I’m a speed freak myself, which isin’t a good thing: the music sucks even worse…so, when playing a reel I make like I’m playing a hornpipe, at least tempo wise. That keeps those spastic tempos down, usually.
If all you’ve heard is De Dannan etc. you should get some records of more moderate tempo music, Ronan Browne and Peadar O’Loughlin, say.
well I can assure anyone that if speed is all they want they can get one of those Yamaha WX-5 Wind controller, fueled with Yamaha VL-70m synth., backed by Yamaha MU-50 (GM-XG) synth.. Whistles are too slow for a speed, if that’s what most speed-craver (like me) is after. Try playing, for example, 64 notes at a full speed at around, say, 90 bpm. (It’d feel like playing a tune called “Pure Ornamentations”) It’s not only fun; it’s absolutely finger-killing. You’ll need to see a doctor after palying for an hour. Probably you will never get to play even a whistle. And, mind you, you’ll sound rather like a harp, not definitely a whistle. 
I also think Na Connerys CD is played too fast, especially their first track. I do not utterly despise their lust for speed but in my honest opinion they’ve gone a bit too faahhhst. And some tunes do sound funny when played way faster than the apeed I wish them to be. Surely speed isn’t everything. There are tasty tunes that must be performed Moderato. We don’t heat Pepsi it for a evening tea, do we? Or should a French course be swallowed down in a matter of minutes? Or imagine spending a night with a dream se? for only two minutes. What one’ll need is an Amazing Slowdowner, not a Viagra which can push him up to more than 187 bpm.
On the other hand, I think it’d be very difficult for a solo whose technique is heard-as-it-is or a player in a small setting to play a fast tune, especially when there’re not too many musicians around you to help keeping up the speed (unlike Na Con. Enough Agent Smiths to help one hide ) Take Skip Healey’s “Silver Spear” set or Sylvain Barou’s “Clare’s Reel” set. Those two can handle the fast tunes, and unlike some groups, their tunes, played at a full – “sessionspeed” – speed, didn’t bother me at all. To my ears they weren’t covering their occasional mistakes by the mere force of speed, they laced their tunes with proper ornamentations. Surprisingly, for solo players, they didn’t give me the impression of show-off attitude, too.
It’s like asking a classically oriented musician, “Should Chopin be played fast?” Some tunes are meant to be played fast, I agree. But in a place like session musician(s) need to be considerate of the capability of others.
Personally I don’t like to play a tune fast until I get it right at a slow pace. Then I used m-n to brush up on my speed.
my 2 shillings worth.
Well, hopefully not, 'cause I’ll be at your workshop in Toronto in january!
Use extreme caution when listening to Ronan Browne. It leads to the desire to purchase and learn to play regulators.
Avoid at all costs unless you have some big bucks to spare! 
[quote="Jetboy]
I know a gifted accordion player who has a rendition of Harvest Home that can make you weep. [/quote]
Yeah, my whistling playing has a similar effect on people. 
Back in my old comms tech. days, my morse code instructor frequently had to remind us of the Golden Rule: “Never send faster than you can receive.”
It was a great rule. Because once you learned the code, it was easy to bang out messages at 30 words-a-minute plus… Trouble was, the gadger on the other end of the radio would naturally reply at 30 wpm+…and if you could only ‘translate’ the incoming tones at 12 wpm…you were screwed bigtime 'cos you were losing more than half of the message.
I think the same rule probably applies to the playing of music… If what you’re ‘receiving’ sounds bad…slow down your ‘sending’.
my 2p fwiw
I am very new to whistling, but have been playing music for many years. I noted with interest several comments on this board about practicing using metronomes (from Glauber in particular). I would have to whole heartedly agree with this. While playing in folk and rock ensembles, I have often been surprised at how fast we were playing in a live performance. When I would go back and listen to recordings of the band later, we sounded like we were in a great hurry to finish the songs.
I suspect that the better you know a song, the more often you have played it, combined with the excitement of live performances and the urging of the crowd, leads us to often play a song faster than it should be played. I don’t think you even notice it while you are doing it, only later in retrospect.
I wonder how often this occurs in sessions? Some of the problem may not be playing up to 120 BPM, it might be that we are really playing at 150 BPM?
Just my two cents.
Didn’t the Irish ever slow dance?
Yup. Good points. Actually, our band practices slower, knowing full well that will happen. Happens in classical music too, at gigs more than concerts. I get a little insecure about playing slow things at some receptions etc. My gtr/flute duo has a demo tape with some very beautiful tunes (Girl with the Flaxen Hair, Haru No Umi, Gymnopedies, etc) and we have lost a few gigs because people wanted something less “sedate.” Too late to explain that it was because they were listening to a variety of styles for demo only…
The other thing is that some people DON’T want to be “in touch with their feelings” that slow pieces or airs might summon. They say they “just want to have fun.” There are so many beautiful slow tunes, but the band I am currently in only wants upbeat and preferably bawdy tunes for pub gigs. I want em to cry in their beer, personally, then pull em out with a fast instrumental followup but I am out-voted.
The Weekenders wrote:
The other thing is that some people DON’T want to be “in touch with their feelings” that slow pieces or airs might summon. They say they “just want to have fun.” There are so many beautiful slow tunes, but the band I am currently in only wants upbeat and preferably bawdy tunes for pub gigs. I want em to cry in their beer, personally, then pull em out with a fast instrumental followup but I am out-voted.
I feel your pain.
