Yes, we’ve probably had this question before … but not asked by me.
I’ve moaned recently that, after 5 whole months on 8-keyed flute, I still can’t play even one tune. Even so, I nearly did on the phone the other day to me pal, Mr Jimmy Troy - he of the wondrous drive and rhythm when he puts what’s left of his mind to it …
So, now, some two days or so later, I can almost play several tunes.
So, here comes the obvious question: do I take the thing to the session now, in the hope that it will improve just by taking it out? Or do I wait 'til I can actually play something? Which could be months and months …
I’m sure you’ll get lots of suggestions - probably most better than mine as I’m a relative newcomer…
FWIW, I’d say to go check out a session or two first to see the “mood”. Some are quite serious, but most are just fun. If you are up front (in a fun session) that you are a newbie, they’ll probably ask you to start a tune that you know. Don’t be embarrassed - just do it. If you don’t know the other tunes they play, either try to pick them up very quietly or just sit, listen, and enjoy.
All bets are off on the serious sessions, however. If it were me, I’d probably bring the flute but leave it in the car until I found out the mood. If it IS a “serious” session, just stay and listen, otherwise go out to the car to fetch your flute.
Me personally, I’m a seasoned sessionite … but on fiddle and, latterly, whistle, not flute. I can gauge the mood, I think … but maybe I can’t. I haven’t felt like a newbie for a long time, and it’s disconcerting.
I wonder, do the same rules apply to a newbie on another (ie a second) instrument - lots of people know I play fiddle; does that mean they’ll have too high expectations of my - so far, abysmal - fluting?
Meanwhile, let’s advise newbies in general. I reckon, now that I am one myself again, that, despite what we might think (we all think we’re almost limitlessly helpful, I bet), newbies don’t get anywhere near enough help.
Personally I think going to sessions too early can be very detrimental to your playing. A lot of people rush their learning process so they can go to sessions, with the result that they take a lot of shortcuts and often don’t even understand the music. If you don’t feel comfortable playing tunes yet, go to a session but leave the flute in its case and listen. You can absorb a lot that way, and work on it at home. Or take a recorder and (with permission) record the session and play along at home until you feel more confident.
Even so, I feel like sessions have destroyed many musicians who otherwise might have had some potential. I started going to sessions after I’d only been playing four or five years, and it took me many years to unlearn the bad habits I picked up in sessions and improve my listening skills. My main gripes are 1) the versions of tunes that you hear at many sessions are often lowest-common-denominator versions that skim over the subtleties in the music, leading to a habit of hack playing, and 2) people are so eager to play in a session that they rush to learn tunes so they can keep up with others in the session without taking the time to learn properly.
If you’re lucky enough to have a local session with really good musicians, that’s another story, but they may not welcome you to play along until you’ve done your homework and practiced to the point where you feel you really can play along without disrupting their enjoymet.
I am in a similar situation to yours. I have played mandolin at our session for years, but the flute for only about 5 months. I know the music we play and most of the players are my friends. As such most of the tunes I have been working on are tunes we play at sessions.
I think the suggestion to record the session tunes is a good one. You can then practice play a few tunes at home. Using a program like “audacity” to slow it down so you can play with it is helpful. I have found that even though I feel like my rhythm is correct, playing with the session tape will show you the parts you need to work on. I have also found that when I try to play too fast, I completely loose my embouchure. After practicing with some backup I got brave enough to take it out at a session.
I started a tune or two at a slower than normal pace and the other sessioners played along. When it was over they gave me encouragement and I felt good about my progress. Although I know I still need a lot of work, it was quite a boost to me.
I think one just needs to keep common session etiquette in mind. I wouldn’t play too many tunes poorly and slowly as that would get tiresome to the others. One or two and they will cheer you on and monitor your progress. More and they will be saying, “Oh no, here he comes again!” Just think about how you would feel if you were playing your fiddle at the session and a newbie tried to play a few tunes.
Sadly, I fell into the category of player of which Brad speaks: I wanted to be part of a session more than taking the time to properly learn the music and the instrument. And it has taken many years, after realizing my mistake, to undo the bad habits. If you’re in it for the long haul, take Brad’s advice and build a solid foundation.
In the meantime, I’m intrigued with your suggestion, mandoboy. I’ve always avoided slowdowner software, partly on the grounds that I don’t need it in order to pick up tunes, and partly because I think it actually distorts what’s going on when session players play these tunes. However, I’d never considered using it simply so as to be able to play along at a slower pace, at home, so as to be more prepared. That might work …
I may have to revise my ‘no slowdowner’ position …
I think 5 months may be too early to be thinking in going to a session.
Anyways, it’s you who should know if you’re ready or not. If you hesitate, maybe you are not ready yet.
I’d keep practicing at home like crazy, and when I could play at least 10 tunes in a very good way, I would think in trying to play those in a session.
I’ve been playing tin whistle for almost 2 years and flute for a bit less than a year, but on and off and the only instrument that I’ve played in sessions is the former one. I can play some tunes rather good on the flute, but I still don’t feel confident in playing it with other people.
Practice and don’t be discouraged. In the beginning every instrument is hard to play.
I am a fan of the Slow Downer, and have used it to help me get little bits of tunes that I can’t seem to pick up by ear, and then gradually get them up to speed. Don’t forget that the SlowDowner can also be used as a SpeedUpper; I’ve been using it for that lately to try to improve my stamina for playing at ceili dances, where dancers (in North America at least) always seem to want you to play at 250 miles per hour. I have a hard time keeping my fingers from cramping up at that pace, so I’m using the SpeedUpper to gradually ramp up my stamina for fast playing. My goal is to eventually play tunes so fast that an entire reel, AABB, can burst out of my fingers in three seconds flat. Even Frankie Gavin can’t do that!
