Maybe this thread will break the string of single digit responses lately, maybe not.
Does anyone in here dream about sessions? Or ITM in general? I had a doozy last night, am a little concerned I might need to lay off the sauce. Would love to hear confessions of Irish musicians' REM time.
I had a dream, years ago, where I was floating above some lush, strange green countryside, trying to find my way somewhere. There were people bustling about everywhere in this peculiar landscape and I asked someone the way. They replied - 'oh, it's easy, you just follow the Gravel Walks'... and I noticed that there was a wide path of gravel between two hedges, so I flew along above it. Can't remember where I was going or if I got there. Someone else in the dream referred to it as the Gravel Walk or the Gravelly Walk, I was a bit confused as to what the proper name was. So at least that bit was authentic...
Right before I started on the fiddle, I was having fiddle dreams. The only one I can remember right now was I was in this Harry Potter-esque, Daigon Alley kind of a shop where the walls were covered with fiddles that were hanging or on shelves, and in cubby spaces. There were some inflatable fiddles and I had a look at one, and a voice in my head said, "Stay away from the inflatable ones, the quality is not very good."
This dream happened before I even consciously realized that I wanted to play the fiddle.
LOL @ Gravel Walks! also box players under the bed & inflatable fiddles!
I dream a lot about this stuff, mostly when I'm immersed... while ordering my flute & not knowing what it would be like, I had several dreams about playing in public & opening the case, only to find a really bizarre instrument, sometimes fashioned out of the limb of a tree, or with raised finger holes, or protruding embouchure plates, once with sheep's wool wound around it...
The one I had last night was actually totally cool, about thesession, perhaps after meeting G5 & hopefully meeting other members in the near future. I dreamt that Jeremy had sponsored a group field trip for a weekend getaway, we were all on a British Airways plane heading somewhere, maybe France? & there were tons of fiddle players, & a bunch of flute players but all their flutes were fully keyed, sadly many were reading music, but in groups of 4, & not like in a circle, sort of disconnected, we weren't on the plane really, in some darkened, cozy room where you knew other members where there but unseen for the moment, but the tempo of the tune (we only played one in the dream, maybe Out on the Ocean? I love that B part, it's been in my head lately) was like a dirge, & it was so weird! All I wanted was for the group to pick up the tempo, but also one of my front teeth was loose (another recurring theme for me anyway) & I couldn't really play well, but, the feeling of being surrounded by this group of strangers, yet not, it was pretty cool. So next time, can we pick up the tempo?
Please don't let them take me away, not yet anyway, just til after Gaelic Roots, OK? Thanks.
But not long enough for someone to actually ask me about it, heh! An exercise in pure self-indulgence, good eye, Zina. Hey, I bet you've had a dream about your fiddle, or dancing, or sewing, or some such activity, come on, lay it on us! Please?
I almost never remember my dreams, except for the waking ones. The weirdest ones are the ones you have if you wake up to a radio alarm when it's set to a news station or program -- I used to have the oddest waking up dreams to NPR. *grin* I do occasionally have stress dreams that I'll remember, where I can't seem to get a tune to turn back around into the B or back around to the A, usually before an important gig, or have a sewing machine that fights back while struggling with an important dress on a deadline, or some such.
Here's one more I almost forgot: Back when I was kind of just starting on the harp and having a lot of trouble, but working through it all, I dreamed that Keith Richards gave me an award for "excellence in musicianship".
I'm not so into the Rolling Stones these days (they have done nothing good since Tattoo You back in the early 80's), but as a teenager I was obsessed with them. In the dream, the award was sooo meaningful to me!
I dream about playing at sessions all the time, usually in some wee coastal village in Ireland. Strangely though, they're generally not happy dreams. Sometimes I'm in a fantastic session with every musician I've ever known and all my friends, but usually I'm with a bunch of strangers and my playing isn't doing me justice at all - I'm playing awfully. Any armchair psychotherapists out there?
