After blackballing stories, or stories of annoyance, I was wondering whether there were any positive human relationships at sessions.
In my experience, as a (struggling) fiddler, I find myself gravitating towards other fiddlers, and finding more in common with them than other musicians. It could be that we tend to share similar tastes in tunes.
I seem to see it happen with banjo players too as ,again, they appear to share the same love of some banjo tunes.
Anybody agrees ?
While I would have a lot to discuss with another banjo player if they were to show up at a session, I think I would rather have a flute or fiddle player instead. I suppose that's the thing about boorish, jangly instruments - one is more than enough!
I don't think it's a fiddle player thing at all - the number of times I've seen a bunch of flute players hanging out together, I wish I had £1 for. Re guitarists though, I generally actively avoid other guitarist in sessions, and usually other accompaniests - it's not that they've got BO, or that I'm antisocial, just that 1 is generally more than enough in any given session. I will however have a craic with them at the bar. Interestinglym Cath, I tend to gravitate towards fiddle players myself, but I guess that's because I'm biased, with it being my second instrument.
So, I wonder what the collective nouns are for all the various instruments? (Surely this had been done already on the yellow board?) Of course, these nouns would have to be alliterative:
How about a bumble of bodhráns?
Or, a burden of bodhráns?
A flurry of fiddlers?
A fecund of fiddlers? (i.e. Intellectually productive)
I tend to gravitate towards other fiddlers as well, partly because I can learn so much just from being around them and partly because we share the love of the fiddle. I kind of tag along, I guess, it probably scares a few of them
Hmm, I gravitate towards good players on whatever instrument, but rarely the fiddle. Especially if I'm trying to pick a piece up. It's actually easier for me to learn from a non-fiddler in a jamming/session situation. I can hear what they're doing and watching them doesn't confuse me near as much. Does that make me a wierd fiddler? I also prefer to session/jam with other instrumentalists and not primarily fiddlers. Is it me? Or is it a old-time person?
But what do you call them all ?
A rumble of bodhrans ?
A jangle of banjos ?
A scrape of fiddles ?
A squeeze of concertinas ?
A gale of flutes and whistles ?
A strum of guitars ?
A tinkle of mandolins ?
Not at all musicfan, the whole point is to get several opinions on the question.
And Jim, you're right, I get so much out of playing with other fiddlers.
utterly off subject now that we've gone to collective nouns, but a friend, who had suffered delays to some delivery of goods from France due to two separate strikes came up with a perfect collective noun:
A picket line of frogs
I'm the only fiddler in my group, so when I get the opportunity to play with a bunch of fiddles I'll hang out near them. I like to see different techniques, articulations, etc. In my group I hang out with the flute player as we're the only two women and kinda have to stick together.
Yes, it's a very strong pull towards the pint - and, to go even further off Cath's thread (sorry Cath) - there must be name for that twitch when a set of tunes finishes and everyone grabs their drinks. For goodness sake, I even find myself doing it at a concert when whoever the performer is has finished a set, if it's a sit-down affair with a bar! And, before anyone might suggest it, no, I don't have a drink problem.
i hang out with mostly fiddles cuz i can relate to them better, we know a lot of the same tunes, and we can exchange skills, and other stuff that we know. Although i do hang out with piano, box, guitar, whistle, because its always fun to see what the differences are, and play duets with a different instrument.
"when a set of tunes finishes and everyone grabs their drinks"
Yes, it's a phenomenon all right --and sometime our synchronicity with this is astounding.
The last time I was in Ireland I noticed a new addition to this. Over there sending text messages is the modus operandi for mobile phone use -- and since it's silent -- it doesn't interrupt the session, so everyone has their pint and their mobile sitting side by side on the table. Now when the tune ends the people who's phone lit up during the tunes goes for their mobiles while the rest go for their pint.
"Over there sending text messages is the modus operandi for mobile phone use" "Over there" - is it not the same in California, I can tell you, it sure is in Australia.
I'm one of the few that does text messaging in my circle of friends. It's great if you're doing something where talking would be intrusive if not impossible -- like when you're at a session.
