There, I got your attention, didn't I? Haven't been posting as much lately, but I am still out there lurking. During the St Pat's season, I realized that I very much like performing. Our band made a membership change just before last year's busy season, but didn't have time to settle in with the new lineup. This year, we had a lot of new arrangements that fit our lineup, new songs, and everyone was clicking with all cylinders. Enough structure to make for interesting listening, but not so much structure as we couldn't have fun. It is work, and often hard work, but I find performing very rewarding, and playing arranged music with others can be very challenging and fun at the same time. And I like connecting with the audience, and getting applause.
Now, don't get me wrong, I still go to sessions to have fun, and there is no fun like a good session. But I am liking this group thing. Why does performing have a stigma attached to it in our community? Why can't we enjoy both performing and sessions?
Nothing wrong with performing at all. I guess the reason it rears its head in this board is that it grates when performance upsets the delicate balance of give and take during a session. But great - they're both forms of connecting, surely.
"Why does performing have a stigma attached to it in our community? Why can't we enjoy both performing and sessions?"
As I understand it, the stigma is on performing behaviour during sessions or performing while pretending it to be a session. If the distinction is made, I've never read a bad word regarding performing as such (not that I follow the board that often these days).
The question that touched a raw nerve wasn't just about performing, but rather if having sessions in public places constitutes a "public performance." For example: I was asked by a punter the other night if I was going to be part of the session the following Sunday. When I said I was, they said, "Oh good." If you asked this person if I was performing well at the session -- they would say I was, I suppose. If you asked me what I was doing in the session -- I'd say I was playing Irish trad with some friends. If you asked me if it was a "performance" I would have said, "not really, I like to think of it more as a celebration." So was I performing? It depends on who you ask.
From the very first time I set my feet onto the planks, I fell in love with performance. It's become something of a hard drug to me, and I can't say what I'd become without it.
Part of what I love is being able to chat with the public between sets, cracking jokes with the others onstage, and sharing an evening with a whole pile of people who are there just for that.
But what perhaps gives me the greatest high is when the groove sets itself into the tunes, the people out front follow it, and begin to carry us on a wave of shared energy, a sort of cathartic exclamation of oneness with a bunch of strangers as everybody lives the same moment together, so intense that at the end of it all, a smile of complicity can be found on the face of all, having held something fundamentally in common with the others for a few instants of pure joy.
Ok. It probably sounds completely off the wall, but I swear it happens that way on some gigs.
Does performing have a stigma here? Only if you're cr*p, and unlucky enough to be happened upon by the Session Police and your on-stage activities immortalised by Youtubers. I had not noticed that the Bothies and all the rest of them were non-persons here for performing!
By cr*p, I personally mean, performers and bands who hype themselves and try to impress the punters with tricks so as to come across as cleverer than they are - like playing too fast when they're not up to playing reels, e.g., properly in the first place; or whooping every other minute - or whatever. If a bunch of people can perform well within their limits, even if it's three chords and The Wild Rover, I'm not going to call them cr*p, nor for that matter a band of experts doing crossover that doesn't actually appeal to me. (Moving Hearts didn't on the whole appeal to me, but I wouldn't call them cr*p.) But if an outfit persistently and obtusely kids itself or others that it's performing its material well when it isn't, then the cap fits - making some allowances for young people throwing themselves into the fray, who are very likely to throw the crockery around a bit, willy-nilly.
What I love about ITM and have learned from ITM is that it's about the music, because it surely is not about fame and fortune, particularly here on this side of the world (CA).
I think too much of "performance" smacks of people pretending to be rock stars or live out their fantasies of fame and fortune. Thus, most performances as such crap, so fake and weird. Also, in sessions, performance usually means playing solo, which means the rest of the group doesn't know your tune, and solo is anathema to session playing which is all about the group. I've started tunes, been through the first time around to the next A section, no one joined in, so I stopped, even though they encouraged me to continue because it just ain't right, does not feel right, and bottom line at a session IT'S NOT MUCH FUN.
My wife thinks that music has to be a performance and encourages me to try to set up opportunities to perform. But I say, "Nah, it's just not much fun to perform" unless one is really great and really knows what they are doing and why they are doing it. Otherwise, I'd rather be one of the gang.
