The 10:00 fellow was paid and/or sponsored for the ‘session gig’. Bar owners figured out a long time ago that it is better to pay a session anchor to cover the time than leave it to a haphazard free-for-all.
If it’s paid it’s not a session. It’s a performance. And there is no need for anything to be a haphazzard free-for-all as put. Just communicate needs in a decent manner, everyone gets to play their bit, and no one is put out. Amazing what using a little good old fashioned communication, and might I add tact can do.
The haphazard behavior that the bar owner is avoiding is musicians not turning up, not turning up at a certain time, variable quality of the music, etc. The bar can, in turn, advertise the session for imbibers to enjoy.
It’s still a session - a session does not demand that anyone be allowed to participate. Bars are private establishments and free to determine their own fate.
10:00. Time for all of you to push off.
This is not a direct response either to Brian or the original post on anything but a conceptual level. Hey, I didn’t know squat about the local circumstances and I’m still righter than I could even imagine just assuming standard session convention. This is a thread about session etiquette. Nearly 100% of the time, all around the world, the “slow” or “open” session runs ahead of the “fast” or “gig session” or “paid session” however you want to term it. It’s a hard-core element of “session etiquette” and almost absolutely standard custom to expect that any time a cutoff time is assumed, 10:00 or 9:00 or whatever, that the “session” that follows is restricted in some way, and almost always relative to playing ability. Usually, you will be personally informed you meet this level of ability if indeed you are welcome either by the “session” or the management to sit in.
If in fact you’re still holding up this session, plugging up seats that are either paid for outright or the landlord has spent often years begging and building the invitation to insure that the top local players will fill with regularity, as I say, 10 minutes is a rather long time to put out both the management and the musicians who’s time and space you are thoughtlessly stealing. How you feel about it personally is irrelevant. You are a guest, and if you don’t like it leave. Pub economics or hundreds of years of social precedent don’t revolve around your personal feelings.
More often than not the sort who would not only wallow over into somebody else’s session or gig to which they were not invited, is exactly the sort the management would prefer left and never came back, so unless somebody just told you to piss off and gave you the bum’s rush out the door so you landed in the street on your arse, you probably should consider yourself handled with kid gloves and the utmost effort of consideration. It’s likely the musicians involved simply asked what the deal was, since they expected to get on with it and instead you were still hacking away. To sit down beside you and just start playing would be to validitate your business in being there and encourage you perhaps to drag down the “pro” session for hours in the the night. To sit down and personally ask you to leave makes it an apparent ego-contest between you and a much better player, instead of between you, a guest the management has allowed to play for a few hours and who has now expended all that time and more, which is the case here obviously as I had intuitively imagined at my first reaction.
How you could simply not understand these overtly obvious, mindlessly basic session rules and dynamics to the point of posting to a forum like this in complaint over your treatment is, as I’ve said, dumbfounding. They’re always the last to know. Now you know.
Don’t blame the messenger, it’s life, all you have to do is open your eyes and see it for yourself. The throng of novices and career dabblers here who will begin pissing and moaning about how rude or allegedly personal this response is won’t change life. In any gig, session or not, it is your obligation to watch the clock. You should tell yourself and others to wrap it up. You should never have to be told. You should allow yourself a clean finish and then get the hell out of the way for the next act or session or whatever it is. You should have actively been looking for the incoming performers, and the second they arrive check the clock and your repertoir and set yourself up to finish before their onstage time. You should be the hell loaded out so they can be loaded in, seated and tuned by that 10:00 post–not obliviously twanging and squeaking and whammering away so somebody, anybody, has to almost physically knock you about to get your attention and ask you to leave.
Many of you will now just outright stammer incredulously about how “informal” this or that session is/was/should be, but there is never any such thing as “informal” for those even half-arsed amateurs that populate sessions or any sort of half-serious music anywhere concerning onstage time or who’s “in” or “out” of the band/session. You went to the “open” session. It was “open” to you or anyone. Even the pro’s know this and do not go take it over and just drive off beginning players with hours of blazing dance tunes because it’s handier for them to be there at that time rather than later. They wait for “their” session. That is being polite. The player you mention clearly waited quietly for, and past the time for “his” session. If you’re still there holding up “his” session, it’s *you" being impolite.