Speaking of sabotage - I think all those inconsiderate 'BA***RDS who use a mobile phone at sessions should receive the same treatment that Willie Wallace received at the end of Braveheart!! No not that bit in the tent wi' yon French ta*t, but after that!!
You know the way smokers have to show a bit of consideration & leave the pub to light up now, in Ireland? Well, I think it's time Mobile Phones were banned from Pubs in the same way!
I looked round at one small session recently & ALL the other musicians, (there were four of us) were sitting texting!! OK so my conversations suck!!
Who says the art of conversation is dead, or at least dying. Aye, well they were right. First it was the Telly which killed it off at home & now it's the Mobile Phone, in Pubs, On Buses etc etc
I remember we gave a girl a lift home from a gig in Donegal one night & she hardly said three words the whole way home. I thought she was just feeling sick, or perhaps asleep but I learned afterwards that she had texted the whole way home - the height of ignorance in my book!!
Let's leave these demons switched off & in the car when we go to sessions, chaps & chappesses - PLEEEEEZE!!
Surely nothing is so important that it can't wait till the session is over. I leave mine in the car & just check it after I leave
- Duh! Is that so difficult?
I think a lot of the time folk are just so keen to show off their latest piece of kit!!
GROW UP!!!!!!!
Ah, it feels so good to be back up here on my old SOAP BOX - looking 'down' on the rest of you!! Yeeee Haaaaa........
So, to bring it back to context, I find I gravitate away from Mobile Phone Users - doesn't matter what they play, they are nearly as annoying, dare I say it, as Smokers!!!
Oh yeah, & surely the expression 'drink problem' comes from being somewhere, where there is NO DRINK - doesn't it?
Ptarmigan,
Please make yourself a cup of tea, pour a dram, take a deep cleansing breath, or whatever it is you do to calm down and relax.
Cath has tried to start a thread on "positive human relationships" here, if you want to start a "ranting and raving" thread, you are free to do so!!!!!
Well, apparently Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia) is on the increase so I suspect Ptarm is right actually. Mobiles in sessions get on my t!ts as well.
Who you're next to can make a big difference just in terms of what might be distracting you as you play (IMHO). While an ensemble may sound great to a listener outside the circle, it can be off-putting if you have (say) somebody next to you playing a harmony (however well done) or in a different octave even - especially if the instrument sounds radically different to your own - if you not quite so confident with the tune. I guess that might even be partly why orchestras are arranged the way they are?
I guess the best place to listent to a session (or a band/orchestra/WHY) is from in the audience.
To get back toward original topic, I tend not to gravitate toward players of particular instruments as I do to people who are open, friendly, nurturing to newcomers. Perhaps it is a function of Gresham's Law, but despite a few guitarists showing up here and there over the years, I am the only one left that attends my favorite session on a regular basis, so I can't hang out with my "own kind."
I have many wonderful friends that I have met through the music!
A lovely young girl from Donegal once told me that another good use for texting on your mobile is when you're getting a lift home from a session in a car full of witless pillocks. You can text messages instead of being forced to participate in their idiotic prattling.
Playing a mandolin, I tend to gravitate away from instruments which prevent me from hearing my own. (Pretty much all of them).
On the other subject: I drink; I fall down; I get up and drink some more. Where's the problem?
The piano has been drinking,
my necktie is asleep
and the combo went back to new york,
the jukebox has to take a leak
and the carpet needs a haircut,
and the spotlight looks like a prison break
and the telephone's out of cigarettes,
and the balcony is on the make
and the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking...
And the menus are all freezing,
and the light man's blind in one eye
and he can't see out of the other
and the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid,
and he showed up with his mother
and the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking
as the bouncer is a sumo wrestler
cream-puff casper milk toast
and the owner is a mental midget
with the i.q. of a fence post
'cause the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking...
