Always a welcome thing in my experience. Even better in Irish or macaronic versions. Poems are a bit more difficult to pull off I think. Unless it's of the amusing recitation/slightly bawdy variety. I vote good thing.
I think it's nice to have variety. Was very surprised at the amount of musicians who seem to object to songs of any kind in a session, on principle. I am not a singer but always like to hear them....
Once or twice I have heard Irish poetry recited in sessions.
If strategically placed, and/or mostly at the end of general proceedings seems to be the unwritten thingy in most sessions I've attended. When you get a string of 3+ songs then it turns into a drunken rabble with the wild rover and fields of athenrye popping their heads up willy-nilly. Only to be rescued by a concerted effort of strong tunes by strong players. I vote maybe.
Traditional songs are welcome at sessions I play at and indeed encouraged if a good singer happens to pop in. Come-all-ye's, as in Fields of Ath, Molly Malone a definate no-no! Leave them for the match!
I hate when musicians talk through a solo ballad or sean-nós song. Or when they pop out for a smoke in the middle. We can be the rudest types sometimes.
What's the difference between talking through a song and talking through a tune? I've never been able to understand that one. And why can't musicians play solo tunes at sessions (not that I particularly want to)? Singers manage to get away with it. Just asking . . .
What I hate about songs at sessions is that they attract diddlers, folk who insist on playing fiddle or other tune instrument right through them whether they know what's going on or not, usually if not always to greatly weakening effect. One subtle lead instrument where the player knows the song and knows when not to play is fine but usually there's a rabble. So for me no songs at all rather than listen to a clashing irritating burach.
I agree with Bogman on the 'noodlers' who don't practice enough or have the you-know what's to get up and play/sing/read, but try to hang around the edges-usually poorly and annoyingly- of the person who does.
You are in a pub after all. Now ssshhh be quiet while I sing ye a 15-verse ballad about the miners or some bint called Mary who's waiting for Jonnie to come back from o'er the sea. Actually I might just pop out for a fag o, a fag o, a fag o, or p'rhaps I'll have a wazz o, a wazz o, a wazz o . . .
One or two songs can go down nicely. However, Irish session audiences/players seem to have lost the ability to listen for more than a few minutes and the singing is drowned out by people talking.
This brings to mind a story: I was at a session in Hughes's Pub in Spiddal some years ago; this large Australian arrived in dressed in Crocodile Dundee hat and and shorts and carrying a guitar. He then proceeded, uninvited, to work his way through (you've guessed it, Waltzing Matilda) and a few songs he regarded as being suitably Irish before eventually being told, not too politely, to leave!
A good singer with an appropriate song makes for a nice change of pace in a session. I'm all for it.
a few are ok with me- so long as they are somewhat ITM material- sessions that degenerate to a bunch of geetar players wailing about motels and trucks and bibles on the other hand........
I used to like some songs. I am getting a little tired of them at our particular sessions. The annoying singer tends to want to conduct the thing-"Join in now"..."slow down here"..."ready! The big finish!!!"...all with the words read from a paper. Those are the times I wish I had a trumpet to noodle a little accompaniment.
I don't even understand why the question should be asked?
Why in shouldn't singing be allowed in a session???
A session is not a sacred gathering. It's meant to be fun.
Occasionally, for a change of pace, sure. But in my neck of the woods (say, a 30-mile radius) there are about a dozen weekly open mics for singers--and only one Irish tune session, which meets only twice monthly.
So I really think the singers should go to the open mics instead, and let us have our chance to play tunes.
Motels and trucks and bibles I can hack, they are enticing views into an exhilarating and exotic culture, it's dismal caterwaulings about relationships I can't hack.
I like songs which aren't ancient or modern dirges and are sung by a singer who's definitely good, which excludes about 85% of them. The others see me shamming death - which, incidentally, is how compulsory guests are said to have found escape from Nero's interminable recitals, i.e. by feigning death and being carried out.
I like to join in on the box because it gives me a chance to fantasise I am De Dannan accompanying their splendid crop of girl singers. (My life is so humdrum...) With the box, you can test the waters quietly - with the whistle you can't, and have to be that much more sure of what you're doing.