I always felt that the dynamics of slow and fast, loud and soft, were part of the beauty of live music. Unfortunately the drummer always wins this one. It may not be getting out voted, just “beat” out. Besides, it is so hard to play something pensive and slow, when people are crying out for loud and fast.
Haha! Good points.
Sessionspeed is a BPM factor for a given tune played well beyond what I have prepared myself for, regardless of its musical effectiveness. Non-session tunes are the ones that nobody in my locale plays but me. 
For me, as ever, it all comes down to what is communicated to me through a tune when played at a particular speed (putting aside other factors in the playing of it). The Tarboulton, for instance, works best for me at a deliberate, relaxed pace, and I think also lends itself well to slow-reel playing. OTOH, there are those during sessions who’ll let fly on that one so fast that my skin wants to peel off. OK, fine…I’ll play, too; what the heck. Now, if I start that tune, however, deliberate is what they’ll usually get because that’s my take on it. I’m communicating something. That’s the point of it all, for me.
My two cents, is all.
We use texture/tempo changes in our band on most sets and the barroom crowd always loves it. It seems we are a welcome change from the rock groups they have.
The last time when I was going to do a UP tune, the crowd (a bunch of WW II aircraft enthusists mostly), they yelled out “Do a lament!”
So, I played May Morning Dew and An Phis Phluich for them.
I had a hard time packing up stuff afterwards because everybody in the bar wanted to shake my hand and ask about the UPs.
In fact, I think the crowd enjoyed it more than the GHB (our fiddler’s first public playing of them).
I was rather surprised.
Just another observation about the pace of tunes: at local sessions, a handful of us -minus a finger or two- sooner or later get around to playing set dances, usually when things are winding down. We play them faster than would normally be done for the actual dancing of them, because A): they’re otherwise too brutally slow for sessions, and a chore to endure, and B): see A.
They definitely sound better when sped up, but they’re still not fast by any means.
I hope hating to be a nuisance will never stop you in the future, either…
Sessionspeed: there should be no such thing because… well, you know better than I, why.
But I do think that in America, there is such a phenomenon as session speed, a speed at which people play in session or think they should play or expect others to be able to play. It’s a funny thing that everyone you talk to about says shouldn’t be there, but that you find nonetheless. I do think it’s a beginner/intermediate thing, though. Once you are comfortable in the music, it kinda doesn’t seem to matter any more, and ultimately it reaches the point of incomprehensibility.
It does seem to me that the beginner/intermediates tend to make tunes SOUND like they’re being played at breakneck speed, even if the tempo isn’t as fast as it may seem. While more expereinced players can play faster while making it feel effortless and slow. This has been discussed before ad nauseum here so I won’t bore with details.
Simply put, you certainly can play fast, however it’s how you make it all FEEL that matters.
Ofcourse I know that very well, we get that all flooding into town during the Willie week, but was questioning that whole issue. The perception that a session should be a place were as many people as possible are trying to play roughly the same notes at roughly the same time in an as hectic as possible way is to me at least, a totally alien concept.
I know you guys over there suffer from it, each time after Jackie Daly returns from an American tour it takes us roughly three weeks to nurse him back to playing sensible speeds and rhythms. Of all sessions I play there is an immensely wide spectrum of approaches and speeds, suitable for the occasion , mood or people playing. There is not one ‘sessionspeed’ and there is certainly not a rule that a session should be particularly fast. What is perceived far more important playing with other people is being steady i.e. have a solid rhythm and have it tightly together. Now, that is one of the things I learned here, playing with others. Generalising [there are always exceptions] it is just that skil that is usually lacking in the visiting musicians we see passing through. So rather than working to get your tunes at ‘sessionspeed’ I think it is far more important to work on playing solid, at whatever speed [and you really need to play with players to have it to get that sorted and there comes the ear so often discussed, into play].
Yikes, Peter! That makes me want to avoid Willie Week altogether if ever I make it across the pond for a visit. It seems to me that the usual session environments would be a better experience.
Well, don’t get me wrong because you do get the odd very nice tune during the week but the number of students and learners has increased so much over the years and they all want to play in town. The music that used to be in town during the Willie Clancy week has slowly migrated to Mullagh and far more remote places. You get better tunes during the rest of the year, yes. And more quiet ones too. There’s loads of other stuff going on though that makes the Week more than worthwhile, I usually enjoy it, even though I am usually overwhelmed by the first few days of it and rarely play in town at all while it’s on.
Don’t listen to him Nano, Peter is a session beast! In fact he’s in town playing so much during Willie Week you can’t get away from him! He’s everywhere. And thank god for that cause if you didn’t have people like Peter playing in town it would be totally full of hacks like me and that wouldn’t be any good at all. Willie Week is fun and should at least be experienced once at any rate just to check it out. The recitals and special events more than make up for the crazy amatuers ruinning tunes (like me) in the pubs. And don’t make me get started about boxes…
Murph is right I actually did pull out the whistle a good few times this year but if I say play in town I automatically think of pulling out the pipes and play music. The year before last was the first time ever I played the tinwhsitle at sessions during the Willie week, I suppose I am still not used to the idea.
I think that after the “speed-isn’t-everything” phase, which is good because it takes a lot of pressure away, comes eventually a time when speed no longer is a problem, and you can decide freely at which speed and with what mood to play a tune. You’ve only really learned to play an instrument when you don’t have to worry about technique, when you can trust your mechanical abilities not to abandon you when you play the music you want to and how you want to.
Speed is only a side effect to me, exact and steady rhythm and ornamentation that’s actually a pleasure to listen to are part of it too.
just 'nother 2 eurocent.
Sonja