Conán
PS Will, can you stop snoring so much? It's hard enough to get some sleep under your bed as it is.
While I was trying to get my head round a slip jig called "Kissed Her Under The Coverlet", which has an unusual rhythm, I had a dream in which I saw that the tune was actually parsed in 6/8 and If you looked at it without bar lines it looked like a double jig.
When I awoke I found it was true and not uncommon in Border tunes. Some 3/2 Hornpipes do a similar thing being parsed in 2/2.
Not a dream exactly ... but wandering to work one morning I was listening to John Doherty's "Floating Bow" album and for a moment forgot that although I own a fiddle, I can't actually play it. But for a brief few seconds I imagined getting home from work and getting the fiddle out and playing Doherty's version of "The Wind That Shakes The Barley". In my mind I could imagine the feeling of the bow in my hand, my fingers dancing gracefully on the strings, I could feel the friction of the hairs on the strings and knew just how to compensate for the friction in order to get the degree of fluidity and soulfulness that Doherty produces.
You can imagine how crestfallen I was when my reverie was interrupted by the sad realisation that I'm not a fiddler!
(But when I find the time ... I'm gonna give the fiddle a whirl again ... even if I could get just one or two decent tunes out of it, I'd be a happy man.)
I wrote a waltz in my sleep once. I shot up out of bed with it in my head and went directly to the flute. Unfortunately, I was too groggy to remember to tape myself and like most dreams it faded away after a shower.
Yeah jerball, most of that gets away. Tunes, songs, lyrics and all the rest which all seems so vivid and tangible in the land of nod can't seem to endure once the lids pop open. Although perhaps that's not such a bad thing. I just finished _Trader_ by Charles de Lint. Some of the scenes take place in the neatherworld of dreams and it's pretty scary stuff. There's also a smattering of traditional music in the plot as the protagonist is a luthier.
I once dreamed that I was riding a train, playing music with some other folks, with my fold up fiddle. It was wooden and round, sort of like a banjo only in two halves, and it folded in upon itself. Very small and convenient for traveling. I still intend to invent one.
I love all y'all's dreams. I dream incredibly inventive, masterfully arranged music that I have no way of capturing. I keep a detailed dream journal, if for no other reason (though there are many) than to remind myself that there is an unlimited source of creativity within me.
Will, I envy you your Zzzzs. Gonna go catch some myself now.
i've had what i hear may be a fairly standard fiddle nightmare: i was playing music with friends when all of a sudden my fiddle started falling apart. the back came loose, then the top. the bridge fell off and the strings went limp. pretty soon all i was holding was a mess of fiddle pieces. i spent the rest of the dream trying to get them put back together again.
when i told my fiddle teacher about the dream, he related the one he had. he was playing when his strings suddenly got *way* too tight. the bridge went shooting downward through the fiddle, leaving skinny, rectangular entrance and exit holes.
I have this dream, that I am playing bodhran with a band of gypsies, and we make wild music and are dancing around a campfire and a stranger comes along and hears us and we are persuaded to play on a stage. That goes great and we go many places and the crowds grow and scream. And them suddenly, I leave it all and I am flying, over cities and streets and especially, over wide waterways, high above it all when suddenly I am drawn down to a dark alley and I find a small dog in a doorway, and he's shivering and I call him over to me and he happily comes over and I pick him up and we fly off together.... and I notice all the streets and town are empty and we just fly around looking at nothing. This dream has never ended, and it's maddening, I have no idea why, nor can I think of a possible meaning or a likely conculsion.... I've had this dream or slight situational variations over a dozen times....
Maybe everyone's inside drinking Guiness and playing in a Session....... How bizarre!
I had a dream last night I got off a British Airways flight, & there was this scientist crooning "Spancil Hill" at the baggage claim.... ;)
I think it's also totally cool that our subconscious minds can work out musical problems in our sleep, or play alien instruements, or even compose. Awesome!
