The place of the individual in the session

Trad Irish Music
21

Hoo boy, did you ask for it. :laughing:

It seems that there are those who think that because they have “tuneable spoons” on their laps they are entitled to play those gizmos at all costs, even if it means making tunes drab, or ruining them altogether. If music is supposed to be a thing of concord, beauty, and joy, then why should I regard clumsy hit-or-miss searching in the dark by the persistently ignorant to be an acceptable public situation? Good social grace may demand I endure it, but I reject that I should embrace it out of some misguided sense of egalitarian relativism. I don’t go to sessions to bang on pots. Simply knowing how to strum a handful of possibly useful chords is not the same as knowing how to do right justice to the melody. Some people just don’t have it.

And as Jäger said, this applies especially when it comes to slow airs. If you don’t know the tune, sit it out. Otherwise you’re an offender. Period. Better yet, listen while you’re sitting it out; you might actually learn the tune and become able - maybe - to back it up with some taste. But here’s a caveat: the air player may intend to play bare solo and not want any of your fine backup no matter how good, tasteful, and sensitive you are. So it’s always enlightened policy to be aware and gamely compliant about that.

Here’s another general rule of thumb: think of backup as if it were bodhráns. IOW unless you’ve got a practiced backup duo going, take turns. Only one gizmo at a time. Yes, sir.

And at the end of the day, if ever there’s room for doubt remember that in ITM, backup is completely unnecessary anyway, so erring on that side of caution is never wrong. This from me, a backup player myself, not one of the best, but one who knows well enough when to give it a break.

Well, I imagine I’ve succeeded at offending someone today. Merry Xmas. :slight_smile:

22

good man! I’ve been away…


FWIW: I’ll take “The individual at a session should, quietly, see to the players refreshments and not interfere with the group effort.”

23

It’s been a long day. :laughing:

I’ve been keeping this subject until I had time and a little quiet to concentrate, because I think it’s a really interesting and important question you have raised here, Phillip.

Out of your OP, the question that fascinates me is one which, before I answer it, I’ll paraphrase (it helps me think :wink: ):

If there are several people playing together in a context not unlike a ‘session’, is there still room for individual variation of the tune? If so, what role does such variation play?

In all the sessions I’ve been in of any sort of decent standard, there is a huge amount of variation within the music. It’s not even necessary, in my experience, for the first play-through of the tune to be the one on which variations might be built, a sort of ‘unadorned’ version. That happens in Baroque music, but in Irish music, frequently the tune sets off the way it means to continue, with different people playing slightly different lines. And this even occurs when the tune is very well-known indeed. It’s just the way things go. That being the case, it’s really difficult to explain, or even to understand, how individual players are able to do this and still manage, collectively, to play something euphonious that blends well together.

Now, for the role of individual variation. Sometimes it happens just like Nanohedron has said way up the thread - you put something in, either deliberately or kind of ‘accidentally’, and someone picks up on it and it makes them smile. It’s nice when this happens. But often - surprisingly often - this leads to a sort of musical conversation between two (generally two, but sometimes as much as three) players within the session. I have noticed that, at this point, other players will frequently sort of ‘step back’ and play something more basic and listen to what’s happening between the two players batting the ball about at that particular time. But, in a really good session, this ‘ball’ is passed about between many different combinations of two players at any one time. Quite often, this will lead to many shouts of “Again!”, with tunes being played 5, 6 or 7 times, or sometimes even more. There was one time when two pipers were going at it, and we ended up playing The Gold Ring about 5 times (IIRC) with, at the end, just the two pipers playing and everyone else in absolute ecstasies, loving every minute. (This, btw, is NOT grandstanding. But that’s another question.)

These musical conversations, whether we like it or not, push the tradition forward. People from all over the world meet up, in different contexts, and, if they’ve played together before, as happens more and m,ore often, it seems to me, will have explored areas that they will, without thinking, recapitulate on their next meeting. So tunes evolve, as does the tradition. IMHO.

Phillip, thank you so much for starting this thread. There is so much interesting stuff in there. I wish I had the intellectual capacity to explore it more and better. :slight_smile:

See you in Drum this year?

24

Sorry I’m away, I have very little time and it takes some time to answer - hope you understand.

Thanks for the words Ben :slight_smile: I wish I could be at Moony’s, can’t make it ;/

I believe I have come down to a few points about this topic which I’d be willing to share as a summary/mid-summary (if your opinion depends on it)

First, the session…
After reading a few articles on the subject, both academic and not, and of course being an active frequent sessioner myself - it is hard for me to characterize the session archetype as I have not been to all the sessions around the globe, but there exist some certain ground rules which are not only oral but also written down. We also discussed them here; in general, the sessioner does not perform as in the sense of stage performance or street performance for an audience - the session is merely for the active participants, the musicians, who either enjoy playing their instrument, playing in a group and/or enjoy the social gathering. These activities could be valid simply as leisure for the musician, same way as for the frequent pub visitor who is enjoying a pint.

Second, the session again…
Nevertheless, I think we can agree that the session setting is ground for additional meanings - one of which to be musical competence and order of statuses. This might be a delicate topic, therefor I’m not going to properly open a discussion for it, but I mention this for not to be overshadowed. I experienced this in almost all sessions myself and I’m sure you have too, the layer of musical excellence is evidently there and deserves mentioning, with all the modesty surrounding the subject. It is true for the beginner when looking up to the experienced players, it is true if there is an underlying relationship between those who play the same instrument and both are competent, and I think it is also true for the newcomer who experiences a two-directional process of both him “against” the locals and him being “under the spotlight” by the locals.

The individual…
As I’d like you to see, is that there exists such an individual object in the session, even if we would want to carry the torch of a session to be just within itself - a session. Of course my words are open for your counter-analyzation if you prefer.
I’m sure we all believe that there is a lot put into the perfecting of playing ITM on your preferred instrument. I think that perfecting ornamentation, rhythm, style and variation is a very big part of playing this music, and this part we enjoy very much when done properly to our satisfactory levels. This hard work is properly addressed on a recording, on stage, at time of teaching music and is probably less properly addressed at the session. This is why I believe that the individual object, in the sense of assessing the quality of musical rendition, is less likely have the room to exist in the session, while at the same it is there… or he is there.

If looking forward in time a little, something which is already evident, is the shift to the audience. Sometimes you almost wait for the applause after a good set of reels, which makes you drift outside the session to the external-surroundings. I suppose this is part of the session’s future pathways? I might be off-track here…

I’ll add a quote from Breandan Breathnach:
“Traditional playing, it must be remembered, is of its very nature a personal experience, and the restraint demanded in playing in a band or other ensemble kills the spirit which animates it.”
I suppose he did not mean the session…

Thank you again for reading,
Philip

PS: I could as well start another thread dealing with the question of the individual in a ceili band :laughing: