The Session >> Discussions >> Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Comments
Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I hired a couple of soccer/futbol/football instructors visiting from Scotland (Perth) to watch my three boys for a few days during a school break. The young lads are over here conducting soccer camps and doing some sight-seeing. Imagine my delight when one of the guys walks in with a small case and a set of pipes on the first day.
Needless to say a wee session broke out and I was nearly an hour and a half late to work as a result. Well worth it -
Anyone else have a story where a chance meeting turns into a session in a random location?
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I was out raking leaves in the yard one day when a guy came up peddling children's books. But before he sold me anything, he noticed the tee shirt I was wearing had a fiddle on it. In a thick Glaswegian accent he asked if I played fiddle.
Turned out he was a student of Angus Grant and studying traditional music in school. He knew a good batch of Irish tunes and so I pulled out a second fiddle and we played tunes for a couple hours in my kitchen.
And I bought about $40 worth of books from him too.
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I was playing a really fast reel on one of those ridiculous mini electronic keyboards with teeny-tiny keys, which for some reason was on a music stall at a festival. Some guy just walked up, shouted 'Hey!', grabbed a concertina off the wall and joined in. The stall holder wasn't too impressed - he'd grabbed the most expensive one with the sterling silver endpieces - but at least she let us finish the set...
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I was playing a session in the town of Muff in Co Donegal (leave the Muff jokes till later folks) one night, we went into a cafe across the road for something to eat when a man who was just passing with an accordian called in for a bite himself. He saw us wih the instruments and without saying a word whipped out the accordian and started playing, and without saying anything ourselves we joined in. Sure t'would be bad manners not to
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
As a summer job this year, I worked as a guide at a historic site, and I usually kept around an instrument to play when times were slow.
So, this one day, two fellas walk in, and the other guide and I give them a tour, all the while asking them questions about where they were from, what they'd done on their vacation etc.
So, before long, it comes out that they're brothers, and they both play traditional music, and that they've got a set of small pipes and a mandolin in the car. So, I grabbed my flute, the other guide grabbed his bodhran, and, as the rest of the afternoon proved to be pretty slow, the four of us spent the next hour playing tunes.
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I don't really have any stories about how a chance meeting turns into a session. But how about a whole musical career? Tony DeMarco tells the story of how he got into Irish music. He was sitting on a Brooklyn park bench one day, practicing some American folk music, and by walks Paddy Reynolds, who says "why don't you come up to the house, and I'll show you some good Irish tunes...". And as they say, the rest is history.
As a sidebar, the picture on the cover of his Sligo Indian's CD was taken on a park bench, as a tribute to that moment. (Not sure it's the same park bench, though...)
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
There's a regular session near Brisbane (Straya, for those who don't know... in a cafe on a Friday night, and we tend to leave the doors open for a cooling breeze. One night two rather sheepish tourists turned up at around 10 o'clock.
They'd driven up from Sydney that day, which had taken them about 10 hours, and they happened to have checked in to the hotel directly opposite the cafe. In fact, they were getting ready for bed in the room whose window directly faced the open doorway. The wife was in her nightgown, brushing her teeth when she said to her husband "someone's playing traditional music somewhere!".
They'd stuck their heads out of the window, picked up the music on the breeze, got dressed again and brought their instruments over. Ten minutes before they'd been yawning and looking forward to falling into bed...but they still managed a fair few tunes before they called it a night.
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Just remembered a time years ago. I was playing tunes on my fiddle in a laundromat, in a small town in western Oregon. I was the only person in the place, which I thought was odd for a Saturday morning. As I sat and played, looking out the window, people started walking by, out in the street. Most were dressed up in odd costumes, and a few rode in horse-drawn wagons or vintage cars. Then I heard fiddles, a whole band of them, and it finally dawned on me this was a parade. The fiddlers were all kids, riding on a hay wagon, and they were all playing Red Haired Boy as a swingy hornpipe (rather than the smoothed out, sped up hoedown often heard here in the States). I stepped outside and played along as they went by, and they all turned in surprise, but they didn't miss a note. After they passed, I went back inside to move the wash into the dryer. About 15 minutes later, the whole crew of fiddlers came piling in the door with parents in tow and we played all the "Celtic" tunes they knew--Flowers of Edinburgh, Jackie Tar, Harvest Home, Boys of Bluehill, etc. Good fun.