Now, I don’t know or care anything about you or this other player or management or the establishment involved. I’m trying to tell you how to not make an arse out of yourself in an universal sense and not become one of those local jokes ridiculed around session circles for the rest of your playing “career” however that develops.
I say this because, for one of many such examples, after the local tional this spring, we had three or four of the top uilleann pipers in the world come over around nine or so, after the regular open session usually wound down, and one bohdran “player” and a local session slug, a chair-warming, whistle-holding, Wheatstone-systeming nurbler sat together and refused to open up or sit out so we could have a wee concert with the big boys. Even after half the session cleared out so they could sit in, the real point was nobody wanted to sit down next to the sort of drum-banging going on anyway, we were really hoping to get these two jerks to take a break so we could hear some unmolested virtuoso piping, so we went out back to the rear patio and had our own session there for a while.
As in this personal example, when somebody, like myself, says to you, "Hey we’ve got…and…and…here for the night, could you move back and let them get into the circle? And your response as a hoplessly untalented wanker is, “Why should we move back, it’s our session?” that makes you an inconsiderate moron, not a respected local player. If it is your session, and you have noted guests, you should be the first to sit out or move back and let them in. The notion that a couple of all-Ireland champions should have to sit behind a shameless hack who weeks earlier was banging on a pizza box and calling it a “bohdran” is absurd. That sort of ignorance marks one for life.
I’ll also note that many hellatiously annoying players, drummers particularly have taken to the habit of showing up half and hour or more before the various local sessions, beginner and otherwise, skill not entirely being the issue here, and staking out a chair in dead center, so anyone following, pipes or melody instruments in particular, have to play into the back of the local skinheaded wankers all night or just leave in frustration. It’s a circle. Pipes and a lot of other instruments simply don’t play into the back of anyone, much less a hack drummer. The reason you’re ending up being squeezed to the outside of the session circle is obvious to everyone but you. They’re always the last to know. Trying to prevent this by breaking the circle, showing up an hour early and planting your backside in everyone’s face all night, solves your problem and increases everyone else’s–which of course is your very presence in some situations.
I hope I’ve explored enough of session basics to give everyone a good foundation upon which to avoid future conflicts. In any case, having played all night unmolested by the infringement of talent, skill, rhythm or expression in a novice session, I think it hardly insulting that management ask you to take a rest so other scheduled music can commence, whether this was instigated by the incoming musician/s or not.
I believe Repetoire (or THE TUNES) ARE ALWAYS the biggest problem at sessions! I have to start with my bit of memory of the 1970s session scene in San Francisco, California. There were two “powerhouse” Galway accordion players: Joe Cooley (RIP), and Kevin Keegan (RIP), who would play together from time to time, but as these players had slightly different styles and repetoire, they each anchored a session on their own, and each of these men, in their own way, put a stamp on the San Francisco,“Bay Area"musicians, who were learning “their” Irish music “live”, instead of only learning tunes off of Chieftains LPs…( there’s nothing really “wrong” with that either, as people had to start off, somewhere!). Some of the musicians would get the names of the tunes and “look them up” in printed music sources, other musicians would come to Irish music, from the American Bluegrass, and/or “Old Timey” background. These musicians had been playing, by ear, the “American” versions of some of the Irish tunes (especialy Reels and “undotted” Hornpipes, which are all played at the same tempo, in the USA). Playing by ear was, and still is, the prefered method (of course) and as an aid to that, in those times, the cheap, portable, cassette tape recorder, (which had just been marketed, in very large numbers), made it “no big deal”,to copy the tapes and/or make new ones for each and every session. Some of these tapes have become the only recordings of these great musicians, and have been remastered onto CD discs!
Because Accordion and Uilleann Pipes ARE lead instruments, due to their tone color and loudness, I always carried an old wood flute to these sessions, and I would play along with everybody on that instrument, with very little breath, just enough to hear myself. I would try and match my notes to the tune AFTER listening to it 1-2 times through. The loudness and “wet” tuning of the reeds on these B/C and D/D# accordions, made it hard to hear my “clinkers” thank goodness! Plus the fact that Joe and Kevin would play a reel or a jig at a moderate tempo, AND play each tune AT LEAST 6 times through, there was always plenty of opportunity " to get it right”! I would like to call this: “THE MODERATE SESSION”…not slow, or fast or…?
