At our Tuesday English session in Bristol we always, without fail, start the session with the same two tunes. This has been so, to my certain knowledge, for at least the last three years, and for several years before that according to the leader. It is therefore now a tradition. I suppose the unspoken thinking is that it marks a definite start to the proceedings, the two tunes are tunes we all know and play well, so it sounds good to the pub customers, and it puts the musicians in the right frame of mind. It is perhaps not for nothing that the leader (who plays for morris dancers) sometimes refers to these tunes as “the processionals”.
After the opening tunes have been done, the session continues normally as any free-form session would, mostly English tunes, but with a sprinkling of Irish, Scottish and French/Breton – although the pub advertises us as an “acoustic folk session”, with no specific genre limitations.
Do other established sessions have similar traditions in their set-up, perhaps in the choice of opening tunes, as we do, or specific tune sets?
Btw, I've been playing these two tunes regularly for the last three years and only this week discovered their names when, as duty officer of the watch, as it were (the leader being away on holiday), it fell to me to start the session at 2030 hours on the dot. When we had finished the opening tunes it occurred to me for the first time to ask someone what they were called.
The Bucks is a common end tune for lots of sessions, even impromptu ones. Always leaves me wanting to play more.
There's always the Dingle Regatta stand-up routine. We *don't* don that.
Trevor, that's hilarious that you finally asked for the names! Good on you.
Our main local sesh, ten years running now, doesn't have any such formal traditions. But there are tunes we play when certain punters are in attendance that might not get played much otherwise (and we thoroughly enjoy them when we do haul them out).
Oops, sorry! I really must stop perpetrating these inadvertent cliff-hangers!
The opening “processional” tunes are, Highland Mary (Bampton version), followed by Three Around Three, both in G and played three times each.
For Highland Mary, see http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6669 . There it's in A, but we play an almost identical version in G. However, Three Around Three doesn't appear to be in the Tune database; I'll have to do something about that.
For years, one of our sessions always started with the same set. Until I got so fed up with it that I refused to play it. I mean, come on, how about a little variety? OK, so the rest of your session is "free form", why not the first set? What's the attachment? As a traditionalist, this is not one tradition that I find endearing... (FYI, our set was Belles of Tipperary, Jackie Coleman's, and Bunker Hill)
As far as traditions for us, we have an occasional tradition of doing "schlock til you drop" at the end of a night. Someone will say "one more set", and then you start some common tunes, and people keep adding to the set continuously. We've been known to play one set for over 45 minutes, which is entirely ridiculous, and the playing starts to degenerate rapidly after about 15 minutes. Mind you, if you *force* it, it's not a good tradition... And lately, I've been stopping in the middle, even when people want to keep going, just because my playing (and the music in general) suffers... But the spirit behind it is good, because it happens when you don't want the evening to end... Just because someone says "ok, one more set for me", doesn't mean that they mentioned how *long* that set could be...
Hey lazyhound - don't worry, "Three Around Three" is now in thesession tune db - I've just posted it!
My reasoning was that if you'd been playing it for three years without getting around to asking the name of it, it would probably take you another three to get around to posting it ...
The world can't wait that long!
I keep meaning to get to those Tuesday sessions, but somehow I've never got around to it - will make a renewed effort to get there now - if only just to play those two tunes!
By the way (just to sharpen you up a bit) I've posted it in A ...
Thanks for doing that, Mix! That's just what we play, except for a couple of insignificant differences; but playing it in A at the Volly would probably cause alarm and consternation among some of the reed instrument players!
Start with Dr O'Neill. But we've been doing it now for 10 or fifteen years or so and it's become a bit like the title credits to The Simpsons. We have to do it differently every time. Sometimes its really so fast it's hard to keep up, especially as you haven't warmed up, too fast really, gets the lactic acid going in your fingers. Other times it's slow and steady, other times we struggle to get to the end and only one time through as it's an absolute dirge. But always, by the second time through, the harmonies and variations have become so ridiculous that it's utterly unrecognisable.
We started with Lark in the Morning and the Cliffs of Moher for a while, and always ended with a set of reels, but lately, have not been so predictable. Last time I was there, we ended with hornpipes, which was a first.
And while it doesn't start things, the good Dr. O'Neill is played whenever our friend the bouzouki player shows up, and is always followed by the Top of Cork Road. It is his favorite set. Great old tunes!!!!
Two-row melodeons prevail down at the Volly, eh lazy? You'll have to get them to upgrade to three-rows! They're cramping your style as a top-flight fiddler if you never can get them to play tunes in A down there!
