and when it came to correcting the problem the metronome was useless. Like training for the Tour de France with stabilisers on your bike!
On honing tunes to session usage, you’re right, they do often go to pieces when others join in. But then it’s back to the drawing board and more practice when I get home. Also do you find you sometimes introduce a tune before you are really ready? When people join in it’s a disaster?
When you think about it, this probably happens with every new tune that anyone introduces to a session. To start with, it’s often hard to get anyone else enthusiastic about your tune. Second, the guitar man will be all over the place until he’s tackled it a few times (Sorry, a bit sexist there… ), Third, you have that nervous tension about introducing something new and untried. Get a fellow conspirator in the session to try out your new stuff with you in a quiet moment during a beer/pee/spliff break. Works for me and I’m supposed to be nerveless!
Don’t worry about it. Just keep practicing. I am still going through that phase at times. I like to ask for the anmes of the tunes of the ones that I don’t know, then I try to practice and play along on youtube. That is the best place for me to practice along with.
Yep! I know that feeling. I’m there at the moment too. Sometimes I get despondent, usually it’s a spur to get it right next time. I have to concentrate really hard when I start a tune in the session. It is good when I play a tune everyone else already knows and they join in but a new tune or one that not many know can be a bit of a struggle.
Hi Infernal-
Thanks for sharing your personal experiences and as you can see, you are not alone. FWIW, getting into this a short year ago, and at a later stage of life, I have been lucky to have just naturally focused mostly on the enjoyment of the learning experience, and thus not putting much pressure on myself to “achieve” a certain level of proficiency or build a vast repetoire in a short time to keep up with the experienced players. so, I have been lucky not to experience those moments of “shame” after a session and then not play for a week despondently, even though I may have sat there the whole time dumbfounded by the superb music and musicianship, I somehow am able to go home feeling “charged up” instead of “beat down”. Just sharing a word of encouragement to go with the flow and let the skills and repetoire develop as they will, no pressure on yourself, “small steps”. The pints will taste much better that way!
Oh, it’s all good fun. I’ll try another session tonight, it’s a more general one but a really nice night.
Back on the monontonous topic of metronomes, I do know what you mean Steve. One player I know plays very well, very fast (often too fast of course) and absolutely rock steady. He practises all the time with a metronome. His Siobhan O’Donnell’s was barely recognisable when I first heard it as it possessed no swing or character. When everyone else realised what it was they flew in with gusto and he has learned to give it some colour now. But I often find it hard to recognise what he is playing as everything is so evenly played.
This is a tangent, but … What is it about tunes like Siobhan O’Donnell’s that makes people think they need to fly through them? Should we blame it on Lunasa? We’re running into that with Frank’s Reel lately. Maybe it’s an A-reel thing?
I’ll tell you what to me marks wonderful musicianship – someone who’s solid enough to take a tune that’s usually played very brightly and slow it down to a “dead-sexy groove” in a session. It’s amazing how everyone wants to play along because the rhythm’s so good.
I’ve heard the greats do that on more than one occasion, and each time it’s like I’ve never heard the tune before, even though I might have played it a thousand times myself. It takes on a whole new shape. Genius. I want to grow up to be like that.
There’s a lot more in a tune when it’s slowed down a bit, I reckon. It’s a bit harder to maintain the forward drive, though not impossible. I think this is why a lot of, er, less-skilled players like to tear through tunes. They attract admiration for the superspeed whilst getting away with not having to be quite so expressive… I went to sessions in Dublin including some at Hughes’ and the Cobblestone, and was constantly amazed at how, er, slow a lot of the tunes came out. I’ve heard about some rather famous superstars of Irish who are bad mannered enough to play like lightning in their sessions, to the exclusion of all except their own inner circle. No names, no pack drill. Like size, speed ain’t everything.
), and if you keep at it one day you’ll look back and feel very lucky to have had the problem you presently do! 
), Third, you have that nervous tension about introducing something new and untried. Get a fellow conspirator in the session to try out your new stuff with you in a quiet moment during a beer/pee/spliff break. Works for me and I’m supposed to be nerveless!
We’re running into that with Frank’s Reel lately. Maybe it’s an A-reel thing?