Brad, I think I need to disagree with you. It all depends on what you’re in it for.
Maybe we’re a whole lot more casual here in Colorado, but as long as you’re hanging in there with the tune it’s OK. I don’t strive for absolute perfection when at the session. Sometimes someone will start a tune I haven’t played in a while. It’ll be darn near the third time before it comes completely back into the fingers. In class a few years ago Jimmy Noonan was saying that a session is like a conversation. You don’t want to sit down and barge right in and be a loudmouth. On the other hand even if you don’t have much to say you still can contribute.
I say learn Kesh jig and a few of the old favorites. Don’t sit in the front row until you’ve earned it. Contribute to the conversation when you can and appreciate the talents of others when you can’t.
I know that I’ll never be a Matt Molloy or Paul McGratten. I still enjoy the music and it’s so much fun to be a part of it. If technique and perfection are your goals then by all means practice, practice before you show up. I agree that plunging right in can get you some bad habits and I’ve got plenty. I don’t plan on competing at the Fleadh anytime soon. Someone needs to tell Catherine McEvoy that playing left handed on that righty Rudall just won’t do.
Sorry about the rambling sentences. My 2 cents anyway.
I actually wrote something like this in my earlier response but edited it out before I posted it. I don’t mean to imply that everyone who goes to a session has to be a “serious” musician, and I don’t think sessions in general are a place for serious music. I go to sessions for the social experience, and if good music takes place that’s a bonus. My favorite session in my city is widely known as a “beginners” session; I go there because the musicians have a genuine love and spirit for the music and it’s open and friendly, there’s very little of the competitiveness and sense of “performance” that I often feel in other sessions. Mary Bergin said the best sessions are 50% chat and 50% music, and that actually sounds like a good balance to me. It’s not just about the music; a good session is bigger than that.
All I meant by my earlier comment is that jumping into sessions before you’re ready can lead you down a path of musical poverty compared with the richness and enjoyment you can get from taking the time to understand and appreciate the music and learn how to play it. It’s not about perfection at all, it’s about increasing your enjoyment. You can spend your entire life eating Big Macs and be blissfully unaware that there’s anything better to eat in the world. But don’t you think you might be even happier if you discovered that really good food existed and you only needed to spend a little time and effort to find it? Wouldn’t it be worth it for the extra enjoyment? That’s all I’m trying to say.
I always liked the “alternative” Ennis session that Josephine Marsh once described to me - she was sawing on a fiddle at the time - where experienced players gather to play something other than their primary instrument. I don’t know if this was a steady session or just an occasional lark. But the idea of a session where good players and friends can occasionally lower their technical expectations, but not necessarily their musical expectations, seems like a supportive idea.
It’s pretty common here for people to bring multiple instruments to sessions, not all of which they play equally well. If I have my B/C box, it sits mostly on the floor. But if someone starts a tune I think I can handle, I might have a go. And a successful tune is always a big confidence builder. But this is among encouraging friends, who also trust you to exercise best discretion, and no judgmental or competitive BS. In these circumstances, it seems to me that having an instrument you’re learning in tow doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition.
Any session that has front and back rows is too big for my taste anyway, but that’s a whole nother issue!
Ben, are you new to the area? Otherwise, you’ve probably answered your own question if you know the players at the session and are questioning whether or not you should go.
If I were to bring out my tenor banjo, an instrument that primarily looks pretty (despite the dust) and is never played, my session mates would let me pluck along as long as I did so quietly and didn’t try to play a tune I didn’t know.
Obviously, the key is to know those you play with and how they would feel. You could always sit back in the corner, out of the session group, and quietly try to play along on the few tunes you know…but it all depends on the session you attend.
Hi benhall.1,
I get the impression that you are confident in the role of a fiddler at the sessions. How have felt about a newbie coming in that was clearly at the beginning stages? Possibly how you have felt in the past when a newbie begins to participate is how you will be viewed. Karma, man.
I do think that if you’ve demonsrated good chops on fiddle at the session in the past, you may be given some wiggle room as you try your hand at flute. Then again, I’ve been to many sessions where some folks are “too brave” with what they attempt in a session setting.
I would like to think that if you respect the music itself, you’ll be respected in return regardless of level of playing.
The problem with playing along quietly on flute is that you basically have to be an expert flute player to do it without playing flat. And for whatever reason, sessions will tolerate a boatload of flute players who are loud and sharp before they’ll let even one flute player get away with playing meekly and flat in the background. (Been there, done that, bought the T shirt.)
This thread as a whole is really making me think (which I hoped it would).
I know everyone in sessions for miles around. I’ve always been tolerant (I think I have) and, I hope, supportive, of newbies/beginners. There are one or two others who are as well. But I’m distinctly aware that there are some who are not so supportive, and I don’t want to annoy them either. Funny, though, they do tend to be the less able musicians …
… except that there are some very able musicians who, if they know you’re a good player on one instrument, will frown on you even attempting another. A good friend of mine (still a good friend!) said to me a few years ago: “why do you want to play whistle when you can play fiddle?”
I think I’m still going to go for the karma thing. It’s amazing how often it seems to work in other aspects of life … I’ll venture out in a week or so … I’ll let you know …
Good for you! You already know the “rules”, and it’s my guess that most of the other players will easily bear with you, especially the other flute players.