The French "Trad"musicians call this process, “Musician, Routinier”. That is, learning by ROUTINE…over, and over, again! It’s been said that you don’t really have a tune “down” until you have played it accurately, 100(plus) times! Or, as many times as it takes, to remember all the parts, AND start the tune without prompting from other players.
I think that printing up (and posting, on the wall of the pub) a current list of tunes, and making recordings of these “local” tunes available to anyone who is a musician, and who wants to join in, is a good step toward making a local session a welcoming experience, for old timers and newcomers, alike! It’s NOT THAT HARD to do, and always enjoyable for at least one person in every group. Give him/her the title of, “An Runai”! (pronounced: “On Rooney”, like the actor, it’s somebody who knows the RUNES…Gaelic for “The Secretary”, even make it a “rune”-tating position!) Get together and play through ALL THE TUNES that all “the regulars” know, and write down the names as you go along with the evening. (note: I know I’m sounding like somebody, "Rah-Rah, ZIZ, BOOM- BAH, from Comhaltas, but what I’m saying is still has some merit, in my opinion! AND you don’t have to have a “Father Ahern” hanging out all night with you, like those “lace curtain” times of yore, to make sure nobody gets carried away by all that wild Irish music! )
As most sessions ARE learning situations, regardless of the tempo, and the “EAR-ABILITY” OR “THE GREATNESS”…? of the musicians present,
a musician with a new tune, COULD say they would like to play it through, a good number of times, and everyone can join in after 2-3 repeats. For those who are recording it, and/or have at least written down the name of the tune, should stay and listen to the whole piece, and REFRAIN FROM TALKING OVER IT… as the normal bar patrons are wont to do…!
Now from my own experience, there are tunes I don’t have the ear for, (or I don’t really like the tune) or because of the tune’s similarity to other tunes I know, and try as I might, I can’t learn that version, it’s not a problem, I need to take a break, and LISTEN.
The problem of SPACE at the session circle has been mentioned, and it is a problem of it’s own, as bars usualy have a limited area for musicians and the owners like to have as many PAYING/DRINKING people as possible, musicians or no…I actualy was at one “attempted” weekly session, that was “closed down” by the bar owner, after just 2 months!
Not enough of the players drank any alcohol, or enough of it, to justify the musicians taking up the SPACE in the BAR. That’s why the best venues are still private homes, or community centers, a church hall, a school, etc. not just BARS and PUBs!
Well ,I think I’ve blab-ed about SESSIONS,enough now, so apply these minimal ideas if you will, (or as best as you can!) Have a Great Session! Whatever you do! Sean Folsom
This has long been my thought on the matter as well. Nothing beats a private, by invitation only, session in somebody’s kitchen. Personally, I do not understand why anyone would want to have serious musical fun while competing with the loud and obnoxious bellowings of drunkards and the socially crippled. 
When the music goes “underground” like this, you make it impossible for new people to find it.
djm
‘The’ music does not go underground in that scenario, it is where it has always thrived: in the kitchen, in an informal setting. It’s where it belongs.
I don’t think anyone’s saying that public sessions shouldn’t happen. It’s just that every now and then you meet people at a public session that you connect with musically, and it’s a natural next step to get together with them privately. This has happened at every public session I’ve been a part of. I never expect great musical experiences at a public session (it doesn’t mean there’s never good music at a public session, but it’s better to keep your expectations low). I go to public sessions to see friends, to talk, to play a few tunes, and to meet new musicians I’d like to play with in the privacy of someone’s kitchen.
The point of privacy is not so much about keeping out the “bad” players, it’s more about keeping the numbers down so you can hear the individual instruments and play music together. As a general rule, the more instruments you have in a session, the less satisfying the music is gong to be. For me, a session starts getting big when there are more than four or five people. Two is a duet, a session of three or four is ideal, five or six can be fine depending on the musicians, eight or nine is getting too big for good music. There’s no way to control the numbers without going private and invitation-only. But many of the musicians who have private sessions also play regularly or occasionally in public sessions.
