Steve Payne (Low D Whistle), John Whelan (Button Accordion), Don Penzien (Guitar)
Loretta Egan Murphy (Concertina), Steve Payne (Low D), John Whelan (Button Accordion)
Steve Payne and John Whelan
Loretta, Steve, and John
Steve Payne squeezing the tune out low and sweet on a brass Michael Copeland Low D Whistle. Being kinda newbie-ish here I prefer the high whistles. But with some recent encouragement from the C&F crew I may have to explore the Low Whistles a bit. Tonight’s session here was the very first time I ever heard a Low D Whistle, a Copeland no less, up close and personal “live”. No mics, no plug-in anything. Just the instruments in a church hall. First time for everything, eh? And Steve had more body movement while playing that all my notions of posture got revamped. The session nearly went all night!
Sweeeetttttttt!
Gosh, what a lot of people. It’s great that there is so much enthusiasm.
I wouldn’t like every session to have so many people in it to be honest, but they are fun now and then.
I prefer a much smaller affair, with a good mix of instruments, especially guitar, the rest are interchangable. Not too many whistles though. lol. With this in mind it is very handy to play the low whistle because you can play along with the high D without clashing so much making the others wince.
I don’t currently have a regular session to go to locally - boo hoo, but sometimes go to Luton where the people love the music, it starts late and finishes early (the next morning). There are lots of good players and a great group of youngsters. V. exciting.
My god, the size of it! it looks like a rehearsal of an orchestra. There’s cultural differences for you.
I must say I like playing with a few friends but wouldn’t walk into a pub session uninvited. Overall I have always taken to playing at home more than making background noises for people to drink to. For over a decade though I took the whistle out every sunday night to play for set dancers in a country pub, now closed but documented in this book. That was usually fun.
For a few years I made a point of going out once a week to play with the girls at my local and Davoc Rynne persuaded me to sit in when they were starting up and playing with himself and Johnny was nice but to be honest I am at another phase of not out of playing out regularly despite several people trying to get me out.
This would be the set up I’d drop into in the past on a winter’s night (it can get busy during summer) (I don’t bring the camera often on my night out to be honest so the pic is a few years old), :
John Kelly playing fiddle, PJ Howell, flute and the regulars, Bernadette McCarthy, fiddle and Bríd O Donohue, flute/whislte and myself in my spot behind the camera, usually playing whistle although I have, reluctantly, played flute there on occasion. Visitors can vary wildly, anyone may turn up really.
Wow…and I thought our KC sessions were too large a lot of times (up to about 20 people). I prefer 4-8, am OK with a few more, but find 15+ usually loses a lot musically.
Recently bought a nice old house from 1870 (not moved in yet…still pending inspection and loan appraisal) down the road in Lawrence and have been primarily attending their brand new session…much smaller, newer players (to ITM - most are blue grass or old time players originally - fine musicians learning a new medium so to speak) so we are keeping to a lovely tempo (a nice change), but it is short on experienced melody players (usually me and a fine fiddler). All and all a lovely bunch and a grand time…some great singers, too, who are not afraid a few times a night to slip in a song.
Thanks for the comments. Yes, the session group was a large one 20+ but it was a farewell send off as John Whelan (Button Accordion) moves on to Alabama. John (Chaired) built the monthly session group here from scratch when only 5 or 6 players showed up and there were less than that people in the audience. The monthly session group size varies depending on who the visiting musician is. Most months session groups are between 8 and 12 players. There are plenty of pub sessions in the area for the loud crowd but that’s a different environment.
There have been a number of younger starting out ITM musicians who have played here and get the support of the community.
Oh, Steve Payne and Don Penzien are visiting from Mississippi to help John move.
BTW, if it was up to me… there would be only the whistle player, maybe two (high & low) whistlers, but, that’s just me… just saying.
It does. But maybe not so much cultural as situational? I’d guess club type sessions (e.g. Comhaltas) or festival sessions may be large and unwieldly anywhere. I’ve been to those. But your photo and MarkP’s, around a table, could be one of our typical local sessions here. More than a half dozen players or so, and you lose the musical interplay that makes the best sessions worthwhile.
Sure we got the pub sessions here too, nightly 24/7 if you can keep up. I mean more than one pub. Here’s John Whelan, Steve Payne, Don Penzien playing Wed. night 5/15/2013 at Dunnes Pub, NY, with session lead by Brian Conway and friends. These lads live to play!
Photo courtesy of Doris Elena Argote López.
Photo courtesy of Don Penzien
And, I forgot to mention bio: Don Penzien , a founding member of Legacy, has performed on stage with Brian Conway, Jimmy Crowley, Gerry O’Bierne and many others. His discography includes Sunrush’s Horse of a Different Color produced by Mick Moloney and Legacy’s Fresh Frozen, Navan, An Triréad and An Irish Christmas, as well as other recordings. When not playing music, Don is a medical school professor with a PhD in clinical psychology.
Ytliek,
Great post! Sorry to hear John Whelan is moving on to Alabama. A true loss to the ITM community here in CT and definitely a gain for Alabama. Good luck to John.
But maybe not so much cultural as situational? I’d guess club type sessions (e.g. Comhaltas) or festival sessions may be large and unwieldly anywhere
Probably true although I cannot really imagine finding a regimented setup like that in the OP’s pictures. But then, I would an unlikely candidate to turn up at a Comhaltas do so maybe that sort of thing just isn’t part of my musical landscape.
What I notice is that over a long period of time I have become less interested in session playing, I suppose as you understand more about this music you become more sensitive about the interactions, especially if they don’t work satisfactory, as well ass the whole politicking atmosphere in the background. It’s hard to beat a few tunes with friends you share an understanding with, knocking ideas off each other and responding to those ideas on the fly. It will keep you walking on air for days. To get back to the musical landscape image, you can think of session playing as similar Ireland itself and it’s weather, being in the right spot on a good day will be elating and it will help you forget the times you have to put up with that that are at best bleak as well as the stretches that are just miserable and depressing. You try live for the good days but, as Jacky Daly often said when we were playing for sets in Coore, ‘it’s dark and lonely work’.
The pics and video are so cool! Don’t know if there’s anything like that near me, but there is an Irish pub downtown so there’s a good chance there is. However, I am not a pub person, nor am I brave enough to play in front of anyone else. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to join in.
Guess I can have my own private session using youtube! I’ll have to give it a try.
I get the impression that there are at least three general sorts of sessions:
the type Gumby describes - a few friends or musical acquaintances playing in the corner of a pub or a kitchen
the Comhaltas group sessions - with lots of people, tunes, and socializing as in the “seeing John off to Alabama” celebration
the Learner/Slow Session that functions as a combination class/learning experience and a gateway to the Gumby-described sessions. I play in one of these each week that often has up to 20+ participants. The music isn’t the greatest-we’re still learning-but it’s a good chance to hear better players (last night Brendan Tonra and Helen Kisiel stopped by) and new tunes. We regularly see the more advanced folks spin off to the smaller sessions after they increase in skill and repertoire.
Are there other models/types of sessions that folks participate in?
The most common one is the regular where one or two musicians are hired to play and draw people into a pub, visitors may join. That would I think be the majority of regular sessions in Ireland. It would also cover all advertised festival sessions, like the presently ongoing Fleadh Nua in Ennis with it’s seventy or so scheduled sessions. The pro is you know roughly who’ll you be playing with, one of the cons can be the hired musicians have their own routine and set ways and can sometimes be not too keen on all comers. On the other hand you can have friends doing a regular so you join them for some nice music, with other friends doing the same. It can work very well if you find your niche.
