In "Last Night's Fun," Ciaran Carson touches on the notion that playing tunes is one way of marking time, better than a clock's hands. The idea is similar to asking a Texan how far it is from Houston to Dallas. The answer is likely to be "About 8 cans of beer."
This is one of my favorite things about a good session--you get so wrapped up in the timing of notes and phrases, and the time span of tunes going round three or four or six times, that you forget the passage of time. Hours go by, measured in pints and strings of tunes and downbeats at dance tempo, and you don't wake up to clock time until the music stops.
It's also one reason I prefer to string sets together on the fly, not knowing what tune will come next or how long the set will stretch on. Launching into a pre-arranged set, I can sense the beginning, middle, and end--a known duration. But when anything can happen, time ceases to be predictable and steady. It stretches and contracts depening on whether a reel is played single or double, three time round or four, whether a three- or four-part tune elbows its way into the set, and so on.
I remember once hearing about a house session that started on a weekend among long-standing best friends and their families. Kids and spouses filled the house while the musicians lit into tunes and bottles of fuel. A piper fell asleep in his chair, woke up hours later and joined right back into the sets. This went on and on, players taking turns while meals were dished out and naps taken. Finally, eons into the craic, someone pointed out that the sun was coming up. "Jaysus, how long have we been playing?!" someone asked. "Well, by the morning newspaper on the stoop, it's Wednesday."
Ceilis can be like that, too, even if they last only four hours. You come out of the hall into the night air, sweat cooling on the back of your shirt, and it feels like you've crossed the international dateline.
I'm curious to hear other people's experience of the tunes as a time machine....
Playing tunes in the pub always feels to me like the HG Wells short story "The new accelerator". It's a brilliant piece of writing from one of the most imaginative of authors, Go and read it if you are not familiar. It'll only take you half an hour, ha ha.
The elasticity of time is always fascinating, isn't it? They say that "time flies when you're having fun". Conversely, it drags when you're miserable. Seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?
But I do like how time becomes irrelevant in the macro sense during a session, and what matters is the micro-flow. You get into the "groove", and the passage of time becomes smooth and euphoric. You feel the tunes coursing through your instrument, punctuated by the pleasant surprise of a new tune, as your brain locks onto the new shapes and patterns. It's time well spent.
I know I'm in the groove when time slows and I can dodge around during the space between notes, like Neo ducking bullets, figuring out what I'm going to play next.
And "Time spent playing music is not deducted from your alloted time on the planet."
I don't want to turn this into a "my favorite session" thread, but as I read your post, Will, I remembered a great session at the San Francisco Tionol in the late 80's. The Friday night party was in a pipers house and there were loads of people there - dozens - playing tunes like crazy. Many people traveled from far away and all through the night, it seemed like more and more people showed up to play tunes. At one point, a few fiddle players broke away from the big session and started to play a few tunes in a back room. I have no memory of what time we started, but it seems like we played tunes non-stop for hours. More and more fiddle players got into the room and joined us. One of the amazing things about it was there were only fiddles. We weren't keeping anyone out, but it just seemed that this was a fiddle session. Just as you described, the tunes went on and on. I don't think anyone played every tune, but everyone played and there was music until the sun started to come up. It could have been two hours or six hours or more or less - can't recall. I do recall it as some of the best time I have spent playing tunes though. Many of us who were there still talk about it when we get together (usually at a Tionol) and remember the feeling of all that time surrounded by great fiddle music. Great memory for me.
That's just the sort of experience I'm thinking of, John. Nice story.
We once did an "all-state" session here, with players coming from all over Montana. We played in the basement of the local concert hall while a step-dance school held its fundraiser on the main floor. No windows in the basement. We started well before noon. I stopped playing, briefly, only twice and never left the basement. By the time we quit playing--12 hours later--it was dark outside. The opposite of playing till the sun comes up.
"Playing tunes in the pub always feels to me like the HG Wells short story "The new accelerator". It's a brilliant piece of writing from one of the most imaginative of authors, Go and read it if you are not familiar. It'll only take you half an hour, ha ha. "
I don't post here any more as a matter of personal policy, but my respect and admiration for the players and sentiments represented in this thread prompts me to join in.
I've experienced those "losing track of prosaic time" sessions too--not always fueled by the whiskey. Some of the best have been in isolated locales (I recall one at a converted cavalry post in the hills above Taos, and another in the stairwells of a deserted hotel on Lake Michigan) but sadly--I think--I'm more often hyper aware of the fragile temporality of the event. I'm too often the session leader, and so I'm typically thinking of what could/should/might come next, in order to try to "up the ante" and increase the intensity of the experience for everyone else.