Al, it's OK. I understand completely. I was jumping around like a total eejit St. Patty's Night. It was freaking Celtic Dudes. No, I did not have anything skimpy and whispy on. I had my baggy denim shorts, a pub t shirt (from the pub that...yes, paid me...for...a...performance [stutters quickly]) and my sneakers. It's Florida, we were out back under a tent on the patio of the pub. It was the fourth gig of the weekend, last one. I had a few pints, yes, and here's the kicker:
Several hundred folks, no PA. The pub's PA was shot. Earlier that night they had bagpipers who didn't need 'em, and the band before them had their own. The publican didn't call me and tell me his wasn't working or anything, so, nobody can hear us, got a gang of drunken Irish Americans in blinding green sequins, etc.
So what's yer man do?
Yes, I hopped on a table near some pretty ladies and kept on fiddling. I tapped my foot. I bobbed up and down, I winked, so help me, I smiled, I laughed. One of them grabbed my leg. I stopped and say "Now wait a second, isn't that your husband sitting right there?!?!" and before you knew it, I had a crowd of ladies dancing away with me, all around the patio, in horrifically bad and intoxicated fashion.
Sigh. Even worse, I had three buddies playing with me that night and you just know I'll never hear the end of it "Where's the dress, twinkle toes?" etc. etc.
InSearchofCraic, in a session context I fully aggree with you.
There's no fun playing tunes all by your lonesome... Unless it's at home. In this respect you're entirely on the mark, and in an environment such as your local sesh, I agree there's no place for the kind of behaviour that would attempt to elevate you relative to other players in the eyes (or rather ears) or the punters and other players.
This thread deals with actual stage performance if I'm not mistaken: When some of us are asked to play before a public, regardless of the level of proficiency attained (some of us are what organisers can afford and that's all there is to it, supply and demand), there is no question of playing the stage the same way we'd attend a session and share tunes such as some might get together for a friendly cribbage (btw, anybody here fancy a game?).
If your wife tells you that you should put yourself forward to play professionally, and you trust her evaluation of your playing, there's no reason you should deny yourself the experience.
There's no room onstage for playing rockstars (I played with a band that did just that for a while, and I didn't find it fun either, which is why I left that bunch), but being yourself, simply and in humility can be very rewarding too. Sure it's good for the ego, but so what?
Oh yeah Fanning, for sure. The whistle player drove home, his missus dropped him off at the pub and then he stopped drinking. Wha...? I dunno. I had his back though, and he had my keys.
On those occasions when I sit in with a ceili band and play for set dancers I generally enjoy it rather more than some sessions I've been to. Perhaps it's because it's concentrating the mind, the band has consistently good players, and there's that all-important interaction with the dancers.
In my classical cello mode I enjoy, and always have, playing in concerts more than in rehearsals. A lot of drawn-out rehearsals can be a bore, especially in a big amateur symphony orchestra (which I no longer play in), but not so much in a good chamber orchestra that has a fair sprinkling of pros, where we tend to have fewer rehearsals.
What I also enjoy is playing in a run of light opera (Gilbert and Sullivan coming up this May) where the band has just one rehearsal on its own with the lead singers, and then we're into the dress rehearsal two days later, which of course is as much a performance as the rest of them.
Sounds like you've got a more hardcore variety of merrymakers in Fla than we have over here in France.
I did get called a tinker by some irishwoman who found out I'd never set foot in Ireland. That was a first for me, but I've been told to take it as a compliment by a friend from Belfast .
Lazyhound, I've begun working on a sonata by Haendel (HWV 134 for continuo and flute / replaced by fiddle). It will be a first for me in baroque music, and I'm pretty nervous about it... Any tips for classical stuff? Otherwise break a leg in May!
We took it inside when it started getting late and grabbed our usual table. We had guests expecting a session. They were game though and pitched in with mandolin and guitar. I was happy to get them back inside for what passed as a 'normal' session that night though.
Whew. I think I 'liked' it. The other performances were much more dignified, thankfully, that one was an aberration. I liked the session after the best, however, and I'm looking forward to resuming a normal schedule of them ASAP.
Al, do you play in ceili bands or get to play for dancers at all? Of all the 'performances' that weekend the one with the band and dancers was my favorite.
Everyone suddenly likes "performers"? Where have all the begrudgers gone, the "purists"? Have they been driven away by this unseemly behaviour, people actually enjoying the music?
I've been to those "circle of death" things where everyone takes turns to perform - that can be fun, or it can make you wish you'd sat nearer the door! Stage performance - great!!
