Having read various threads mentioning sessions over the past few months I’d be interested to hear other members’ definitions of what constitutes a session. It seems from what I’ve read that there are many different kinds of session out there.
To me it’s a gathering of musicians playing for themselves. It doesn’t matter if the venue is a regular pub, a pub we happen to have met in for some other purpose but have instruments with us, or somebody’s kitchen. We never think of ourselves as performing even though we know other people are listening (and may even have turned up for just that reason). We even happily play requests - we just think of them as memory joggers for tunes we may have missed.
Also, we don’t perform to each other. Different people may start tunes or sets but everyone is free to join in (or not) as the fancy takes them. No-one is expected to stay out until they know the whole tune but can dip in and out on the parts they can pick up.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that my version is right and anything different is wrong. I’m just interested to find out the range of events that might be covered by the term session. After all it could be quite important if I travel elsewhere and get invited to a session of another kind.
For my money, you pretty much covered it. When others ask, I describe it as a social event rather than a performance per se. On the other hand, there are “closed” sessions where usually one musician is paid by an establishment to be on hand and run the session, and only certain people are permitted to participate. Thankfully (or not, some evenings), in Minneapolis we don’t have any of those. There are dark whisperings of “secret” sessions, though.
I myself have not been initiated into the eldritch mysteries of such cloak-and-daggery.
Sessions can be a source of stress, jealously, eliteism, fear and hurt feelings. The 2 main culprits IMHO are those who don’t know, but don’t know that they don’t know…and those who know it all.
I get around this by having occassional sessions in my home. This puts me in the driver’s seat. If someone calls himself a bodhran player but is incapable keeping the beat, he doesn’t get invited. If someone views the session as a chance to showcase his skills and doesn’t like slowing down for the newbies, he doesn’t get invited. I’m a dictator, and like it that way.
Serpie-Pie