And hey, you missed your opportunity to play it in A when you were kicking off the Volly session last Tuesday ... nothing like a bit of alarm and consternation to shake folks away from their lifetime habits!
Truth is, I never did much care for "Three Around Three" when played in G, but found it to be tolerable in A - brightens it up a bit. Likewise, Highland Mary.
Still not to late though to post your NV "G-Major" version over in the tune comments section ....
Back in the days of yore (a previous session), we often tried to finish up with The Flowing Tide (known as "The Flying Toad").
Our current session was recently in danger of becoming very predictable in the sets of tunes which were being played week after week, which was my main incentive for starting a Tunebook including some of our 'neglected' tunes.
We often try to start with a more relaxed tune, such as Hayes' version of "The Kerfunken" or "Paddy Fahy's Reel".
Interesting! We never always start with something specific or end with something, but we have lots of local sets of certain tunes we always play together, the ubiquitous "the one that goes after", sets and tunes specific people are associated with and always bring out, we always make the young punk rocker cook sing a Flogging Molly song while we rock out acoustically for him, things like that.
The matriarch of the Naples sessionista clan down I-75 from us always likes to kick off any session with a march, which I think is nice. Doesn't matter with one, she just likes to start with a march.
I remember when I lived in NW London, Mick used to always start up the Green Man and the Salusbury sessions with The Kesh then Morrison's, then something else. God, this went on for years.No wonder I ended up emigrating to SE London and starting up my own sessions. Nice guy and great player apart from that.
Two friends of mine always finish with a waltz they call Mrs. Saggs. It is so mournful that it would be impossible to play anything to follow, as everyone is left sobbing uncontrollably.
Here's a selection of tunes/songs from which to choose to finish a session with!
- Wish Me Luck as You Wave me Goodbye (vintage W W II)
- Goodbye Dolly Gray (vintage Boer War)
- Bye-Bye Blackbird
- Goodbye Honey, I'm Gone
- Goodbye, Old Paint
- Goodbye, Maggie
- Goodbye-ee
- The Goodbye Song
- Goodnight, Ladies
- Ashokan Farewell
- Goodbye Girls, I'm Going to Boston
- White Mountain Goodbye
- Last Train to San Fernando
- Goodbye, my Chiquita
- Goodbye to St Lawrence
- Goodbye, Fare Ye Well
- Goodbye Maria, I'm of to Korea
- Goodnight, Campers
- The Sailor's Farewell
- Rolling Home
- Show Me the Way to Go Home
- After the Ball is Over
- Farewell, Sweet Lovely Nancy
- The Leaving of Liverpool
- The Great Escape
- The Digger's Farewell
- The Parting Song
- The Parting Glass (Irish)
- Goodbye Mick (Irish)
- My Last Farewell to Stirling (Scottish)
- Westering Home (Scottish)
- We'll Noo Awa That Bides Awa (Scottish)
- Will Ye Noo Come Back Again? (Scottish)
- Ffarwel i'r Marian (= Farewell to the Shore - Welsh)
Because our English session pub has a close association with sea-faring going back well over 300 years (it's called the Naval Volunteer) the chances are that someone will strike up a tune connected with the sea or sailing (Out on the Ocean doesn't count). I prefer to call this a custom rather than a tradition because it doesn't happen at every session.
At the local sessions, no matter what else we play during the evening, we always play Road To Lisdoonvarna three times and then play Morrison's three times. Sometimes we even start the session with these two tunes.
Rick - I only listed 34 - the ones that came immediately to my mind. Shouldn't be too difficult to think of another 18 - in which case you could have a different playout each week ...
Oldstrings - Digger's Farewell and Great Escape played as a set of two, of course!
Sometimes current events inspire a starting tune for a session. For instance, the day after the election results, we started with "Colored Aristocracy" and ended with "Indian War Hoop!" Wooohooo!
Session traditions
Session traditions
At our Tuesday English session in Bristol we always, without fail, start the session with the same two tunes. This has been so, to my certain knowledge, for at least the last three years, and for several years before that according to the leader. It is therefore now a tradition. I suppose the unspoken thinking is that it marks a definite start to the proceedings, the two tunes are tunes we all know and play well, so it sounds good to the pub customers, and it puts the musicians in the right frame of mind. It is perhaps not for nothing that the leader (who plays for morris dancers) sometimes refers to these tunes as “the processionals”.
After the opening tunes have been done, the session continues normally as any free-form session would, mostly English tunes, but with a sprinkling of Irish, Scottish and French/Breton – although the pub advertises us as an “acoustic folk session”, with no specific genre limitations.