Has anyone ever been to one of these "song sessions" or "singers clubs", where a bunch a folk without instruments gather, usually in a pub, and take turns singing songs at each other? I have. They wouldn't let you play a tune on your fiddle there though, it's singing or nothing. So I'd have to say that, in the face of such a non-reciprocal stance, we are beholden to defend the dignity of our respective art, and must insist on a clear demarcation of jurisdictions, to be respected by all parties, upon pain of savage and immediate recrimination. As things stand it falls to the adherents of the other tradition to demonstrate due parity of esteem, the absence of which renders further dialogue useless.
I remember hearing a comment a few years back that you couldn't set up a decent song session in Glasgow without the "fekin' fiddlers" showing up and ruining it.
The best way to start a singing session in a pub is to start playing an instrument. A selection of reels and a few jigs and everyone wants to sing. I don't mind the odd song and I'm guilty of doing a 'recitation' myself (if called) but what really annoys me and sends me out for a fag, even though I don't smoke, is the guy who takes over the session and appoints himself as MC. As for the singers who insist on singing to each other, I love the bit where they hold hands and pump like crazy....Oops...I'm back to the 'fag' bit again!!!!!!!!!!!
Song probably does have a place in a session but the problem we have here is that if someone asks a singer to sing they are liable to ask someone else to sing and so on. Next thing you see the musicians pack up their gear.
On another related subject, I have been to a session where a storyteller told a few fantastic stories and that really lifted the whole feeling of the session. Even the tunes worked better after!
Packed up last week in our session even though it was a 'farewell'' session to our bozouki player. The evening started off with a couple of nice sets of jigs and reels and everyone was really enjoying it and then in came the maudling drunk Dublin ballad fans and out wheeled Molly Malone, Green Fields of France etc. etc ad nauseum. Swaying drunkards high on their own sentimentality. It went on endlessly. Don't get me wrong, I like the odd song. They tend to allow me a much needed opportunity to practise some variations as they're so much slower and less note-dense. One drunken biddy even started calling me an "arsehole" because I wouldn't join in on 'The Wild Rover'! I had to leave or I was in serious danger of sponatneously combusting. A wonderful start and a dirge at the end. Frustrating as hell.
Let's not get too carried away in murdering the singers. THE most touching session in my whole life, and I may have mentioned this before, was at the Fleadh in Enniscorthy, maybe 1999 or 2000 . Myself and another flute player from Belfast had inadvertantly stumbled upon this session which was in what looked like someone's kitchen, possibly "converted" into a pub for the duration of the fleadh. We gave the tunes a rest so we could give it all over to the singers - who happened to be all local septo- octo- and I suspect even nono-genarians, who took great pride in singing very old local songs, for hours on end. We just sat, shutted up and listened. Fortunately my erstwhile companion was sufficiently coppped-on as I to know the score and kept shut-up amidst these proceedings - more so, I'd admit.
The old gents and ladies sang some wonderful ancient songs but the main thing I remember was the social interaction. Whilst singing a singer would not only be held by the hands (both hands, by several adherents), but hands would be laid on the backs, chests (men only of course), thighs and so on, and big manly/womanly cuddles, also calls of "Go on Johnny" "ya boy ye" and similar to the point that one couldn't follow the words of the song. Posssibly the most profound session experience I have ever witnessed.
Funny that at sessions full of dance music with no one dancing that anyone would get upset about singing some music not meant for dancing, I mean, nobody's dancing anyway, right? [snickers, apologizes to flogged dead horse, sneaks out of thread]
Tonight, I'll be at a place where sometimes you have songs from half a dozen singers and sometimes you don't hear a song at all, and it's always a great session.
My view is, if people can't appreciate a good song well sung when it fits into the flow of a session - ie, comes at a lull, not in the full spate of the tunes, and ends before it wears out its welcome - then I'm at the wrong session. And if nobody in the room can pull off a song in this manner, I'm definitely at the wrong session. Not everybody has to be a singer, but if there's a bunch of people who play tunes and none of them have any interest in songs, that's not a good sign at all.
agree with the anti-sh*te ballads sentiment
agree with the tasteful inclusion of a sean-nos song or two
a good comic song is enjoyable once in a while, too.
agree that a session should be fun. disagree that shouting wild rover or fields of athenry at the top of your drunken lungs constitutes anything resembling "fun". we musos are allowed to have our preferences about what we will or will not tolerate.