Isin’t the CCE branch in SF the Cooley-Keegan? There’s a great couple of boxes!
I always ask for the names of new tunes, I’ve recorded players so I’ll know their stuff next time out. Like Harvey Fierstein said, “I just want to be loved! Is that so wrong!?” It makes up for the odd reed trouble, too!
I was trying to have some tunes with a friend, he’s still a bit short on repetoire, I was mulling over how you could build things up in a productive way - a tune a day, maybe? Make a tape or CD of the things and work your way up, keep a list?
The incident that started this thread off was just rudeness though, I know the fiddler who made the cutting remark and I’m surprised she’d be so vicious but who knows. Also the fellow I mentioned who runs that session once asked me about building up set lists and such. Like Sean says, it ain’t all that hard to do!
That session takes place in an establishment with the picturesque name, It’s a Beautiful Pizza. Far out, man! Lots of tie-dye on the walls, cozmic. You’d wonder how the bad vibes could creep in, bummer! Speaking of SF, It’s a Beautiful Day were a Bay area band of the late 60’s.
… and one of the few albums that actually freak me out, man. 
I have a problem with people parceling out to private sessions. This kind of thing is killing the session scene around here. People stop coming to public sessions and playing in pickup bands for the dancers and then you start losing venues because no one is showing up and people are told not to play their band stuff at sessions and people stop playing the tunes everyone knows because they are boring and learners are snubbed and sent packing and it all just falls apart. Very sad.
Most public sessions have a limited life anyway…sure I can think of some that have gone on for 15-20 years but many more that have lasted only a few years at most.
Here in Montreal, the “learners” (we are all learners aren’t we?) started their own session. It’s my favorite session in town because everyone is so excited about the music and there’s a very warm and accepting atmosphere. There’s very little of the performance mentality that you find in sessions that are frequented by people who want to be “discovered” or who want to show off their talents.
Anyway, beginners can always start up their own session, public or private. I don’t see the disappearance of public sessions as a big problem…as Peter said, the natural environment for this music is more the kitchen than the pub. And while beginners can learn some things from listening to more experienced players in a session, there are other (and better) ways to learn, like sitting down with an experienced player one on one for lessons.
To the statement about “BORING” session tunes, is the fact that these tunes are not being treated creatively…there can be… according to the taste of the player(s) many different “angles” of a tune (even a simple tune) that can be explored. Two musicians that come to my mind, are Paddy Reynolds (RIP), the fiddler from Co. Longford, and a resident of Staten Island, New York, where he worked for Kodak cameras, for many years. The second is the famous piper, Finbar Furey, more about him in subsequent paragraph.
I first met Paddy in Dec. 1975, at the “Bunratty Castle” pub on Jerome Blvd. in the Bronx. Bill Ochs took me out there from Manhattan, via the subway, and it was the first time I ever heard a fiddle and guitar duo (not Louise Barnes, some hip young Irishman) properly “amped” , and positioned, to completely eclipse the noise from the patrons! I even noticed that the patrons actualy LISTENED to his music, instead of trying to talk over it! Well ,Paddy could make the most "tired, you-heard-it-already"session tune walk, run, do flips, and take a bow!
He varied the tunes by: 1. The tempo, some reels and jigs are at a slower, steady pace, and not always the same tunes, which he would mix up in different combinations 2. Change the melody of the tune itself (without losing the contour of it!) the most advanced (who WORKED at it ,or, had “the GIFT”) players, who KNOW the music, can do this, like a “jazz” improvisation. Finaly 3. The ornaments: never the same rolls on the same place, each time through. It made me laugh when Paddy came out west to San Francisco (1980), and offered to teach the fiddle players he met at a session, how to do these techniques, and they ALL declined, as they were quite satisfied with their BORING style!
Well, Finbar Furey can do these same techniques on the pipes! The Furey bros. (and Davey Arthur!), played the Great American Music Hall (San Fran, 1988). After, I was showing him my “American” set, which he hadn’t seen yet. I handed him these pipes, having just played the Tulla reel in G, by way of a warm up. Finbar played the same tune back to me, with it turned on it’s head! ( I wished I had a tape of that one! I also found out that Finbar DOES play slower when he’s not on stage with his brothers!)