And you can't find your waitress
with a geiger counter
and she hates you and your friends and you
just can't get served without her
and the box-office is drooling,
and the bar stools are on fire
and the newspapers were fooling,
and the ash-trays have retired
'cause the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking,
not me, not me, not me, not me, not me
Sounds a bit like some of the sessions people describe here
Well, I was the only flute player in the local session, when there was one ever-so-long-ago. I gravitated to the box players. Then some time later we gained a few young flute players, but I still liked the boxes.
Now I'm also playing piano accordion, and I'll associate with anyone who will still talk to me.
gravitational pull
gravitational pull
After blackballing stories, or stories of annoyance, I was wondering whether there were any positive human relationships at sessions.
In my experience, as a (struggling) fiddler, I find myself gravitating towards other fiddlers, and finding more in common with them than other musicians. It could be that we tend to share similar tastes in tunes.
I seem to see it happen with banjo players too as ,again, they appear to share the same love of some banjo tunes.
Anybody agrees ?
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cath
Re: gravitational pull
Is gravitating to players of only your own instrument a positive tendency? Or that not one of the roots of the problem - division. Us and them etc...
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cammy
Re: gravitational pull
It isn't to the exclusion of other players by any means, I just feel I have more in common with other fiddlers, at any session I've been to.
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cath
Re: gravitational pull
Yes, fiddlers are a strange bunch, aren't they?
While I would have a lot to discuss with another banjo player if they were to show up at a session, I think I would rather have a flute or fiddle player instead. I suppose that's the thing about boorish, jangly instruments - one is more than enough!
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by grego
Re: gravitational pull
Well, maybe not to other players, but there is this certain barmaid...
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Janek
Re: gravitational pull
I don't think it's a fiddle player thing at all - the number of times I've seen a bunch of flute players hanging out together, I wish I had £1 for. Re guitarists though, I generally actively avoid other guitarist in sessions, and usually other accompaniests - it's not that they've got BO, or that I'm antisocial, just that 1 is generally more than enough in any given session. I will however have a craic with them at the bar. Interestinglym Cath, I tend to gravitate towards fiddle players myself, but I guess that's because I'm biased, with it being my second instrument.
So, I wonder what the collective nouns are for all the various instruments? (Surely this had been done already on the yellow board?) Of course, these nouns would have to be alliterative:
How about a bumble of bodhráns?
Or, a burden of bodhráns?
A flurry of fiddlers?
A fecund of fiddlers? (i.e. Intellectually productive)
etc.
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Ron P
Re: gravitational pull
oh abso-blooming-lutely!
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cammy
Re: gravitational pull
I gravitate towards friendly, welcoming people. I also gravitate towards pretty girls, but then again, I'm fourteen with a gutter-mind, so...
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Zazzaliss
Re: gravitational pull
Get used to it Zazz, I'm over 50 & still have a gutter mind, ~& as for pretty girls - Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......................
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: gravitational pull
I tend to gravitate towards other fiddlers as well, partly because I can learn so much just from being around them and partly because we share the love of the fiddle. I kind of tag along, I guess, it probably scares a few of them
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: gravitational pull
Hmm, I gravitate towards good players on whatever instrument, but rarely the fiddle. Especially if I'm trying to pick a piece up. It's actually easier for me to learn from a non-fiddler in a jamming/session situation. I can hear what they're doing and watching them doesn't confuse me near as much. Does that make me a wierd fiddler? I also prefer to session/jam with other instrumentalists and not primarily fiddlers. Is it me? Or is it a old-time person?
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by musicfan
Re: gravitational pull
But what do you call them all ?
A rumble of bodhrans ?
A jangle of banjos ?
A scrape of fiddles ?
A squeeze of concertinas ?
A gale of flutes and whistles ?
A strum of guitars ?
A tinkle of mandolins ?
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Guernsey Pete
Re: gravitational pull
Not at all musicfan, the whole point is to get several opinions on the question.
And Jim, you're right, I get so much out of playing with other fiddlers.
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cath
Re: gravitational pull
A sawmill of fiddlers
a skinful of bohdrans
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cath
Re: gravitational pull
utterly off subject now that we've gone to collective nouns, but a friend, who had suffered delays to some delivery of goods from France due to two separate strikes came up with a perfect collective noun:
A picket line of frogs
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Cath
Re: gravitational pull
I gravitate towards my pint between tunes.