I got asked to join a mate on stage at a festival on the weekend - by the time we'd got served a meal at another venue I realised we'd only 15 minutes to eat and get over there, so I decided to pike out.
I later found he'd asked a total of four separate people to join him, and none of us showed. We were all having too much fun in the sessions.
On the other hand, I turned up at an occasional gig we play where we just get a feed and a few beers. A friend was performing for a birthday party up in the beer garden, and his rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights expression told me he was in severe need of aid, so I dragged two mates over and we started a few tunes, which went down really well with the birthday crowd - they actually started listening and made a bit less noise (apart from the usual whooping etc).
Another friend who regularly performs took me aside and told me off for playing a birthday party for free. 'You're setting a precedent. They should pay you. etc'. The funny thing was that the birthday boy's brother was a great big maori guy who took his hat off half way through the night and went round collecting for drinks for the band. We got a few rounds in, then the girl who was holding the hat for us had to leave, and cashed up the remaining float at the bar into notes. She gave me the best part of a hundred bucks. No one had dared refused the man mountain, so we ended up doing very nicely out of it, even though we weren't expecting it. And the audience had a great time, which meant that the musos did as well. Plus we helped a mate out into the bargain.
Hi Al.... I love it too... not because I think I won't goof at all, in fact know I will and know everyone (almost....! I don't recall ever hearing Martin Hayes make a mistake!) does, even a teensy slip. Thus, oddly I have zero stage fright, since that sunk in, which was a very long time ago. If you move on fast no one notices usually anyway.
When you don't have the fear, the performing is fun, though you do try your best not to make a slip up, and what is most fun about it... I feel like all my senses get very sharpened, knowing you are on the spot, it's like some kind of heightened awareness, there's some adrenaline rush, it's definitely a form of "high".
Being mainly a "backer" when performing, though may do a fingerstle tune or two solo, it's not really an ego thing either, I like to have the focus be on the melody player and do whatever I can to enhance them.
It's the challenge of it too in a way, isn't it?
The most fearless performer I ever met was Alan Morrisroe, old style box player, he believes live music, there will be mistakes.... but he doesn't even want himself edited on any recordings of himself live, because it is unnatural to the music to have studio perfection 100% of the time, not real life, and the music is about real life, even if there's a little goof here and there.... that's how he felt about a live recording he did at our session... I suggested a few nips and tucks and he said no way. I thought that was real bravery! But he is right.... the music is about the passion you put into your playing, not that you won't make a little mistake here and there. Having studio perfection as your goal, it can make your playing too "Careful" and take some of the passion out of it, the spontaneity can be held back.
I had the rare opportunity to hear Martin Hayes make a mistake! I was in the front row at a house concert and could see the set list on the floor. In the middle of a set, Martin went into the wrong tune, which caught Dennis off guard for a second, but he figured it out and they recovered quickly. I don't know if anybody else noticed.
Hi Gary.... wow.... hmmm.... but that's the key (pardon pun) speedy recovery! I'd take a few goofs rather than a worried, strained performance any day.
hope you can make it down when Alan is back for an IAANJ concert 6/7! Presenting rare/lost old box tunes that he collected from old folks in Swinford, Co.Mayo...! Mistakes and all! Just a few teeny ones and move it along like nothing happened.
Martin asked me to play a few tunes on stage with him once. He aksed me what I'd like to play and I suggested Martin Wynne's / The Drunken Landlady / The Boys Of Ballisodare. The first tune was great, but instead of going into The Drunken Landlady he played The Pigeon on the Gate. This made my playing sound off until I realized what had happened. The third tune was fine. Later I pointed out what happened and Martin said, "really?"
The great performers who make the occasional mistake on stage - you can be pretty sure that they've got their stuff 100% perfect long before they go public, so they don't panic or worry if the odd glitch creeps in.
My old guitar teacher always insisted that anyone who was a musician was a performer - he claimed that when he opened the fridge door and the light fell on him he went into his 4-minute routine ( he was a joker too ).
In a good session you are barely aware of being a performer, it is the communication with the other musicians that counts.
Thanks for the ideas expressed above.
I have always been sensitive to presenting our group properly, to the point of changing the subtitle on our business card from "Traditional Irish and Scottish Music" to "Irish and Scottish Music for All Occasions," not wanting anyone to think we were trying to lay claim to the mantle of "tradition," which to some people creates certain expectations.
I think the key to it all is that mixing performance and sessioning can produce an unpleasant blend, especially if some are there to play and have fun, and others are treating it like a stage event.