Conan, my dreams run along the similar themes as yours, although I do wish they would take place in a wee coastal town in Ireland now & again. Sadly I have no insight as to why we have them outside of it being a classic anxiety dream ( ie not playing as well as we know we can) except that it makes me practice harder when I awake, & also take better care of my teeth, which often seem to be falling out in such dreams.
Emily, just read your post. That is so strange - I sometimes have that "teeth falling out" dream! Never in combination with a bad session dream though, that would be too much, "le comble". I wonder if Shane McGowan has a nightmare where his teeth suddenly reappear?
Here's a weird music dream, one time I had a dream I came into my bedroom & there's Marylin Monroe naked on red saitn sheets, just like the pinup - the nightmare? She was playing a tenor banjo! I woke up in a cold sweat & didn't play any music for at least a week or two...
Brad, what did you have to eat before going to bed that night? I want to try to duplicate your experience, but I'll put in earplugs before I turn in. Just as a scientific experiment, of course.
Some dream info I found...
--------------------------------
Many of us have been the victim of tooth-lose dreams and have carried this concern into the morning.
Here's a quote: "Tooth dreams are open to many interpretations and have been handled successfully by very few of the modern dream interpreters."
This was written in the 2nd Century by the ancient interpreter, Artemidorus. Even the Vedas and texts 2000 years BC talk about tooth dreams. So you can see there is a long history of confusion. Freud and Jung explored the possibilities of tooth loss and hysteria, but modern dream interpreters take a different approach that is more direct.
What, we can ask ourselves, do teeth do? They hold, cut, grasp and generally are the first way we had to do these things. But then we lost our first set, just as we were gaining in self-control and power. And yet, shortly thereafter, a new and larger world and set of teeth appear!
And so, if I have a tooth lose dream, I can ask myself:
1. What parts of my world and life are slipping away?
2. What new larger world will this lead me too?
Lose a tooth, gain a world!
--------------------------
Will... I was drinking when I read about your chilling reoccuring nightmare... and almost choked laughing
On the subject of concertinas - and I swear I didn't read this post before I had this dream. I met a concertina player (big guy, not identifiable as a person) and played a few tunes with him. I was nervous at first ( in real life I haven't been in a session with a concertina player for over a decade!) but then got the tunes all right on my fiddle. And: in the morning I could still remember what two of the tunes where, although it took me half a day to put a name to the first one. We were playing the Flowers of Edinburgh and the Teetotaller. I'm quite sure I never played them as a set before. Should give it a try at least.
dreams?
dreams?
Maybe this thread will break the string of single digit responses lately, maybe not.
Does anyone in here dream about sessions? Or ITM in general? I had a doozy last night, am a little concerned I might need to lay off the sauce. Would love to hear confessions of Irish musicians' REM time.
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
I had a dream, years ago, where I was floating above some lush, strange green countryside, trying to find my way somewhere. There were people bustling about everywhere in this peculiar landscape and I asked someone the way. They replied - 'oh, it's easy, you just follow the Gravel Walks'... and I noticed that there was a wide path of gravel between two hedges, so I flew along above it. Can't remember where I was going or if I got there. Someone else in the dream referred to it as the Gravel Walk or the Gravelly Walk, I was a bit confused as to what the proper name was. So at least that bit was authentic...
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Nell
Re: dreams?
Do nightmares count? I'm terrorized by the imaginary piano accordion player(s) under my bed....
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: dreams?
Will, they're not imaginary ... heheheh
Trevor
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by lazyhound
Re: dreams?
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Couldn't resist
K
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by BluFiddle
Re: dreams?
Right before I started on the fiddle, I was having fiddle dreams. The only one I can remember right now was I was in this Harry Potter-esque, Daigon Alley kind of a shop where the walls were covered with fiddles that were hanging or on shelves, and in cubby spaces. There were some inflatable fiddles and I had a look at one, and a voice in my head said, "Stay away from the inflatable ones, the quality is not very good."
This dream happened before I even consciously realized that I wanted to play the fiddle.
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Andee
Re: dreams?
