Yes interesting discussion, an eternal debate. I guess it all depends on what music represents to you. If tunes are just a way to get in the pubs and socialize and make some noise, I guess you won’t end up being that careful about what you’re doing.
To me, tunes are more than notes. They represent a story, emotions, feelings. There are many tunes I’ve learned by sitting down and listening to recordings and playing the tune over and over again until I get it right. Some of these tunes mean a lot to me, especially those slower minorish tunes. If someone never heard the tune and tries to play along without giving a shite and messes up I will be very, very upset.
We have a fiddler here who sees sessions as little partys where you can do pretty much whatever you want. So as soon as we feel like playing on our own because we see things different and we expect something different from tunes, we are labelled as snobs.
Anyway, to go back to the original post, I understand that it’s very hard to tell someone to “behave”, especially when you’re in a foreign place. If the guy was spanish, you really can’t do anything because he belongs to the place a lot more than foreign musicians do. Same thing if the musician has been going to that session for years, and you’ve been there only a few times.
In my experience there are a lot of newcomers, and a lot of them are mortified by the idea of being the one person who has to just sit there while everyone else plays.
I have also met people who fired off random notes and really believed it was the melody, or a proper counterpoint. One woman who would show up to our sessions never learned a single tune, could not play one, but played random counterpoint constantly. Once I talked to her about it, and she said that as soon as everyone started playing she could hear the melody and hit it on the fly—which was pretty clearly not true. She needed to be told how she sounded.
I say, just tell them: not to play unless they know the melody. Certainly no counterpoint if they don’t—counterpoint requires a good deal of musical skill, it is not something one can do if he can’t play normally. That’s like running a marathon because jogging around the block is too exhausting.
For the past year we’ve been having lovely quiet sessions at a very small pub in Ballyvaughan. Our guitar player may not be world class but he’s a part of our little group and we all love him.
Lately though we’ve had three guitar players showing up. One of the players often plays when it is not appropriate for him to do so-- as when he accompanies a sean nos singer or the old guy at the bar who sings one song a night for the craic. He’s a thrasher to boot-- not at all like Dennis Cahill. How do we tell him he isn’t welcome? Nobody needs more than one guitar in a session, any more than you’d want two pianos for backing at a dance or in a ceili band.
Some of us are quite upset over this turn of events. We’re worried that our usual guitar player will stop coming. It seems there’s nothing to do except wait him out. Maybe he’ll cop on when nobody talks to him or when we draw a tighter circle of which he’s not a part. Nobody wants to be the person to confront the loud guitar player, who btw thinks he’s a hot-shit in the London world of ITM. Brings to mind the song Seamus Creagh sings, about the spoons player (dead) who ended up outside the pub with a bicycle wrapped around his head.
My, but isn’t a session a fairly complicated little world.
Well, if it were me, I’d talk to the session leader to make sure we’re together on this matter, and then I’d go talk to the man.
At least, if you don’t feel like telling the guy he’s not needed or not welcome, you can at least tell him not to commit specific sins—don’t accompany an unaccompanied song, for example. That will help somewhat, and maybe make him a little more self-aware.
I actually envy your experience, because you have enough musicians out there to make the problem simple—if you can convince the guy to stop, you’re better off. In my town there are few players, and while you are seeking folks to make a session you don’t want to be stepping on toes and making people leave.
Talking of which, it is time for me to drive to the next town over. Peace,
Caj
Blasting out random notes in the hope that one of them might actually fit somewhere shows a complete lack of respect for the real musicians who’ve taken the time and made the effort (often taking years) to learn the tunes. Attempting to justify it by claiming that it’s an ‘easy way to learn the tunes, I’ll get it on the third time through’ or ‘it’s counterpoint’ is complete chud, again displaying a remarkable ignorance, and not only of the meaning of the word ‘unison’. It’s the kind of ignorance you’d expect from a child, like butting into a conversation with meaningless half-remembered tripe you might’ve read or heard somewhere when in reality you know nothing about the subject being discussed.
Sorry but this seems so wildly remote from any situation I have ever been in, and I am sure the situation David is in.
‘Session leader’ is something that makes me have strange associations in my mind, primary schoolteachers, prisonguards or men in black shirts sitting in the corner keeping an eye on things.