Where I go for session playing most often, however, we always take a break from sessioning to answer a request. The other night, it was to play Happy Birthday to a young man turning 21 (I said to him "oh, is this your first time in a pub?" so innocently, he thought I was serious.) And also to play the Irish Washerwoman for some guy who seemed to think that knowing the name of that particular tune made him a cool dude. But then it was back to playing for fun, and a fun night it was.
We are totally the opposite and do present ourselves as a "traditional fiddle and box band" , not because we rigidly follow the tradition, but we try to be what the punter expects a traditional band to be.
i.e. playing the repertoire and dances the punter expects on the instruments they expect, at the speed they expect.
We don't feel we overstep the mark by including the occasional electronic instrument, as long as it sounds the same.
Someone once said about the difference between an Amateur and a Professional performer: the amateur practises until they get it right, the professional practises until the don't get it wrong.
..but of course, that's about "performance". Not sure how that would relate to session-playing. I'm sure in sessions, if there is "right and wrong", there's a whole definition of what's "right and wrong".
I Like to Perform
I Like to Perform
There, I got your attention, didn't I? Haven't been posting as much lately, but I am still out there lurking. During the St Pat's season, I realized that I very much like performing. Our band made a membership change just before last year's busy season, but didn't have time to settle in with the new lineup. This year, we had a lot of new arrangements that fit our lineup, new songs, and everyone was clicking with all cylinders. Enough structure to make for interesting listening, but not so much structure as we couldn't have fun. It is work, and often hard work, but I find performing very rewarding, and playing arranged music with others can be very challenging and fun at the same time. And I like connecting with the audience, and getting applause.
Now, don't get me wrong, I still go to sessions to have fun, and there is no fun like a good session. But I am liking this group thing. Why does performing have a stigma attached to it in our community? Why can't we enjoy both performing and sessions?
# Posted on March 24th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: I Like to Perform
Nothing wrong with performing at all. I guess the reason it rears its head in this board is that it grates when performance upsets the delicate balance of give and take during a session. But great - they're both forms of connecting, surely.
# Posted on March 24th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: I Like to Perform
Just heading out now to a pub. I am not playing but I have an adoring audience there, so will be called upon to perform.
I love it.
# Posted on March 24th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: I Like to Perform
Sure, performing is a great thing. In it's place. I'm glad you enjoy it Al.
# Posted on March 24th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: I Like to Perform
"Why does performing have a stigma attached to it in our community? Why can't we enjoy both performing and sessions?"
As I understand it, the stigma is on performing behaviour during sessions or performing while pretending it to be a session. If the distinction is made, I've never read a bad word regarding performing as such (not that I follow the board that often these days).
# Posted on March 24th 2008 by Janek
Re: I Like to Perform
Well, sessions are only a different type of performance anyway aren't they?
# Posted on March 24th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: I Like to Perform
The question that touched a raw nerve wasn't just about performing, but rather if having sessions in public places constitutes a "public performance." For example: I was asked by a punter the other night if I was going to be part of the session the following Sunday. When I said I was, they said, "Oh good." If you asked this person if I was performing well at the session -- they would say I was, I suppose. If you asked me what I was doing in the session -- I'd say I was playing Irish trad with some friends. If you asked me if it was a "performance" I would have said, "not really, I like to think of it more as a celebration." So was I performing? It depends on who you ask.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: I Like to Perform
Oh, dear...
From the very first time I set my feet onto the planks, I fell in love with performance. It's become something of a hard drug to me, and I can't say what I'd become without it.
Part of what I love is being able to chat with the public between sets, cracking jokes with the others onstage, and sharing an evening with a whole pile of people who are there just for that.
But what perhaps gives me the greatest high is when the groove sets itself into the tunes, the people out front follow it, and begin to carry us on a wave of shared energy, a sort of cathartic exclamation of oneness with a bunch of strangers as everybody lives the same moment together, so intense that at the end of it all, a smile of complicity can be found on the face of all, having held something fundamentally in common with the others for a few instants of pure joy.
Ok. It probably sounds completely off the wall, but I swear it happens that way on some gigs.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Fanning
Re: I Like to Perform
Does performing have a stigma here? Only if you're cr*p, and unlucky enough to be happened upon by the Session Police and your on-stage activities immortalised by Youtubers. I had not noticed that the Bothies and all the rest of them were non-persons here for performing!