"I used to like some songs. I am getting a little tired of them at our particular sessions. The annoying singer tends to want to conduct the thing-"Join in now"..."slow down here"..."ready! The big finish!!!"...all with the words read from a paper."
Sounds like the sort of behaviour you'd have at a beginner or slow session. Which session does this happen at? You wouldn't get something like that at an advanced session like Conor O'Neil's.
I like singing at tune sessions, but the best singers have to be asked (sometimes repeatedly!) to sing. This is the way it should be I think.
feardearg - other than the rotten mood, how are ya? - I miss seeing you guys, but am caught up in my own particular weirdness. As usual. I missed that "conducting" episode - not someone rehearsing a band, perchance? I'm sure the dear fellow will calm down, eventually.
Nico - a certain session leader there made the suggestion a few weeks ago that we needed more songs. I wish that I'd been able to whip something out, but too many cigarettes and fighting this fecking virus that I can't seem to shake... but like you, I like a few songs; it depends upon the singer. I also like to play for the kids that want to dance.
Introduce yourself sometime; I'm usually playing a beat-up old Martin, or the piano (when I feel like dragging it down there).
Bogman/zippy - don't even get me going - IMHO, fiddle players are the worst. I've been in performance situations and in pit bands for plays, and have heard too many commercial recordings of singer-songwriter types, where they just go on auto pilot and saw along, doing nothing to support the tune or anything else. Just that "Ole-timey fiddle" stench... and the pedal steel...well...
I'm supposed to be working today. Can anyone tell? Cheers,
Tom
"No problem, surely. All the fretniks in trad cut their teeth on The Beatles"
That's one of the things I have problems with, nicholas!
Even some highly gifted and talented musos, who would not tolerate any tunes which are not ITM or very similar, revert to their poppy history, or worse, singer-songwriter tortured angst when singing. In these cases, I would prefer not to have songs.
A few traditional folk songs, on the other hand, would always enhance a session for me.
I don't mind a few songs at a session so long as they are decent songs and sung by decent singers. All too often I have been in a situation where the singers took over the session and it became a song circle, interrupted by the occasional set of tunes. If that is the case you can't ever get your groove on. There are song sessions in town -- if you want to have a song circle and not be bothered listening to tunes (hey, not everyone likes tunes) go to one of those. There is a time and place for everything.
Songs in Sessions
Songs in Sessions
A good or bad thing? What about songs in Irish? Poems, even?
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by RadagastTheBrown
Re: Songs in Sessions
Always a welcome thing in my experience. Even better in Irish or macaronic versions. Poems are a bit more difficult to pull off I think. Unless it's of the amusing recitation/slightly bawdy variety. I vote good thing.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Songs in Sessions
I always like to have one, maybe even a few, more than other sessions, more than likely. Do you sing? Go ahead and give us a song.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Songs in Sessions
I think it's nice to have variety. Was very surprised at the amount of musicians who seem to object to songs of any kind in a session, on principle. I am not a singer but always like to hear them....
Once or twice I have heard Irish poetry recited in sessions.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by RadagastTheBrown
Re: Songs in Sessions
If strategically placed, and/or mostly at the end of general proceedings seems to be the unwritten thingy in most sessions I've attended. When you get a string of 3+ songs then it turns into a drunken rabble with the wild rover and fields of athenrye popping their heads up willy-nilly. Only to be rescued by a concerted effort of strong tunes by strong players. I vote maybe.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by Rudall the time
Re: Songs in Sessions
Traditional songs are welcome at sessions I play at and indeed encouraged if a good singer happens to pop in. Come-all-ye's, as in Fields of Ath, Molly Malone a definate no-no! Leave them for the match!
I hate when musicians talk through a solo ballad or sean-nós song. Or when they pop out for a smoke in the middle. We can be the rudest types sometimes.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by iwerzon
Re: Songs in Sessions
What's the difference between talking through a song and talking through a tune? I've never been able to understand that one. And why can't musicians play solo tunes at sessions (not that I particularly want to)? Singers manage to get away with it. Just asking . . .