LOL @ Gravel Walks! also box players under the bed & inflatable fiddles!
I dream a lot about this stuff, mostly when I'm immersed... while ordering my flute & not knowing what it would be like, I had several dreams about playing in public & opening the case, only to find a really bizarre instrument, sometimes fashioned out of the limb of a tree, or with raised finger holes, or protruding embouchure plates, once with sheep's wool wound around it...
The one I had last night was actually totally cool, about thesession, perhaps after meeting G5 & hopefully meeting other members in the near future. I dreamt that Jeremy had sponsored a group field trip for a weekend getaway, we were all on a British Airways plane heading somewhere, maybe France? & there were tons of fiddle players, & a bunch of flute players but all their flutes were fully keyed, sadly many were reading music, but in groups of 4, & not like in a circle, sort of disconnected, we weren't on the plane really, in some darkened, cozy room where you knew other members where there but unseen for the moment, but the tempo of the tune (we only played one in the dream, maybe Out on the Ocean? I love that B part, it's been in my head lately) was like a dirge, & it was so weird! All I wanted was for the group to pick up the tempo, but also one of my front teeth was loose (another recurring theme for me anyway) & I couldn't really play well, but, the feeling of being surrounded by this group of strangers, yet not, it was pretty cool. So next time, can we pick up the tempo?
Please don't let them take me away, not yet anyway, just til after Gaelic Roots, OK? Thanks.
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
LOL -- I note that you waited til other people fessed up before you let on about your dream, Emily.... hee.
zls
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: dreams?
But not long enough for someone to actually ask me about it, heh! An exercise in pure self-indulgence, good eye, Zina.
Hey, I bet you've had a dream about your fiddle, or dancing, or sewing, or some such activity, come on, lay it on us! Please? 
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
I almost never remember my dreams, except for the waking ones. The weirdest ones are the ones you have if you wake up to a radio alarm when it's set to a news station or program -- I used to have the oddest waking up dreams to NPR. *grin* I do occasionally have stress dreams that I'll remember, where I can't seem to get a tune to turn back around into the B or back around to the A, usually before an important gig, or have a sewing machine that fights back while struggling with an important dress on a deadline, or some such.
Not very satisfying, yeah?
zls
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: dreams?
A combative sewing machine? Ok now we're talking! As for NPR, I know exactly what you mean, esp during Prairie Home Companion for some reason.
Well at least we got to 10. *sigh*
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
What, you don't have machines that fight back? Don't you use a computer? *grin*
11.
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Zina Lee
P.S. For you not-Yanks, NPR stands for "National Public Radio."
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: dreams?
Here's one more I almost forgot: Back when I was kind of just starting on the harp and having a lot of trouble, but working through it all, I dreamed that Keith Richards gave me an award for "excellence in musicianship".
I'm not so into the Rolling Stones these days (they have done nothing good since Tattoo You back in the early 80's), but as a teenager I was obsessed with them. In the dream, the award was sooo meaningful to me!
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Andee
Re: dreams?
"Last night as I lay dreaming...."
I actually sung that at a session last night.
Probably a nightmare for everyone else.
Danny
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Nick Splease
Re: dreams?
I dream about playing at sessions all the time, usually in some wee coastal village in Ireland. Strangely though, they're generally not happy dreams. Sometimes I'm in a fantastic session with every musician I've ever known and all my friends, but usually I'm with a bunch of strangers and my playing isn't doing me justice at all - I'm playing awfully. Any armchair psychotherapists out there?
Conán
PS Will, can you stop snoring so much? It's hard enough to get some sleep under your bed as it is.
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Conán McDonnell
Re: dreams?
While I was trying to get my head round a slip jig called "Kissed Her Under The Coverlet", which has an unusual rhythm, I had a dream in which I saw that the tune was actually parsed in 6/8 and If you looked at it without bar lines it looked like a double jig.
When I awoke I found it was true and not uncommon in Border tunes. Some 3/2 Hornpipes do a similar thing being parsed in 2/2.