While there may be a informal system of seniority in place, sessions as I know them never have a ‘leader’ in the sense I see assumed on these forums. Unless they are organised by a Comhaltas crowd maybe, but then you’d be forced t ocall the ‘seisiuns’ anyway. .
I am sure David’s night in Ballyvaughan is a loosely formed group of friends meeting for a few tunes. Only strangers from remote places will come in ask : Take me to your leader!
I dont think his ego was the point in question. I honestly believe that he didnt know that you shouldnt do it, and as I was the visitor I didnt feel as though it was my place to explain it to him. The other thing is, I didnt want to put him off playing music either. As sylvester said he is a nice guy and he didnt mean any harm, just wanted to feel included.
I will admit that I may have very quietly lost the plot, but it certainly was preferable to the men in the company losing it, as I feel they may have been a tad blunter with their suggestions, something along the lines of the amusing picture Tom Mc Ginley posted !!
I hope we didnt upset your friend too much Sylvester, and I hope you are getting a chance to play those jigs I gave you.
he didnt mean any harm, just wanted to feel included.
I will admit that I may have very quietly lost the plot, but it certainly was preferable to the men in the company losing it, as I feel they may have been a tad blunter
Good words Maire.
No problem with the guy, he’s as impulsive as good-hearted, he’s unable to hold a scorn for long and since then we’ve talked long about your style, pulse, tone, ornamentation and amazing playing and not about the ‘incident’ unless joking. The point is that I’ve actually told him (lovingly) off a couple of times for the same reason but coming from a friend and playing amongst friends he never took it seriously. Hopefully he understands now.
Peter, I think the situation IS wildly remote from a session you would find in Ireland.
In Ireland the sessions may not have formal “leaders”. In other countries, where sessions have to be created from nothing, someone has gone to the effort to approach the pub landlord, ask if they can run a music session there, then contact friends and other musicians (possibly through sites like session.org or emailing round a group) to get the thing going.
If a large enough nucleus of players attend regularly enough, and the pub doesn’t get taken over as a sports or karaoke bar, and enough extra beer is sold to justify the landlord’s decision, or the landlord likes the music and wants to encourage it anyway, the session will survive. The person who started the whole thing, or their nominated representative, is the session leader.
Another sort of session will have been initiated by the landlord himself, and one I used to go to had two guys who were employed (for about £20 each and a few beers), to play on a Thursday night. Everyone else playing was an amateur, there for their own amusement, but these two guys were clearly running the session.
I attend a monthly “Folk Club”, which is not quite a sesssion, but a chance for people to get up on stage and do a “party piece”. On the request of several attendees, we have a session-like period in the evening where we all just sit in a circle and play a few tunes. To help out beginners, the man who organised the whole club has a boo of tunes we commonly play, to give out to anyone who wants to be able to join in more.
So many places do have sessions with leaders. In years to come the session may take on a life of its own, but to get the thing going, someone puts in a lot of work to breathe life into it, and they may not be the best player there, but they are the most enthusiastic!
Maybe session is the wrong term for this sort of gathering, but it’s the one everybody uses.
I know and the thought that to a lot of people that is the state of things is what scares me the most. All that talk of leaders rules and ‘play lists’ would make me run a mile (I am not one to frequent ‘sessions’ regularly anyway, I don’t particularly like playing in pubs but I enjoy having a few tunes with friends when the occasion arises).
There’s a little group of us who gets together to play, and so far the nomadic thing has been working pretty well for us. If slashers start showing up, we move over to the other pub for a while.
I agree it’s not an ideal situation, but a “driven” session is still better than none at all.
Given a few years I think the led sessions will mellow out into more the sort of thing you enjoy, the “gathering of friends” scenario.
I’m not a great fan of (smoky) pubs myself, and prefer a meeting round someone’s house, especially in the summer when we play in the garden and watch the sunset.
First of all, my suggestion would be to put yourself in his position and think hard about you would want to be dealt with. He most likely doesn’t realise how disturbing his attempt to play can be, and probably really just want to learn the tunes to play along and just doesn’t know the ‘ettiquete’ of sessions.