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: gravitational pull
I'm the only fiddler in my group, so when I get the opportunity to play with a bunch of fiddles I'll hang out near them. I like to see different techniques, articulations, etc. In my group I hang out with the flute player as we're the only two women and kinda have to stick together.
A gut-load of strings?
A plectrum of mandolins?
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by dmarie
Re: gravitational pull
A tangle of strings.
A trill of whistlers.
A drone (a bag?) of pipers.
An Egg Salad of Mandolins.
# Posted on September 14th 2005 by Innocent Bystander
Re: gravitational pull
Egg Salad??
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by dmarie
Re: gravitational pull
Yes, it's a very strong pull towards the pint - and, to go even further off Cath's thread (sorry Cath) - there must be name for that twitch when a set of tunes finishes and everyone grabs their drinks. For goodness sake, I even find myself doing it at a concert when whoever the performer is has finished a set, if it's a sit-down affair with a bar! And, before anyone might suggest it, no, I don't have a drink problem.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Ron P
Re: gravitational pull
What's a 'drink problem?'
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Ottery
Re: gravitational pull
Maybe it's a problem with drinks like diet coke or sprite or root beer?
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by musicfan
Re: gravitational pull
Your drink ends up in your ear instead of your mouth.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by dmarie
Re: gravitational pull
An irritation of boxes maybe?
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Zazzaliss
Re: gravitational pull
i hang out with mostly fiddles cuz i can relate to them better, we know a lot of the same tunes, and we can exchange skills, and other stuff that we know. Although i do hang out with piano, box, guitar, whistle, because its always fun to see what the differences are, and play duets with a different instrument.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by CELTICCHEF83
Re: gravitational pull
a kollection of keyboards
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by CELTICCHEF83
Re: gravitational pull
oops, did i spell that wrong? lol...*wink wink*
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by CELTICCHEF83
Re: gravitational pull
"when a set of tunes finishes and everyone grabs their drinks"
Yes, it's a phenomenon all right --and sometime our synchronicity with this is astounding.
The last time I was in Ireland I noticed a new addition to this. Over there sending text messages is the modus operandi for mobile phone use -- and since it's silent -- it doesn't interrupt the session, so everyone has their pint and their mobile sitting side by side on the table. Now when the tune ends the people who's phone lit up during the tunes goes for their mobiles while the rest go for their pint.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: gravitational pull
"Over there sending text messages is the modus operandi for mobile phone use" "Over there" - is it not the same in California, I can tell you, it sure is in Australia.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by kjay_bc_box
Re: gravitational pull
I'm one of the few that does text messaging in my circle of friends. It's great if you're doing something where talking would be intrusive if not impossible -- like when you're at a session.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: gravitational pull
I'm a drinker with a music problem...
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: gravitational pull
Speaking of sabotage - I think all those inconsiderate 'BA***RDS who use a mobile phone at sessions should receive the same treatment that Willie Wallace received at the end of Braveheart!! No not that bit in the tent wi' yon French ta*t, but after that!!
You know the way smokers have to show a bit of consideration & leave the pub to light up now, in Ireland? Well, I think it's time Mobile Phones were banned from Pubs in the same way!
I looked round at one small session recently & ALL the other musicians, (there were four of us) were sitting texting!! OK so my conversations suck!!
Who says the art of conversation is dead, or at least dying. Aye, well they were right. First it was the Telly which killed it off at home & now it's the Mobile Phone, in Pubs, On Buses etc etc
I remember we gave a girl a lift home from a gig in Donegal one night & she hardly said three words the whole way home. I thought she was just feeling sick, or perhaps asleep but I learned afterwards that she had texted the whole way home - the height of ignorance in my book!!
Let's leave these demons switched off & in the car when we go to sessions, chaps & chappesses - PLEEEEEZE!!
Surely nothing is so important that it can't wait till the session is over. I leave mine in the car & just check it after I leave
- Duh! Is that so difficult?