All the best PP
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Pied Piper
Re: dreams?
Come to think of it, "phrased" is probably better than "parsed".
PP
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Pied Piper
Re: dreams?
Not a dream exactly ... but wandering to work one morning I was listening to John Doherty's "Floating Bow" album and for a moment forgot that although I own a fiddle, I can't actually play it. But for a brief few seconds I imagined getting home from work and getting the fiddle out and playing Doherty's version of "The Wind That Shakes The Barley". In my mind I could imagine the feeling of the bow in my hand, my fingers dancing gracefully on the strings, I could feel the friction of the hairs on the strings and knew just how to compensate for the friction in order to get the degree of fluidity and soulfulness that Doherty produces.
You can imagine how crestfallen I was when my reverie was interrupted by the sad realisation that I'm not a fiddler!
(But when I find the time ... I'm gonna give the fiddle a whirl again ... even if I could get just one or two decent tunes out of it, I'd be a happy man.)
# Posted on May 1st 2003 by Aidan Crossey
Re: dreams?
I wrote a waltz in my sleep once. I shot up out of bed with it in my head and went directly to the flute. Unfortunately, I was too groggy to remember to tape myself and like most dreams it faded away after a shower.
# Posted on May 2nd 2003 by jerball
Re: dreams?
Yeah jerball, most of that gets away. Tunes, songs, lyrics and all the rest which all seems so vivid and tangible in the land of nod can't seem to endure once the lids pop open. Although perhaps that's not such a bad thing. I just finished _Trader_ by Charles de Lint. Some of the scenes take place in the neatherworld of dreams and it's pretty scary stuff. There's also a smattering of traditional music in the plot as the protagonist is a luthier.
Gra5ity
# Posted on May 2nd 2003 by Gra5ity
Re: dreams?
Heh. Look out for the dust bunnies, Conán. They'll get you before Will's snores do...
# Posted on May 2nd 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: dreams?
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
# Posted on May 2nd 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: dreams?
I once dreamed that I was riding a train, playing music with some other folks, with my fold up fiddle. It was wooden and round, sort of like a banjo only in two halves, and it folded in upon itself. Very small and convenient for traveling. I still intend to invent one.
I love all y'all's dreams. I dream incredibly inventive, masterfully arranged music that I have no way of capturing. I keep a detailed dream journal, if for no other reason (though there are many) than to remind myself that there is an unlimited source of creativity within me.
Will, I envy you your Zzzzs. Gonna go catch some myself now.
Carol
# Posted on May 2nd 2003 by carolsviolin
Re: dreams?
i've had what i hear may be a fairly standard fiddle nightmare: i was playing music with friends when all of a sudden my fiddle started falling apart. the back came loose, then the top. the bridge fell off and the strings went limp. pretty soon all i was holding was a mess of fiddle pieces. i spent the rest of the dream trying to get them put back together again.
when i told my fiddle teacher about the dream, he related the one he had. he was playing when his strings suddenly got *way* too tight. the bridge went shooting downward through the fiddle, leaving skinny, rectangular entrance and exit holes.
sarah
# Posted on May 3rd 2003 by eleyne
Re: dreams?
I have this dream, that I am playing bodhran with a band of gypsies, and we make wild music and are dancing around a campfire and a stranger comes along and hears us and we are persuaded to play on a stage. That goes great and we go many places and the crowds grow and scream. And them suddenly, I leave it all and I am flying, over cities and streets and especially, over wide waterways, high above it all when suddenly I am drawn down to a dark alley and I find a small dog in a doorway, and he's shivering and I call him over to me and he happily comes over and I pick him up and we fly off together.... and I notice all the streets and town are empty and we just fly around looking at nothing. This dream has never ended, and it's maddening, I have no idea why, nor can I think of a possible meaning or a likely conculsion.... I've had this dream or slight situational variations over a dozen times....
Maybe everyone's inside drinking Guiness and playing in a Session....... How bizarre!