Do other established sessions have similar traditions in their set-up, perhaps in the choice of opening tunes, as we do, or specific tune sets?
Btw, I've been playing these two tunes regularly for the last three years and only this week discovered their names when, as duty officer of the watch, as it were (the leader being away on holiday), it fell to me to start the session at 2030 hours on the dot. When we had finished the opening tunes it occurred to me for the first time to ask someone what they were called.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
For a long time, our beginners session ended with Bucks of Oranmore. Lately, it's been ending with Fanny Poer.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Session traditions
Hey Lazy, they must be 2 good tunes, what are they?
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by blimp
Re: Session traditions
The Bucks is a common end tune for lots of sessions, even impromptu ones. Always leaves me wanting to play more.
There's always the Dingle Regatta stand-up routine. We *don't* don that.
Trevor, that's hilarious that you finally asked for the names! Good on you.
Our main local sesh, ten years running now, doesn't have any such formal traditions. But there are tunes we play when certain punters are in attendance that might not get played much otherwise (and we thoroughly enjoy them when we do haul them out).
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Session traditions
Oops, sorry! I really must stop perpetrating these inadvertent cliff-hangers!
The opening “processional” tunes are, Highland Mary (Bampton version), followed by Three Around Three, both in G and played three times each.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
For Highland Mary, see http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6669 . There it's in A, but we play an almost identical version in G. However, Three Around Three doesn't appear to be in the Tune database; I'll have to do something about that.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
For a decade now we have made a habit of starting off our Sunday evenings with a jig in D.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Jumper
Re: Session traditions
Not the same one each week, mind you.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Jumper
Re: Session traditions
For years, one of our sessions always started with the same set. Until I got so fed up with it that I refused to play it. I mean, come on, how about a little variety? OK, so the rest of your session is "free form", why not the first set? What's the attachment? As a traditionalist, this is not one tradition that I find endearing... (FYI, our set was Belles of Tipperary, Jackie Coleman's, and Bunker Hill)
As far as traditions for us, we have an occasional tradition of doing "schlock til you drop" at the end of a night. Someone will say "one more set", and then you start some common tunes, and people keep adding to the set continuously. We've been known to play one set for over 45 minutes, which is entirely ridiculous, and the playing starts to degenerate rapidly after about 15 minutes. Mind you, if you *force* it, it's not a good tradition... And lately, I've been stopping in the middle, even when people want to keep going, just because my playing (and the music in general) suffers... But the spirit behind it is good, because it happens when you don't want the evening to end... Just because someone says "ok, one more set for me", doesn't mean that they mentioned how *long* that set could be...
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Session traditions
Hey lazyhound - don't worry, "Three Around Three" is now in thesession tune db - I've just posted it!
My reasoning was that if you'd been playing it for three years without getting around to asking the name of it, it would probably take you another three to get around to posting it ...
The world can't wait that long!
I keep meaning to get to those Tuesday sessions, but somehow I've never got around to it - will make a renewed effort to get there now - if only just to play those two tunes!
By the way (just to sharpen you up a bit) I've posted it in A ...
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Session traditions
Thanks for doing that, Mix! That's just what we play, except for a couple of insignificant differences; but playing it in A at the Volly would probably cause alarm and consternation among some of the reed instrument players!
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
Start with Dr O'Neill. But we've been doing it now for 10 or fifteen years or so and it's become a bit like the title credits to The Simpsons. We have to do it differently every time. Sometimes its really so fast it's hard to keep up, especially as you haven't warmed up, too fast really, gets the lactic acid going in your fingers. Other times it's slow and steady, other times we struggle to get to the end and only one time through as it's an absolute dirge. But always, by the second time through, the harmonies and variations have become so ridiculous that it's utterly unrecognisable.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by ...
Re: Session traditions
We started with Lark in the Morning and the Cliffs of Moher for a while, and always ended with a set of reels, but lately, have not been so predictable. Last time I was there, we ended with hornpipes, which was a first.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Session traditions
And while it doesn't start things, the good Dr. O'Neill is played whenever our friend the bouzouki player shows up, and is always followed by the Top of Cork Road. It is his favorite set. Great old tunes!!!!
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Session traditions
Two-row melodeons prevail down at the Volly, eh lazy? You'll have to get them to upgrade to three-rows! They're cramping your style as a top-flight fiddler if you never can get them to play tunes in A down there!
And hey, you missed your opportunity to play it in A when you were kicking off the Volly session last Tuesday ... nothing like a bit of alarm and consternation to shake folks away from their lifetime habits!
Truth is, I never did much care for "Three Around Three" when played in G, but found it to be tolerable in A - brightens it up a bit. Likewise, Highland Mary.