I think a lot of the time folk are just so keen to show off their latest piece of kit!!
GROW UP!!!!!!!
Ah, it feels so good to be back up here on my old SOAP BOX - looking 'down' on the rest of you!! Yeeee Haaaaa........
So, to bring it back to context, I find I gravitate away from Mobile Phone Users - doesn't matter what they play, they are nearly as annoying, dare I say it, as Smokers!!!
Oh yeah, & surely the expression 'drink problem' comes from being somewhere, where there is NO DRINK - doesn't it?
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: gravitational pull
Ptarmigan,
Please make yourself a cup of tea, pour a dram, take a deep cleansing breath, or whatever it is you do to calm down and relax.
Cath has tried to start a thread on "positive human relationships" here, if you want to start a "ranting and raving" thread, you are free to do so!!!!!
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: gravitational pull
Well, apparently Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia) is on the increase so I suspect Ptarm is right actually. Mobiles in sessions get on my t!ts as well.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Rudall the time
Re: gravitational pull
I went to a session last night here in NC. The lineup was four fiddlers, four flutes, a whistle, and a wind-noodling newer guy.
It was odd but great - while I like guitars, this was a diferent sound than I used to w/o backers.
Anyways, it just so happened that the flutes and the fiddles sat in completely oposite sides of the circle. It looked very orchestral.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by wormdiet
Re: gravitational pull
Who you're next to can make a big difference just in terms of what might be distracting you as you play (IMHO). While an ensemble may sound great to a listener outside the circle, it can be off-putting if you have (say) somebody next to you playing a harmony (however well done) or in a different octave even - especially if the instrument sounds radically different to your own - if you not quite so confident with the tune. I guess that might even be partly why orchestras are arranged the way they are?
I guess the best place to listent to a session (or a band/orchestra/WHY) is from in the audience.
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by JonB
Re: gravitational pull
To get back toward original topic, I tend not to gravitate toward players of particular instruments as I do to people who are open, friendly, nurturing to newcomers. Perhaps it is a function of Gresham's Law, but despite a few guitarists showing up here and there over the years, I am the only one left that attends my favorite session on a regular basis, so I can't hang out with my "own kind."
I have many wonderful friends that I have met through the music!
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: gravitational pull
A lovely young girl from Donegal once told me that another good use for texting on your mobile is when you're getting a lift home from a session in a car full of witless pillocks. You can text messages instead of being forced to participate in their idiotic prattling.
hahahahaha
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: gravitational pull
Playing a mandolin, I tend to gravitate away from instruments which prevent me from hearing my own. (Pretty much all of them).
On the other subject: I drink; I fall down; I get up and drink some more. Where's the problem?
# Posted on September 15th 2005 by oldstrings
Re: gravitational pull
Courtesy of Tom Waits:
The piano has been drinking,
my necktie is asleep
and the combo went back to new york,
the jukebox has to take a leak
and the carpet needs a haircut,
and the spotlight looks like a prison break
and the telephone's out of cigarettes,
and the balcony is on the make
and the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking...
And the menus are all freezing,
and the light man's blind in one eye
and he can't see out of the other
and the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid,
and he showed up with his mother
and the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking
as the bouncer is a sumo wrestler
cream-puff casper milk toast
and the owner is a mental midget
with the i.q. of a fence post
'cause the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking...
And you can't find your waitress
with a geiger counter
and she hates you and your friends and you
just can't get served without her
and the box-office is drooling,
and the bar stools are on fire
and the newspapers were fooling,
and the ash-trays have retired
'cause the piano has been drinking,
the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking,
not me, not me, not me, not me, not me
Sounds a bit like some of the sessions people describe here
# Posted on September 16th 2005 by JonB
Re: gravitational pull
Well, I was the only flute player in the local session, when there was one ever-so-long-ago. I gravitated to the box players. Then some time later we gained a few young flute players, but I still liked the boxes.
Now I'm also playing piano accordion, and I'll associate with anyone who will still talk to me.
# Posted on September 16th 2005 by N9YTY