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Well, the missus has got her first formal piping lesson tomorrow night - her teacher is the pipe major of the local pipe & drum band - so we live in hope...
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I have two favorite impromptu sessions. One was in the Shannon terminal at 0-dark-30, waiting for the plane to take us home (or somewhere nearer home) from the fleadh. I suppose this has happened multiple times, but it sure was fun.
Then there was the audition for Busch Gardens, which was opening "Ireland". (Hey, it was a chance to get paid for playing Irish music!) Six of us showed up, along with college students auditioning for the Bavarian band, dancers, etc. I knew the fiddler, who knew the bouzouki player and me. The bouzouki player knew the bodhran player and the fiddler, and no one knew the whistle player or the accordionist. As the wait to be called was hours long, a session happened. We went on for over 2 hours before I was called in. And the committee asked "So, how long has your band been playing together?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busch_Gardens_Williamsburg
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
On the Thursday night that the snow fell last winter I left the Hammersmith Belushi's at about 2am. Some people who more then likely played the irish centre earlier had gathered outside. The music started, and various people started dancing. It lasted about 45 mins and was quite a surreal sight in the snow.
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Closest experience I had was actually when I was shopping for my fiddle. My main instrument being viola, the parents decided to get me a cheap violin for xmas one year.
I went in the store, and since I most of the classical peices I had memorised hadn't stuck, I ended up playing a few tunes a fellow orchestra member had taught me. A luthier working in the back heard me and rushed out front and started playing along. We played the two or three tunes I knew and I traded to play on the instrument he had been working on in the back.
The cool thing about this is I ended up buying the violin he was working out. It ended up being a great deal, got it at discount, and I think it sounds too good for the price I paid. I'm bad at decisions so it's just amazing that the right fiddle almost dropped right into in my lap.
Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I hired a couple of soccer/futbol/football instructors visiting from Scotland (Perth) to watch my three boys for a few days during a school break. The young lads are over here conducting soccer camps and doing some sight-seeing. Imagine my delight when one of the guys walks in with a small case and a set of pipes on the first day.
Needless to say a wee session broke out and I was nearly an hour and a half late to work as a result. Well worth it -
Anyone else have a story where a chance meeting turns into a session in a random location?
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I was out raking leaves in the yard one day when a guy came up peddling children's books. But before he sold me anything, he noticed the tee shirt I was wearing had a fiddle on it. In a thick Glaswegian accent he asked if I played fiddle.
Turned out he was a student of Angus Grant and studying traditional music in school. He knew a good batch of Irish tunes and so I pulled out a second fiddle and we played tunes for a couple hours in my kitchen.
And I bought about $40 worth of books from him too.
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I was playing a really fast reel on one of those ridiculous mini electronic keyboards with teeny-tiny keys, which for some reason was on a music stall at a festival. Some guy just walked up, shouted 'Hey!', grabbed a concertina off the wall and joined in. The stall holder wasn't too impressed - he'd grabbed the most expensive one with the sterling silver endpieces - but at least she let us finish the set...
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by bc_box_player
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I was playing a session in the town of Muff in Co Donegal (leave the Muff jokes till later folks) one night, we went into a cafe across the road for something to eat when a man who was just passing with an accordian called in for a bite himself. He saw us wih the instruments and without saying a word whipped out the accordian and started playing, and without saying anything ourselves we joined in. Sure t'would be bad manners not to
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by banjo'd
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
As a summer job this year, I worked as a guide at a historic site, and I usually kept around an instrument to play when times were slow.
So, this one day, two fellas walk in, and the other guide and I give them a tour, all the while asking them questions about where they were from, what they'd done on their vacation etc.
So, before long, it comes out that they're brothers, and they both play traditional music, and that they've got a set of small pipes and a mandolin in the car. So, I grabbed my flute, the other guide grabbed his bodhran, and, as the rest of the afternoon proved to be pretty slow, the four of us spent the next hour playing tunes.
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by dannym
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I don't really have any stories about how a chance meeting turns into a session. But how about a whole musical career? Tony DeMarco tells the story of how he got into Irish music. He was sitting on a Brooklyn park bench one day, practicing some American folk music, and by walks Paddy Reynolds, who says "why don't you come up to the house, and I'll show you some good Irish tunes...". And as they say, the rest is history.