How about showing him how to play ‘silently’, while he learns the tune? … or offer to show him the tune after the set is finished. Look at it as an opportunity to educate with help rather than to just get pissed and judge him too rude for tolerance. (though there are those who are just plain rude, or who think they can play anything whether they actually can or no).
EDIT: Well… now that I’ve had time to read the rest of the replies, I see I am just repeating earlier advice and indeed that you did just that.
It is sometimes an interesting evening indeed at session. Ours are now tending to be big… with lots of everything… no joke… 3 or 4 guitars (one or two who know what they are doing and several learners), one tenor banjo (the recognized leader, who only steps up to the title when needed), 4-6 whistles, 4 or 5 mandolins, 2 -4 bodhrans, 2 basses… cripes but it can get noisey! LOL!
But.. it is set up as a ‘come all’ session, based on the idea of introducing people to playing in a group, and not specifically for just firends or for just experts… it’s a great deal of fun, and I can say this… a whole lot of learning does go on.
We don’t have overt official session leaders out here, with truncheons and badges. But there often is a player or two who is more or less in charge of things—and I wouldn’t go telling people to fark off unless it was in line with the desires of the people who run the show.
I don’t know if there’s a big difference over here, but we do have to deal with periodic new people who don’t know that there’s an existing dynamic. It’s good to have a nucleus of players who are loud enough and coordinated enough to keep the sesh under control.
However you slice it, I’d not tell an annoying player to pack it up without at least talking to someone else first. It ain’t my session, after all.
There are probably ways to defuse the situation without driving this player away.
If it is an organized session with a leader, have the leader and this player exchange e-mail addresses or phone numbers. The leader will probably have some idea of what might be played at the next session, so the new player can rehearse these tunes at home and be prepared to play (properly) at the next session.
If it is an impromptu (e.g. “filk” or “bardic circle”) session, encourage this player to call tunes that he and most of the other players actually know, or else pass his turn. (I’ve seen these types of sessions almost turn into a free-for-all when this rule isn’t obeyed.)
There’s no leader at our session, but, out of the nine regular attenders (average maybe seven on any given evening), three of us are the “core” - we got the thing up and running years ago, but we’re the first to acknowledge that we’d be stuffed if the others decided to abandon us en masse. In terms of proficiency we vary from the “pretty good some of the time” to the enthusiastic learner. The youngest person regularly present is in his mid-40s (it ain’t me unfortunately). We get visitors reasonably frequently and they sometimes don’t fit in very well. Those who know it are fine - they do their own thing without intruding at all. On the other hand we have seen several people off over the years. This has been achieved in various ways such as cutting the intruder dead, glaring, commenting adversely at the end of a set loud enough for the culprit to hear, having a public word with them (use the assertiveness format: 1.We have a problem, 2.Here’s what we think is wrong, 3.This is what we want to happen), or, for the thicker-skinned, ridicule (“Those wooden recorders are impossible to get into proper tuning, aren’t they?” “That flute - can’t you just push the ends in like the school music teacher used to get us to do?” - say it LOUD!). Sometimes you want to put someone right so that they’ll fit in better and sometimes you just want rid of the bastard, and it’s important that the regulars agree on this. Just remember that a bunch of blokes and blokesses playing for free Doom Bar on a Friday will not constitute the Vienna Philharmonic or Flook, because if they were that good they’d be out there earning real dosh. The aim is to have a good time (lots of craic at the seisiun ) and you should get all the regulars into the frame of mind that you’re not easily going to let someone stop that from happening. You’re not being precious or elitist, but you worked long and hard to play those tunes right and you’ll be damned if anyone scuppers you!
One thing we do that really helps is to have a slow session for an hour before the regualr session… good for warming up and for beginners getting their feet wet… a good time to teach session ettiquette as well… hmmm… need to do some actual ‘lesson plans’ on that I think…
Thanks everyone, a little reassurance does no harm sometimes, and because I play mostly in the company of men, it can be difficult to handle situations like these, they see things in a simpler light, ie turf him out and that is the end of it!
I would have hated being the one that made this guy give up playing, which we all know can be food for the soul when every thing else in life is mundane. However there is an ettiquette to playing in sessions, and although it might be unwritten, it exists for a reason.
I think our little visit to spain was educational for him, at least I sincerely hope it was.
That way I wont have to listen to the guys complain!