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by McDermott
Re: Songs in Sessions
I don't really like it. It turns the session into a performance. I always talk through them.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by ...
Re: Songs in Sessions
What I hate about songs at sessions is that they attract diddlers, folk who insist on playing fiddle or other tune instrument right through them whether they know what's going on or not, usually if not always to greatly weakening effect. One subtle lead instrument where the player knows the song and knows when not to play is fine but usually there's a rabble. So for me no songs at all rather than listen to a clashing irritating burach.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by bogman
Re: Songs in Sessions
It is a nice change of pace.
I agree with Bogman on the 'noodlers' who don't practice enough or have the you-know what's to get up and play/sing/read, but try to hang around the edges-usually poorly and annoyingly- of the person who does.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Songs in Sessions
You are in a pub after all. Now ssshhh be quiet while I sing ye a 15-verse ballad about the miners or some bint called Mary who's waiting for Jonnie to come back from o'er the sea. Actually I might just pop out for a fag o, a fag o, a fag o, or p'rhaps I'll have a wazz o, a wazz o, a wazz o . . .
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by McDermott
Re: Songs in Sessions
Remember, these are the same people who noodle through the tunes. Bannish them
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by ...
Re: Songs in Sessions
"I always talk through them"
...and you'd get a sharp elbow from me if it was someone I wanted to hear...
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by kennedy
Re: Songs in Sessions
One or two songs can go down nicely. However, Irish session audiences/players seem to have lost the ability to listen for more than a few minutes and the singing is drowned out by people talking.
This brings to mind a story: I was at a session in Hughes's Pub in Spiddal some years ago; this large Australian arrived in dressed in Crocodile Dundee hat and and shorts and carrying a guitar. He then proceeded, uninvited, to work his way through (you've guessed it, Waltzing Matilda) and a few songs he regarded as being suitably Irish before eventually being told, not too politely, to leave!
A good singer with an appropriate song makes for a nice change of pace in a session. I'm all for it.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by amhrán
Re: Songs in Sessions
a few are ok with me- so long as they are somewhat ITM material- sessions that degenerate to a bunch of geetar players wailing about motels and trucks and bibles on the other hand........
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by fiddlinfarmer
Re: Songs in Sessions
I used to like some songs. I am getting a little tired of them at our particular sessions. The annoying singer tends to want to conduct the thing-"Join in now"..."slow down here"..."ready! The big finish!!!"...all with the words read from a paper. Those are the times I wish I had a trumpet to noodle a little accompaniment.
Sorry. I am in a rotten mood.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by feardearg
Re: Songs in Sessions
I don't even understand why the question should be asked?
Why in shouldn't singing be allowed in a session???
A session is not a sacred gathering. It's meant to be fun.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by Dennis Regan
Re: Songs in Sessions
Occasionally, for a change of pace, sure. But in my neck of the woods (say, a 30-mile radius) there are about a dozen weekly open mics for singers--and only one Irish tune session, which meets only twice monthly.
So I really think the singers should go to the open mics instead, and let us have our chance to play tunes.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by John Galt
Re: Songs in Sessions
Feardearg you could always borrow the bell from behind the bar. A little campanology never did a body no harm.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by McDermott
Re: Songs in Sessions
Motels and trucks and bibles I can hack, they are enticing views into an exhilarating and exotic culture, it's dismal caterwaulings about relationships I can't hack.
I like songs which aren't ancient or modern dirges and are sung by a singer who's definitely good, which excludes about 85% of them. The others see me shamming death - which, incidentally, is how compulsory guests are said to have found escape from Nero's interminable recitals, i.e. by feigning death and being carried out.
I like to join in on the box because it gives me a chance to fantasise I am De Dannan accompanying their splendid crop of girl singers. (My life is so humdrum...) With the box, you can test the waters quietly - with the whistle you can't, and have to be that much more sure of what you're doing.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Songs in Sessions
Dennis, I think most sacred gatherings have a few songs thrown in.