Of course it’s difficult to do this, and play together, at a session, but it is a challenge that can be very interesting… and FUN! Try it…apply your intellect… and/or just mess around with a tune on your own practicing time! I find that I come up with variations when I’m very tired, but still trying to play the tune…“accurately”…in the early A.M.
I leave you with a quote ( more or less paraphrased) from Paddy Reynolds about GREAT musicians…“the best musicians I’ve met, all of them are trying to make their music better and different, the some of the “Greats” were never any good, and if they were, when they started, they’re in a rut now, because they didn’t try to do anything to get better!” Aye, Paddy…Getting to work right now! Sean Folsom
Thanks for the ref, below Kevin, change made regarding P.R.
Make that “He varied,” sad to say: Paddy died early this year, RIP. He was up in his 80s and hadn’t been able to play much for a while. They came out with a CD just before he went, though, great stuff! Plenty of your fiddle and guitar duo recordings from the 70s, let me look up the name of the guitarist, ah, Louise Barnes O’ Shea. Too bad about your boring fiddlers, they missed out!
I remember first encountering this idea of variation in tunes and such, in the Willie Clancy book and LM McCullough’s tin whistle tutor, and I never took much interest in any kind of group after that! There are some players that are interesting to listen to even if they’re not doing things to the melody or ornaments. They vary the sound somehow, the timing. Some people don’t get the point at all, too! There’s a whole world in every chanter/whistle/flute/violin/______(insert instrument here).
I find to be, more and more, play the pipes on my own instead of the group I usually play together with due to numbers.
In the last year, we’ve slowly increased from 6 to about 12, and even six I find are too many.
Daryl
I do not believe, for one moment, that "kitchen sessions’ will in any way harm ITM, in fact, just the opposite. I feel maintaining the tradition is best done in the kitchen and kept alive by the best of players in such an environment. In this way, only those who are truly serious about the music, and have graduated to a good level of playability, are able to concentrate on the music and the fun without the distraction of a half dozen skin thumpers, a dozen guitars, a gazillion whistlers etc… etc… who haven’t the first clue how to go about playing the tunes correctly, and who have no clue about good session etiquette.
By no means does this mean that public sessions should be shunned by the competent players, but there ought to be a place where they do not have to put up with the above mentioned cacophany… a place where they do not have to tell someone to shut the feck up.
This is what we all hope is happening but from what I actually see where the boots hit the ground so to speak, this is a very romantic dream.
More often then not your kitchen sessions are populated by mediocre musicians who don’t want to be faced with their mediocreness and so band together in their secret societies and whine about how rude this All Ireland Champion is or how this hot young fiddler just spews out complete Martin Hayes CDs. “Oh, yes he sounds great but he lacks creativity.” And the goal seems to be able to noodle out thousands of tunes but none of them well or with any kind of recognizable style.
Then of course you have the other side of the coin. People who have reached a recognized level of proficiency and have a pretty good history of playing and see themselves as celebrities who should be recognized and given kudos and bowed and scraped to whenever they condescend to appear. They don’t seem to realize that they are big fish in a very wee little pond and yes, they do have to prove themselves every time they show up.
And now you ask, “Why do you even show up to these stinking social cesspools and put up with these annoying people?” And your mind goes to one of those times when 15 or 20 of these desperate people are flying along in a long string of jigs. The rhythm is rockin’ and the breaks are absolutely intuitive and the euphoria is ripe and then the end comes and everyone gives that satisfied exhale of wonder and satisfaction. Wheeew. And you say to yourself, “That’s why.”
In my mind a healthy music scene is indicated by a group of musicians showing up to the monthly ceili and being able to play one or two sets of jigs and reels and the occasional waltz, polka, and hornpipe along with a slow air for listening during a pause in the action and sounding good and having fun. That’s all. And it’s not happening as much as it should.
For godsake, where the boots hit the ground… where do you think that actually is?
From where I am standing the best music is still played in the country kitchens that are the natural habitat of this music, I think that’s where the boots really hit the floor, and with nice battering steps too.