Kind of like the Qawwali Sufi musicians of Pakistan, who are supposed to stay *out* of the trance in order to keep their heads clear to play music that makes everyone else's experience of transport possible. But that too is a privilege I guess.
I'm moved by the generosity expressed in this thread--too seldom present elsewhere.
Much respect to my brothers and sisters in the Music.
I've always thought that sessions are too short... (Because time moves differently when playing music) but one the other hand i'm glad most have a start and finish time. Otherwise it would be detrimental to my health.
I'm astounded that i managed to survive at the last National Folk Festival (Canberra). Hour after hours (even days) of tunes with mostly a liquid diet. I needed a holiday just to recover! (Altho I wouldn't trade that experience with anything!)
That session leader dilemma is another reason less is more--small, cozy sessions don't need a leader, and you're each free to feed off the collective buzz. I'm guessing that stairwell experience was one of those....
davydd, agreed, four or six hours is never enough, even if fingers are worn out and legs can barely stand up after last call. All the more reason to session several times a week.
Will
Last Night's Fun is a favourite of mine. Here's an anecdote, but not mine, but one I read in a story about Padraig O'Keeffe and had mentioned on a thread a week or so ago, but thought it apropos here since it too involved time. I think this story probably came up in Matt Crantich's phd thesis on Padraig actually. Apparently it actually happened and is not just apocryphal.
In any case, seems the priest had come around to Padraig's favourite pub [sorry the name escapes me now...it's well known] to chastise him for never showing up in church. To which Padraig replied:
"Well, you see, 'tis like this Father. Five minutes in church for me is like an hour. But an hour here in this pub with my drink, playing music, is like five minutes."
I have read these posts with a dreamlike wishfulness - like a kid standing outside of a candy store with his nose pressed against the glass watching the other kids feast on chocolates. Sessions for me are all about watching the clock. For me it's all about how much fun and tunes can I cram into those precious few 2 or 3 hours before I have to return to the real world. As you know CPT, being a family man to young children puts your joys and hobbies at the end of a very long list of responsibilities. So be it - I count my blessings - but I have enjoyed living vicariously through all your posts...
Coyote Banjo - nice to see you posting again. I used to have tunes fairly regularly with a former student of yours - a whistle player named Jason Gray - he always spoke very highly of you - Jason taught our whole session your take on Mac's Fancy - Funny how a chain of tune learning begins isn't?
My wife stopped me playing after about 45 minutes of 'Strayaway Child' and asked if I wouldn't very much mind playing another tune as she had had enough of that one....
Re: fauxcelt:
As Groucho Marx said, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."
A friend of mine attended a session a year or so ago that lasted something like 18 hours! It seems that a really good session facilitates free thinking and association, where one tune or conversation calls forth tunes from some hidden recess in the mind, and it just builds upon itself. Magical. While that free association can sometimes happen when I'm playing on my own (rarely), connecting well with other players is what really opens up the conduit. (Of course, I'm still trying to build up a bigger Strategic Tune Reserve, but it's the journey, not the destination, right?)
Thanks for that, Tintin. I like the way you say - "where one tune or conversation calls forth tunes from some hidden recess in the mind, and it just builds upon itself" - I love that feeling of being in a session where tunes get played that I haven't played for a long time and being able to play them. Sometimes it takes three or four passes through the tune for me to get it, but in those rare sessions I can call out "play it a couple more times" and everyone smiles and nods and we keep playing it. Great stuff.
I was thinking "trance music" when reading this thread, and then coyotebanjo beat me to the punch by mentioning it explicitly. There was a radio show once (I think it was an episode of Sound and Spirit on WGBH radio) that was talking about religious music, and Eastern music, and then lumped irish session playing into the mix. When I first heard it explained, I thought that they didn't fit together. But there is something that happens when the reels start driving, where the repetitions don't seem repetitive, when you just get swept away in the music, that is rather trancendent and magical.
Have,nt they just turned on the accelerator in switzerland today and we,re all going to be sucked into a black hole?
(reminds me of a few sessions I was at!!)
Marking Time
Marking Time
In "Last Night's Fun," Ciaran Carson touches on the notion that playing tunes is one way of marking time, better than a clock's hands. The idea is similar to asking a Texan how far it is from Houston to Dallas. The answer is likely to be "About 8 cans of beer."
This is one of my favorite things about a good session--you get so wrapped up in the timing of notes and phrases, and the time span of tunes going round three or four or six times, that you forget the passage of time. Hours go by, measured in pints and strings of tunes and downbeats at dance tempo, and you don't wake up to clock time until the music stops.