Would you be up for a few Beatles songs in the session? Yellow Submarine is fun.
# Posted on March 24th 2009 by grego
Re: Songs in Sessions
Has anyone ever been to one of these "song sessions" or "singers clubs", where a bunch a folk without instruments gather, usually in a pub, and take turns singing songs at each other? I have. They wouldn't let you play a tune on your fiddle there though, it's singing or nothing. So I'd have to say that, in the face of such a non-reciprocal stance, we are beholden to defend the dignity of our respective art, and must insist on a clear demarcation of jurisdictions, to be respected by all parties, upon pain of savage and immediate recrimination. As things stand it falls to the adherents of the other tradition to demonstrate due parity of esteem, the absence of which renders further dialogue useless.
I'm also against singing in the shower.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Hammurabi Breathnach
Re: Songs in Sessions
I remember hearing a comment a few years back that you couldn't set up a decent song session in Glasgow without the "fekin' fiddlers" showing up and ruining it.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by grego
Re: Songs in Sessions
I have an open mic night in my shower sometimes. At least you don't have to come out from behind the curtain when you sing.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by McDermott
Re: Songs in Sessions
Beatles songs??
Yep, no problem.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Dennis Regan
Re: Songs in Sessions
No problem, surely. All the fretniks in trad cut their teeth on The Beatles.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Songs in Sessions
The best way to start a singing session in a pub is to start playing an instrument. A selection of reels and a few jigs and everyone wants to sing. I don't mind the odd song and I'm guilty of doing a 'recitation' myself (if called) but what really annoys me and sends me out for a fag, even though I don't smoke, is the guy who takes over the session and appoints himself as MC. As for the singers who insist on singing to each other, I love the bit where they hold hands and pump like crazy....Oops...I'm back to the 'fag' bit again!!!!!!!!!!!
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Songs in Sessions
Song probably does have a place in a session but the problem we have here is that if someone asks a singer to sing they are liable to ask someone else to sing and so on. Next thing you see the musicians pack up their gear.
On another related subject, I have been to a session where a storyteller told a few fantastic stories and that really lifted the whole feeling of the session. Even the tunes worked better after!
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Donough
Re: Songs in Sessions
Packed up last week in our session even though it was a 'farewell'' session to our bozouki player. The evening started off with a couple of nice sets of jigs and reels and everyone was really enjoying it and then in came the maudling drunk Dublin ballad fans and out wheeled Molly Malone, Green Fields of France etc. etc ad nauseum. Swaying drunkards high on their own sentimentality. It went on endlessly. Don't get me wrong, I like the odd song. They tend to allow me a much needed opportunity to practise some variations as they're so much slower and less note-dense. One drunken biddy even started calling me an "arsehole" because I wouldn't join in on 'The Wild Rover'! I had to leave or I was in serious danger of sponatneously combusting. A wonderful start and a dirge at the end. Frustrating as hell.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Mac Donn
Re: Songs in Sessions
Let's not get too carried away in murdering the singers. THE most touching session in my whole life, and I may have mentioned this before, was at the Fleadh in Enniscorthy, maybe 1999 or 2000 . Myself and another flute player from Belfast had inadvertantly stumbled upon this session which was in what looked like someone's kitchen, possibly "converted" into a pub for the duration of the fleadh. We gave the tunes a rest so we could give it all over to the singers - who happened to be all local septo- octo- and I suspect even nono-genarians, who took great pride in singing very old local songs, for hours on end. We just sat, shutted up and listened. Fortunately my erstwhile companion was sufficiently coppped-on as I to know the score and kept shut-up amidst these proceedings - more so, I'd admit.
The old gents and ladies sang some wonderful ancient songs but the main thing I remember was the social interaction. Whilst singing a singer would not only be held by the hands (both hands, by several adherents), but hands would be laid on the backs, chests (men only of course), thighs and so on, and big manly/womanly cuddles, also calls of "Go on Johnny" "ya boy ye" and similar to the point that one couldn't follow the words of the song. Posssibly the most profound session experience I have ever witnessed.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Rudall the time
Re: Songs in Sessions
Funny that at sessions full of dance music with no one dancing that anyone would get upset about singing some music not meant for dancing, I mean, nobody's dancing anyway, right? [snickers, apologizes to flogged dead horse, sneaks out of thread]
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Songs in Sessions
Tonight, I'll be at a place where sometimes you have songs from half a dozen singers and sometimes you don't hear a song at all, and it's always a great session.