# Posted on May 3rd 2003 by irish ruff
Re: dreams?
Wow! These are GREAT!
I had a dream last night I got off a British Airways flight, & there was this scientist crooning "Spancil Hill" at the baggage claim.... ;)
I think it's also totally cool that our subconscious minds can work out musical problems in our sleep, or play alien instruements, or even compose. Awesome!
Conan, my dreams run along the similar themes as yours, although I do wish they would take place in a wee coastal town in Ireland now & again. Sadly I have no insight as to why we have them outside of it being a classic anxiety dream ( ie not playing as well as we know we can) except that it makes me practice harder when I awake, & also take better care of my teeth, which often seem to be falling out in such dreams.
# Posted on May 3rd 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
Emily, just read your post. That is so strange - I sometimes have that "teeth falling out" dream! Never in combination with a bad session dream though, that would be too much, "le comble". I wonder if Shane McGowan has a nightmare where his teeth suddenly reappear?
Conán
# Posted on May 5th 2003 by Conán McDonnell
Re: dreams?
Here's a weird music dream, one time I had a dream I came into my bedroom & there's Marylin Monroe naked on red saitn sheets, just like the pinup - the nightmare? She was playing a tenor banjo! I woke up in a cold sweat & didn't play any music for at least a week or two...
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by Brad Maloney
Re: dreams?
Brad, what did you have to eat before going to bed that night? I want to try to duplicate your experience, but I'll put in earplugs before I turn in. Just as a scientific experiment, of course.
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by cuchulain54
Re: dreams?
lolol..... anyone have an emoticon for teeth falling out? : |#) ? also cuch, guacamole is good for that I hear.
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
Some dream info I found...
--------------------------------
Many of us have been the victim of tooth-lose dreams and have carried this concern into the morning.
Here's a quote: "Tooth dreams are open to many interpretations and have been handled successfully by very few of the modern dream interpreters."
This was written in the 2nd Century by the ancient interpreter, Artemidorus. Even the Vedas and texts 2000 years BC talk about tooth dreams. So you can see there is a long history of confusion. Freud and Jung explored the possibilities of tooth loss and hysteria, but modern dream interpreters take a different approach that is more direct.
What, we can ask ourselves, do teeth do? They hold, cut, grasp and generally are the first way we had to do these things. But then we lost our first set, just as we were gaining in self-control and power. And yet, shortly thereafter, a new and larger world and set of teeth appear!
And so, if I have a tooth lose dream, I can ask myself:
1. What parts of my world and life are slipping away?
2. What new larger world will this lead me too?
Lose a tooth, gain a world!
--------------------------
Will... I was drinking when I read about your chilling reoccuring nightmare... and almost choked laughing
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by searai
Re: dreams?
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that Marylin's teeth fell in line with the banjo stereo type.... grey & mostly missing.
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by Brad Maloney
Re: dreams?
Sure it wasn't Manson?
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
tee hee, that little wimp couldn't even pick up a banjo. Oh the angst
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by Brad Maloney
Re: dreams?
Marilyn Manson, naked, in a huge vat of guacamole....with my luck, that's the kind of dream I'll have.
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by cuchulain54
Re: dreams?
Eeeuuuuuccchhhhhh.... LOL
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: dreams?
playing a banjo!
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: dreams?
It could be worse - he could be playing the concertina or the concertina reel or both
# Posted on May 6th 2003 by Brad Maloney
Re: dreams?
On the subject of concertinas - and I swear I didn't read this post before I had this dream. I met a concertina player (big guy, not identifiable as a person) and played a few tunes with him. I was nervous at first ( in real life I haven't been in a session with a concertina player for over a decade!) but then got the tunes all right on my fiddle. And: in the morning I could still remember what two of the tunes where, although it took me half a day to put a name to the first one. We were playing the Flowers of Edinburgh and the Teetotaller. I'm quite sure I never played them as a set before. Should give it a try at least.
# Posted on May 13th 2003 by kuec