By cr*p, I personally mean, performers and bands who hype themselves and try to impress the punters with tricks so as to come across as cleverer than they are - like playing too fast when they're not up to playing reels, e.g., properly in the first place; or whooping every other minute - or whatever. If a bunch of people can perform well within their limits, even if it's three chords and The Wild Rover, I'm not going to call them cr*p, nor for that matter a band of experts doing crossover that doesn't actually appeal to me. (Moving Hearts didn't on the whole appeal to me, but I wouldn't call them cr*p.) But if an outfit persistently and obtusely kids itself or others that it's performing its material well when it isn't, then the cap fits - making some allowances for young people throwing themselves into the fray, who are very likely to throw the crockery around a bit, willy-nilly.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by nicholas
Re: I Like to Perform
What I love about ITM and have learned from ITM is that it's about the music, because it surely is not about fame and fortune, particularly here on this side of the world (CA).
I think too much of "performance" smacks of people pretending to be rock stars or live out their fantasies of fame and fortune. Thus, most performances as such crap, so fake and weird. Also, in sessions, performance usually means playing solo, which means the rest of the group doesn't know your tune, and solo is anathema to session playing which is all about the group. I've started tunes, been through the first time around to the next A section, no one joined in, so I stopped, even though they encouraged me to continue because it just ain't right, does not feel right, and bottom line at a session IT'S NOT MUCH FUN.
My wife thinks that music has to be a performance and encourages me to try to set up opportunities to perform. But I say, "Nah, it's just not much fun to perform" unless one is really great and really knows what they are doing and why they are doing it. Otherwise, I'd rather be one of the gang.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by InSearchofCraic
Re: I Like to Perform
Al, it's OK. I understand completely. I was jumping around like a total eejit St. Patty's Night. It was freaking Celtic Dudes. No, I did not have anything skimpy and whispy on. I had my baggy denim shorts, a pub t shirt (from the pub that...yes, paid me...for...a...performance [stutters quickly]) and my sneakers. It's Florida, we were out back under a tent on the patio of the pub. It was the fourth gig of the weekend, last one. I had a few pints, yes, and here's the kicker:
Several hundred folks, no PA. The pub's PA was shot. Earlier that night they had bagpipers who didn't need 'em, and the band before them had their own. The publican didn't call me and tell me his wasn't working or anything, so, nobody can hear us, got a gang of drunken Irish Americans in blinding green sequins, etc.
So what's yer man do?
Yes, I hopped on a table near some pretty ladies and kept on fiddling. I tapped my foot. I bobbed up and down, I winked, so help me, I smiled, I laughed. One of them grabbed my leg. I stopped and say "Now wait a second, isn't that your husband sitting right there?!?!" and before you knew it, I had a crowd of ladies dancing away with me, all around the patio, in horrifically bad and intoxicated fashion.
Sigh. Even worse, I had three buddies playing with me that night and you just know I'll never hear the end of it "Where's the dress, twinkle toes?" etc. etc.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: I Like to Perform
InSearchofCraic, in a session context I fully aggree with you.
There's no fun playing tunes all by your lonesome... Unless it's at home. In this respect you're entirely on the mark, and in an environment such as your local sesh, I agree there's no place for the kind of behaviour that would attempt to elevate you relative to other players in the eyes (or rather ears) or the punters and other players.
This thread deals with actual stage performance if I'm not mistaken: When some of us are asked to play before a public, regardless of the level of proficiency attained (some of us are what organisers can afford and that's all there is to it, supply and demand), there is no question of playing the stage the same way we'd attend a session and share tunes such as some might get together for a friendly cribbage (btw, anybody here fancy a game?).
If your wife tells you that you should put yourself forward to play professionally, and you trust her evaluation of your playing, there's no reason you should deny yourself the experience.
There's no room onstage for playing rockstars (I played with a band that did just that for a while, and I didn't find it fun either, which is why I left that bunch), but being yourself, simply and in humility can be very rewarding too. Sure it's good for the ego, but so what?
Have you performed recently?
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Fanning
Re: I Like to Perform
ps "There's no room onstage for playing rockstars" - or offstage!!!
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Fanning
Re: I Like to Perform
Hey, SWFL,
Did you have "FUN"?
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Fanning
Re: I Like to Perform
Oh yeah Fanning, for sure. The whistle player drove home, his missus dropped him off at the pub and then he stopped drinking. Wha...? I dunno. I had his back though, and he had my keys.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: I Like to Perform
On those occasions when I sit in with a ceili band and play for set dancers I generally enjoy it rather more than some sessions I've been to. Perhaps it's because it's concentrating the mind, the band has consistently good players, and there's that all-important interaction with the dancers.