My view is, if people can't appreciate a good song well sung when it fits into the flow of a session - ie, comes at a lull, not in the full spate of the tunes, and ends before it wears out its welcome - then I'm at the wrong session. And if nobody in the room can pull off a song in this manner, I'm definitely at the wrong session. Not everybody has to be a singer, but if there's a bunch of people who play tunes and none of them have any interest in songs, that's not a good sign at all.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Songs in Sessions
agree with the anti-sh*te ballads sentiment
agree with the tasteful inclusion of a sean-nos song or two
a good comic song is enjoyable once in a while, too.
agree that a session should be fun. disagree that shouting wild rover or fields of athenry at the top of your drunken lungs constitutes anything resembling "fun". we musos are allowed to have our preferences about what we will or will not tolerate.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Songs in Sessions
Feardearg, I always thought that singing from a lyric sheet was much like playing from the dots -- if you don't know it, don't sing it.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by fidkid
Re: Songs in Sessions
"I used to like some songs. I am getting a little tired of them at our particular sessions. The annoying singer tends to want to conduct the thing-"Join in now"..."slow down here"..."ready! The big finish!!!"...all with the words read from a paper."
Sounds like the sort of behaviour you'd have at a beginner or slow session. Which session does this happen at? You wouldn't get something like that at an advanced session like Conor O'Neil's.
I like singing at tune sessions, but the best singers have to be asked (sometimes repeatedly!) to sing. This is the way it should be I think.
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by Nico
Re: Songs in Sessions
If Christy Moore turned up where I play, the last thing he'd want to do would be to sing. And asking him wouldn't make his singing any more likely
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by ...
Re: Songs in Sessions
He wouldn't play the bodhran either
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by ...
Re: Songs in Sessions
feardearg - other than the rotten mood, how are ya? - I miss seeing you guys, but am caught up in my own particular weirdness. As usual. I missed that "conducting" episode - not someone rehearsing a band, perchance? I'm sure the dear fellow will calm down, eventually.
Nico - a certain session leader there made the suggestion a few weeks ago that we needed more songs. I wish that I'd been able to whip something out, but too many cigarettes and fighting this fecking virus that I can't seem to shake... but like you, I like a few songs; it depends upon the singer. I also like to play for the kids that want to dance.
Introduce yourself sometime; I'm usually playing a beat-up old Martin, or the piano (when I feel like dragging it down there).
Bogman/zippy - don't even get me going - IMHO, fiddle players are the worst. I've been in performance situations and in pit bands for plays, and have heard too many commercial recordings of singer-songwriter types, where they just go on auto pilot and saw along, doing nothing to support the tune or anything else. Just that "Ole-timey fiddle" stench... and the pedal steel...well...
I'm supposed to be working today. Can anyone tell? Cheers,
Tom
# Posted on March 25th 2009 by tomw
Re: Songs in Sessions
At our local sessions, we like an occasional (emphasis on "occasional") song because it adds some variety.
# Posted on March 26th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Songs in Sessions
"No problem, surely. All the fretniks in trad cut their teeth on The Beatles"
That's one of the things I have problems with, nicholas!
Even some highly gifted and talented musos, who would not tolerate any tunes which are not ITM or very similar, revert to their poppy history, or worse, singer-songwriter tortured angst when singing. In these cases, I would prefer not to have songs.
A few traditional folk songs, on the other hand, would always enhance a session for me.
# Posted on March 26th 2009 by oldstrings
Re: Songs in Sessions
I don't mind a few songs at a session so long as they are decent songs and sung by decent singers. All too often I have been in a situation where the singers took over the session and it became a song circle, interrupted by the occasional set of tunes. If that is the case you can't ever get your groove on. There are song sessions in town -- if you want to have a song circle and not be bothered listening to tunes (hey, not everyone likes tunes) go to one of those. There is a time and place for everything.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by DrSilverSpear