As a sidebar, the picture on the cover of his Sligo Indian's CD was taken on a park bench, as a tribute to that moment. (Not sure it's the same park bench, though...)
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by Reverend
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
There's a regular session near Brisbane (Straya, for those who don't know...
in a cafe on a Friday night, and we tend to leave the doors open for a cooling breeze. One night two rather sheepish tourists turned up at around 10 o'clock.
They'd driven up from Sydney that day, which had taken them about 10 hours, and they happened to have checked in to the hotel directly opposite the cafe. In fact, they were getting ready for bed in the room whose window directly faced the open doorway. The wife was in her nightgown, brushing her teeth when she said to her husband "someone's playing traditional music somewhere!".
They'd stuck their heads out of the window, picked up the music on the breeze, got dressed again and brought their instruments over. Ten minutes before they'd been yawning and looking forward to falling into bed...but they still managed a fair few tunes before they called it a night.
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by bc_box_player
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Just remembered a time years ago. I was playing tunes on my fiddle in a laundromat, in a small town in western Oregon. I was the only person in the place, which I thought was odd for a Saturday morning. As I sat and played, looking out the window, people started walking by, out in the street. Most were dressed up in odd costumes, and a few rode in horse-drawn wagons or vintage cars. Then I heard fiddles, a whole band of them, and it finally dawned on me this was a parade. The fiddlers were all kids, riding on a hay wagon, and they were all playing Red Haired Boy as a swingy hornpipe (rather than the smoothed out, sped up hoedown often heard here in the States). I stepped outside and played along as they went by, and they all turned in surprise, but they didn't miss a note. After they passed, I went back inside to move the wash into the dryer. About 15 minutes later, the whole crew of fiddlers came piling in the door with parents in tow and we played all the "Celtic" tunes they knew--Flowers of Edinburgh, Jackie Tar, Harvest Home, Boys of Bluehill, etc. Good fun.
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Well, the missus has got her first formal piping lesson tomorrow night - her teacher is the pipe major of the local pipe & drum band - so we live in hope...
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Best Session I have ever been in - Where one's NOT !arranged,,
jim,,,
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
I have two favorite impromptu sessions. One was in the Shannon terminal at 0-dark-30, waiting for the plane to take us home (or somewhere nearer home) from the fleadh. I suppose this has happened multiple times, but it sure was fun.
Then there was the audition for Busch Gardens, which was opening "Ireland". (Hey, it was a chance to get paid for playing Irish music!) Six of us showed up, along with college students auditioning for the Bavarian band, dancers, etc. I knew the fiddler, who knew the bouzouki player and me. The bouzouki player knew the bodhran player and the fiddler, and no one knew the whistle player or the accordionist. As the wait to be called was hours long, a session happened. We went on for over 2 hours before I was called in. And the committee asked "So, how long has your band been playing together?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busch_Gardens_Williamsburg
# Posted on October 19th 2010 by Tracie
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
On the Thursday night that the snow fell last winter I left the Hammersmith Belushi's at about 2am. Some people who more then likely played the irish centre earlier had gathered outside. The music started, and various people started dancing. It lasted about 45 mins and was quite a surreal sight in the snow.
# Posted on October 20th 2010 by Sean Knows
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Closest experience I had was actually when I was shopping for my fiddle. My main instrument being viola, the parents decided to get me a cheap violin for xmas one year.
I went in the store, and since I most of the classical peices I had memorised hadn't stuck, I ended up playing a few tunes a fellow orchestra member had taught me. A luthier working in the back heard me and rushed out front and started playing along. We played the two or three tunes I knew and I traded to play on the instrument he had been working on in the back.
The cool thing about this is I ended up buying the violin he was working out. It ended up being a great deal, got it at discount, and I think it sounds too good for the price I paid. I'm bad at decisions so it's just amazing that the right fiddle almost dropped right into in my lap.
# Posted on October 20th 2010 by banshee misfortune
Re: Don't you love it when a chance meeting turns into an impromptu session?
Mike, the universe will provide.... (perhaps I've been living in Nimbin too long!)
I'll bet the luthier was really pleased his creation was going to be used for the music he loves.
# Posted on October 22nd 2010 by bc_box_player