In my classical cello mode I enjoy, and always have, playing in concerts more than in rehearsals. A lot of drawn-out rehearsals can be a bore, especially in a big amateur symphony orchestra (which I no longer play in), but not so much in a good chamber orchestra that has a fair sprinkling of pros, where we tend to have fewer rehearsals.
What I also enjoy is playing in a run of light opera (Gilbert and Sullivan coming up this May) where the band has just one rehearsal on its own with the lead singers, and then we're into the dress rehearsal two days later, which of course is as much a performance as the rest of them.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: I Like to Perform
Ollright then SWFL...
.
Sounds like you've got a more hardcore variety of merrymakers in Fla than we have over here in France.
I did get called a tinker by some irishwoman who found out I'd never set foot in Ireland. That was a first for me, but I've been told to take it as a compliment by a friend from Belfast
Lazyhound, I've begun working on a sonata by Haendel (HWV 134 for continuo and flute / replaced by fiddle). It will be a first for me in baroque music, and I'm pretty nervous about it... Any tips for classical stuff? Otherwise break a leg in May!
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Fanning
Re: I Like to Perform
Nuts. Crazy folk. It's the heat.
We took it inside when it started getting late and grabbed our usual table. We had guests expecting a session. They were game though and pitched in with mandolin and guitar. I was happy to get them back inside for what passed as a 'normal' session that night though.
Whew. I think I 'liked' it. The other performances were much more dignified, thankfully, that one was an aberration. I liked the session after the best, however, and I'm looking forward to resuming a normal schedule of them ASAP.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: I Like to Perform
Al, do you play in ceili bands or get to play for dancers at all? Of all the 'performances' that weekend the one with the band and dancers was my favorite.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: I Like to Perform
Everyone suddenly likes "performers"? Where have all the begrudgers gone, the "purists"? Have they been driven away by this unseemly behaviour, people actually enjoying the music?
Is there no-one left to argue with?
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: I Like to Perform
I LOVE to perform.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by GDub
Re: I Like to Perform
me, too!
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: I Like to Perform
I love to be performed on.
(Did I say that in my out loud voice?)
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: I Like to Perform
I like to watch.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by jwvansteenwyk
Re: I Like to Perform
I've been to those "circle of death" things where everyone takes turns to perform - that can be fun, or it can make you wish you'd sat nearer the door! Stage performance - great!!
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: I Like to Perform
I got asked to join a mate on stage at a festival on the weekend - by the time we'd got served a meal at another venue I realised we'd only 15 minutes to eat and get over there, so I decided to pike out.
I later found he'd asked a total of four separate people to join him, and none of us showed. We were all having too much fun in the sessions.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by bc_box_player
Re: I Like to Perform
On the other hand, I turned up at an occasional gig we play where we just get a feed and a few beers. A friend was performing for a birthday party up in the beer garden, and his rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights expression told me he was in severe need of aid, so I dragged two mates over and we started a few tunes, which went down really well with the birthday crowd - they actually started listening and made a bit less noise (apart from the usual whooping etc).
Another friend who regularly performs took me aside and told me off for playing a birthday party for free. 'You're setting a precedent. They should pay you. etc'. The funny thing was that the birthday boy's brother was a great big maori guy who took his hat off half way through the night and went round collecting for drinks for the band. We got a few rounds in, then the girl who was holding the hat for us had to leave, and cashed up the remaining float at the bar into notes. She gave me the best part of a hundred bucks. No one had dared refused the man mountain, so we ended up doing very nicely out of it, even though we weren't expecting it. And the audience had a great time, which meant that the musos did as well. Plus we helped a mate out into the bargain.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by bc_box_player
Re: I Like to Perform
Hi Al.... I love it too... not because I think I won't goof at all, in fact know I will and know everyone (almost....! I don't recall ever hearing Martin Hayes make a mistake!) does, even a teensy slip. Thus, oddly I have zero stage fright, since that sunk in, which was a very long time ago. If you move on fast no one notices usually anyway.
When you don't have the fear, the performing is fun, though you do try your best not to make a slip up, and what is most fun about it... I feel like all my senses get very sharpened, knowing you are on the spot, it's like some kind of heightened awareness, there's some adrenaline rush, it's definitely a form of "high".