Still not to late though to post your NV "G-Major" version over in the tune comments section ....
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Session traditions
Back in the days of yore (a previous session), we often tried to finish up with The Flowing Tide (known as "The Flying Toad").
Our current session was recently in danger of becoming very predictable in the sets of tunes which were being played week after week, which was my main incentive for starting a Tunebook including some of our 'neglected' tunes.
We often try to start with a more relaxed tune, such as Hayes' version of "The Kerfunken" or "Paddy Fahy's Reel".
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Session traditions
Interesting! We never always start with something specific or end with something, but we have lots of local sets of certain tunes we always play together, the ubiquitous "the one that goes after", sets and tunes specific people are associated with and always bring out, we always make the young punk rocker cook sing a Flogging Molly song while we rock out acoustically for him, things like that.
The matriarch of the Naples sessionista clan down I-75 from us always likes to kick off any session with a march, which I think is nice. Doesn't matter with one, she just likes to start with a march.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Session traditions
You can usually tell when Mick O'Connor is finishing the formal proceedings of a session when he plays The Otter's Holt"....
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by helenakitt
Re: Session traditions
I remember when I lived in NW London, Mick used to always start up the Green Man and the Salusbury sessions with The Kesh then Morrison's, then something else. God, this went on for years.No wonder I ended up emigrating to SE London and starting up my own sessions. Nice guy and great player apart from that.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: Session traditions
Two friends of mine always finish with a waltz they call Mrs. Saggs. It is so mournful that it would be impossible to play anything to follow, as everyone is left sobbing uncontrollably.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Session traditions
Here's a selection of tunes/songs from which to choose to finish a session with!
- Wish Me Luck as You Wave me Goodbye (vintage W W II)
- Goodbye Dolly Gray (vintage Boer War)
- Bye-Bye Blackbird
- Goodbye Honey, I'm Gone
- Goodbye, Old Paint
- Goodbye, Maggie
- Goodbye-ee
- The Goodbye Song
- Goodnight, Ladies
- Ashokan Farewell
- Goodbye Girls, I'm Going to Boston
- White Mountain Goodbye
- Last Train to San Fernando
- Goodbye, my Chiquita
- Goodbye to St Lawrence
- Goodbye, Fare Ye Well
- Goodbye Maria, I'm of to Korea
- Goodnight, Campers
- The Sailor's Farewell
- Rolling Home
- Show Me the Way to Go Home
- After the Ball is Over
- Farewell, Sweet Lovely Nancy
- The Leaving of Liverpool
- The Great Escape
- The Digger's Farewell
- The Parting Song
- The Parting Glass (Irish)
- Goodbye Mick (Irish)
- My Last Farewell to Stirling (Scottish)
- Westering Home (Scottish)
- We'll Noo Awa That Bides Awa (Scottish)
- Will Ye Noo Come Back Again? (Scottish)
- Ffarwel i'r Marian (= Farewell to the Shore - Welsh)
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Session traditions
Surely not the same one's *every* week, Mix?
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Session traditions
Because our English session pub has a close association with sea-faring going back well over 300 years (it's called the Naval Volunteer) the chances are that someone will strike up a tune connected with the sea or sailing (Out on the Ocean doesn't count). I prefer to call this a custom rather than a tradition because it doesn't happen at every session.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
I've posted the Naval Volunteer session version of Three Around Three on the tunes db.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
I've also posted the Naval Volunteer session version in G of Highland Mary on
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6669.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Session traditions
Very good, Mix. But wasn't The Digger's Farewell PART of The Great Escape?
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Session traditions
At the local sessions, no matter what else we play during the evening, we always play Road To Lisdoonvarna three times and then play Morrison's three times. Sometimes we even start the session with these two tunes.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Session traditions
Rick - I only listed 34 - the ones that came immediately to my mind. Shouldn't be too difficult to think of another 18 - in which case you could have a different playout each week ...
Oldstrings - Digger's Farewell and Great Escape played as a set of two, of course!
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Session traditions
Hey lazyhound, that was quick! And Volly Highland Mary as well!
You'll now have to give some serious consideration to changing your session handle from "lazyhound" to "greyhound" ...
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Session traditions
Mix - I hate it when the session becomes too predictable: "Hey, didn't we play this tune around the same time *last* year?"
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Session traditions
We always end our session by trying to stand up, which doesn't always go that well.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by bogman
Re: Session traditions
Sometimes current events inspire a starting tune for a session. For instance, the day after the election results, we started with "Colored Aristocracy" and ended with "Indian War Hoop!" Wooohooo!
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by Leendah