It's also one reason I prefer to string sets together on the fly, not knowing what tune will come next or how long the set will stretch on. Launching into a pre-arranged set, I can sense the beginning, middle, and end--a known duration. But when anything can happen, time ceases to be predictable and steady. It stretches and contracts depening on whether a reel is played single or double, three time round or four, whether a three- or four-part tune elbows its way into the set, and so on.
I remember once hearing about a house session that started on a weekend among long-standing best friends and their families. Kids and spouses filled the house while the musicians lit into tunes and bottles of fuel. A piper fell asleep in his chair, woke up hours later and joined right back into the sets. This went on and on, players taking turns while meals were dished out and naps taken. Finally, eons into the craic, someone pointed out that the sun was coming up. "Jaysus, how long have we been playing?!" someone asked. "Well, by the morning newspaper on the stoop, it's Wednesday."
Ceilis can be like that, too, even if they last only four hours. You come out of the hall into the night air, sweat cooling on the back of your shirt, and it feels like you've crossed the international dateline.
I'm curious to hear other people's experience of the tunes as a time machine....
# Posted on September 8th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
Playing tunes in the pub always feels to me like the HG Wells short story "The new accelerator". It's a brilliant piece of writing from one of the most imaginative of authors, Go and read it if you are not familiar. It'll only take you half an hour, ha ha.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Marking Time
The New Accelerator: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2169/
All that trouble to invent an accelerator (and then a retarder), when whiskey is readily available.....
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
The elasticity of time is always fascinating, isn't it? They say that "time flies when you're having fun". Conversely, it drags when you're miserable. Seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?
But I do like how time becomes irrelevant in the macro sense during a session, and what matters is the micro-flow. You get into the "groove", and the passage of time becomes smooth and euphoric. You feel the tunes coursing through your instrument, punctuated by the pleasant surprise of a new tune, as your brain locks onto the new shapes and patterns. It's time well spent.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Reverend
Re: Marking Time
I know I'm in the groove when time slows and I can dodge around during the space between notes, like Neo ducking bullets, figuring out what I'm going to play next.
And "Time spent playing music is not deducted from your alloted time on the planet."
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
I don't want to turn this into a "my favorite session" thread, but as I read your post, Will, I remembered a great session at the San Francisco Tionol in the late 80's. The Friday night party was in a pipers house and there were loads of people there - dozens - playing tunes like crazy. Many people traveled from far away and all through the night, it seemed like more and more people showed up to play tunes. At one point, a few fiddle players broke away from the big session and started to play a few tunes in a back room. I have no memory of what time we started, but it seems like we played tunes non-stop for hours. More and more fiddle players got into the room and joined us. One of the amazing things about it was there were only fiddles. We weren't keeping anyone out, but it just seemed that this was a fiddle session. Just as you described, the tunes went on and on. I don't think anyone played every tune, but everyone played and there was music until the sun started to come up. It could have been two hours or six hours or more or less - can't recall. I do recall it as some of the best time I have spent playing tunes though. Many of us who were there still talk about it when we get together (usually at a Tionol) and remember the feeling of all that time surrounded by great fiddle music. Great memory for me.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by John Culhane
Re: Marking Time
That's just the sort of experience I'm thinking of, John. Nice story.
We once did an "all-state" session here, with players coming from all over Montana. We played in the basement of the local concert hall while a step-dance school held its fundraiser on the main floor. No windows in the basement. We started well before noon. I stopped playing, briefly, only twice and never left the basement. By the time we quit playing--12 hours later--it was dark outside. The opposite of playing till the sun comes up.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
"Playing tunes in the pub always feels to me like the HG Wells short story "The new accelerator". It's a brilliant piece of writing from one of the most imaginative of authors, Go and read it if you are not familiar. It'll only take you half an hour, ha ha. "
Hfnr,Mcl?tnlytkme17scnds.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Marking Time
There oughta be a whiskey called "Old Accelerator."
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
I don't post here any more as a matter of personal policy, but my respect and admiration for the players and sentiments represented in this thread prompts me to join in.
I've experienced those "losing track of prosaic time" sessions too--not always fueled by the whiskey. Some of the best have been in isolated locales (I recall one at a converted cavalry post in the hills above Taos, and another in the stairwells of a deserted hotel on Lake Michigan) but sadly--I think--I'm more often hyper aware of the fragile temporality of the event. I'm too often the session leader, and so I'm typically thinking of what could/should/might come next, in order to try to "up the ante" and increase the intensity of the experience for everyone else.
Kind of like the Qawwali Sufi musicians of Pakistan, who are supposed to stay *out* of the trance in order to keep their heads clear to play music that makes everyone else's experience of transport possible. But that too is a privilege I guess.
I'm moved by the generosity expressed in this thread--too seldom present elsewhere.
