A thing I have always wanted to know is:
Do the musicians in the pubs know the tunes before they play them or do they improvise or learn them quickly? Do they always play with the same people or do they play every night with others. Is it a bit like jazz or do they have worked out tunes which are always played in the same way.
Sorry that my English isn’t that good.
Thanks Stefan
On 2002-12-12 11:41, Stefan wrote:
A thing I have always wanted to know is:Do the musicians in the pubs know the tunes before they play them or do they improvise or learn them quickly? Do they always play with the same people or do they play every night with others. Is it a bit like jazz or do they have worked out tunes which are always played in the same way.
Thanks Stefan
Stefan,
Most assuredly they know the tunes and people sometimes turn up saying “oooh celtic music” thinking it’s just a jam and play a pile of crap over the top that bears little relation to the tune. I’m not one for too much “session etiquette” but that really niggles me. It takes a long time to get a decent repertoire together, long to “click” with other players too, so it just messes things up if someone fires off like a loose cannon. Though the outcome of a session depends on how well the players know their tunes in the first place. A good player can improvise sections of the music spontaneously or sometimes two peoples slightly diferrent versions can sound like harmonizing etc.,
Cheers
Alan
some people can listen to a tune 2 or 3 times round and then join in - I think if you’ve played long enough and been in enough sessions every tune you hear sounds similar to some extent to something else you’ve heard, it’s like hearing familiar phrases of music put together differently
Thank you very much.
Stefan