Being mainly a "backer" when performing, though may do a fingerstle tune or two solo, it's not really an ego thing either, I like to have the focus be on the melody player and do whatever I can to enhance them.
It's the challenge of it too in a way, isn't it?
The most fearless performer I ever met was Alan Morrisroe, old style box player, he believes live music, there will be mistakes.... but he doesn't even want himself edited on any recordings of himself live, because it is unnatural to the music to have studio perfection 100% of the time, not real life, and the music is about real life, even if there's a little goof here and there.... that's how he felt about a live recording he did at our session... I suggested a few nips and tucks and he said no way. I thought that was real bravery! But he is right.... the music is about the passion you put into your playing, not that you won't make a little mistake here and there. Having studio perfection as your goal, it can make your playing too "Careful" and take some of the passion out of it, the spontaneity can be held back.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by irisnevins
Re: I Like to Perform
I had the rare opportunity to hear Martin Hayes make a mistake! I was in the front row at a house concert and could see the set list on the floor. In the middle of a set, Martin went into the wrong tune, which caught Dennis off guard for a second, but he figured it out and they recovered quickly. I don't know if anybody else noticed.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by GaryAMartin
Re: I Like to Perform
Hi Gary.... wow.... hmmm.... but that's the key (pardon pun) speedy recovery! I'd take a few goofs rather than a worried, strained performance any day.
hope you can make it down when Alan is back for an IAANJ concert 6/7! Presenting rare/lost old box tunes that he collected from old folks in Swinford, Co.Mayo...! Mistakes and all! Just a few teeny ones and move it along like nothing happened.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by irisnevins
Re: I Like to Perform
Martin asked me to play a few tunes on stage with him once. He aksed me what I'd like to play and I suggested Martin Wynne's / The Drunken Landlady / The Boys Of Ballisodare. The first tune was great, but instead of going into The Drunken Landlady he played The Pigeon on the Gate. This made my playing sound off until I realized what had happened. The third tune was fine. Later I pointed out what happened and Martin said, "really?"
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: I Like to Perform
The great performers who make the occasional mistake on stage - you can be pretty sure that they've got their stuff 100% perfect long before they go public, so they don't panic or worry if the odd glitch creeps in.
# Posted on March 25th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: I Like to Perform
My old guitar teacher always insisted that anyone who was a musician was a performer - he claimed that when he opened the fridge door and the light fell on him he went into his 4-minute routine ( he was a joker too ).
In a good session you are barely aware of being a performer, it is the communication with the other musicians that counts.
# Posted on March 26th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: I Like to Perform
"I love to be performed on."
You San Franciscans are all alike
# Posted on March 26th 2008 by GDub
Re: I Like to Perform
Thanks for the ideas expressed above.
I have always been sensitive to presenting our group properly, to the point of changing the subtitle on our business card from "Traditional Irish and Scottish Music" to "Irish and Scottish Music for All Occasions," not wanting anyone to think we were trying to lay claim to the mantle of "tradition," which to some people creates certain expectations.
I think the key to it all is that mixing performance and sessioning can produce an unpleasant blend, especially if some are there to play and have fun, and others are treating it like a stage event.
Where I go for session playing most often, however, we always take a break from sessioning to answer a request. The other night, it was to play Happy Birthday to a young man turning 21 (I said to him "oh, is this your first time in a pub?" so innocently, he thought I was serious.) And also to play the Irish Washerwoman for some guy who seemed to think that knowing the name of that particular tune made him a cool dude. But then it was back to playing for fun, and a fun night it was.
# Posted on March 26th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: I Like to Perform
We are totally the opposite and do present ourselves as a "traditional fiddle and box band" , not because we rigidly follow the tradition, but we try to be what the punter expects a traditional band to be.
i.e. playing the repertoire and dances the punter expects on the instruments they expect, at the speed they expect.
We don't feel we overstep the mark by including the occasional electronic instrument, as long as it sounds the same.
# Posted on March 26th 2008 by geoffwright
Re: I Like to Perform
Someone once said about the difference between an Amateur and a Professional performer: the amateur practises until they get it right, the professional practises until the don't get it wrong.
# Posted on March 27th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: I Like to Perform
..but of course, that's about "performance". Not sure how that would relate to session-playing. I'm sure in sessions, if there is "right and wrong", there's a whole definition of what's "right and wrong".
# Posted on March 29th 2008 by Mark Harmer