Much respect to my brothers and sisters in the Music.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by coyotebanjo
Re: Marking Time
I've always thought that sessions are too short... (Because time moves differently when playing music) but one the other hand i'm glad most have a start and finish time. Otherwise it would be detrimental to my health.
I'm astounded that i managed to survive at the last National Folk Festival (Canberra). Hour after hours (even days) of tunes with mostly a liquid diet. I needed a holiday just to recover! (Altho I wouldn't trade that experience with anything!)
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by davydd
Re: Marking Time
Good to see you, coyote! Long time, no howl.
That session leader dilemma is another reason less is more--small, cozy sessions don't need a leader, and you're each free to feed off the collective buzz. I'm guessing that stairwell experience was one of those....
davydd, agreed, four or six hours is never enough, even if fingers are worn out and legs can barely stand up after last call. All the more reason to session several times a week.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
Will
Last Night's Fun is a favourite of mine. Here's an anecdote, but not mine, but one I read in a story about Padraig O'Keeffe and had mentioned on a thread a week or so ago, but thought it apropos here since it too involved time. I think this story probably came up in Matt Crantich's phd thesis on Padraig actually. Apparently it actually happened and is not just apocryphal.
In any case, seems the priest had come around to Padraig's favourite pub [sorry the name escapes me now...it's well known] to chastise him for never showing up in church. To which Padraig replied:
"Well, you see, 'tis like this Father. Five minutes in church for me is like an hour. But an hour here in this pub with my drink, playing music, is like five minutes."
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Marking Time
LOL, thanks for that Michael.
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
I have read these posts with a dreamlike wishfulness - like a kid standing outside of a candy store with his nose pressed against the glass watching the other kids feast on chocolates. Sessions for me are all about watching the clock. For me it's all about how much fun and tunes can I cram into those precious few 2 or 3 hours before I have to return to the real world. As you know CPT, being a family man to young children puts your joys and hobbies at the end of a very long list of responsibilities. So be it - I count my blessings - but I have enjoyed living vicariously through all your posts...
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Marking Time
Coyote Banjo - nice to see you posting again. I used to have tunes fairly regularly with a former student of yours - a whistle player named Jason Gray - he always spoke very highly of you - Jason taught our whole session your take on Mac's Fancy - Funny how a chain of tune learning begins isn't?
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Marking Time
that should read "isn't it?"
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Marking Time
Reverend, if "time flies when you are having fun", do you need some insects and a stop watch so you can time them?
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Marking Time
My wife stopped me playing after about 45 minutes of 'Strayaway Child' and asked if I wouldn't very much mind playing another tune as she had had enough of that one....
# Posted on September 9th 2008 by john knoss
Re: Marking Time
Re: fauxcelt:
As Groucho Marx said, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."
A friend of mine attended a session a year or so ago that lasted something like 18 hours! It seems that a really good session facilitates free thinking and association, where one tune or conversation calls forth tunes from some hidden recess in the mind, and it just builds upon itself. Magical. While that free association can sometimes happen when I'm playing on my own (rarely), connecting well with other players is what really opens up the conduit. (Of course, I'm still trying to build up a bigger Strategic Tune Reserve, but it's the journey, not the destination, right?)
# Posted on September 10th 2008 by mcswiss
Re: Marking Time
But John, you were no doubt just making the turn into the sixth part....
# Posted on September 10th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Marking Time
Thanks for that, Tintin. I like the way you say - "where one tune or conversation calls forth tunes from some hidden recess in the mind, and it just builds upon itself" - I love that feeling of being in a session where tunes get played that I haven't played for a long time and being able to play them. Sometimes it takes three or four passes through the tune for me to get it, but in those rare sessions I can call out "play it a couple more times" and everyone smiles and nods and we keep playing it. Great stuff.
# Posted on September 10th 2008 by John Culhane
Re: Marking Time
I was thinking "trance music" when reading this thread, and then coyotebanjo beat me to the punch by mentioning it explicitly. There was a radio show once (I think it was an episode of Sound and Spirit on WGBH radio) that was talking about religious music, and Eastern music, and then lumped irish session playing into the mix. When I first heard it explained, I thought that they didn't fit together. But there is something that happens when the reels start driving, where the repetitions don't seem repetitive, when you just get swept away in the music, that is rather trancendent and magical.
# Posted on September 10th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Marking Time
I'll soundly second (third?) the trance. Well said coyote and Al.
Reducto ad absurdo: It's trance music, dance music, tribal music, the music of the tribe.
# Posted on September 10th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Marking Time
Have,nt they just turned on the accelerator in switzerland today and we,re all going to be sucked into a black hole?
(reminds me of a few sessions I was at!!)
# Posted on September 10th 2008 by banjoburger