Just a bit of retrospective musing, a propos of nothing much, certainly not intended as a ‘how big is yours?’ type discussion; your thoughts appreciated...
Summer holiday this year was spent in Scotland. I managed to play four sessions in just over a week, two pre-arranged and two from invitations received at the other two; could have done a couple of others from offers received, had time permitted. One was in Plockton, two in Edinburgh and one in Glasgow, all predominantly Irish music. I also went to one other session in Edinburgh, not as a player.
I had the mandolin with me, and the bouzouki as stand-by.
I’m not embarrassed to say that in those five evenings, I recognised only a handful of tunes to playable level, plus a few others at listening level. While I am reasonable at picking up tunes quite quickly, I wasn’t about to risk it on the fly, especially as I was already a bit nervous about goofing up. Luckily (?) I was able to listen hard enough to put some reasonable (or at least inoffensive) bouzouki behind a fair number of tunes – I hope Emily would agree with that – and to start a few sets myself (I chose very safe...) I would still have preferred to play more tunes though...
Quick calculation might conservatively estimate between one and two hundred tunes heard/played over those four evenings, which makes for a pretty poor recognition-rate.
Last time I made a list it had about 400 tunes on it, though I have since found I left off a fair few. Not massive I know, but not inconsiderable either. I normally know a fair selection of tunes heard in sessions round here (S.E. England). I also try to vary what I play from just the old standards, so I have a decent selection, i.e not just the old cliches that are known everywhere. Even so, I was disappointed not to know more than I did in Scotland.
Is this just a matter of numerical odds being stacked against me here, or is there anything else to it? To what extent do favoured tunes vary from region to region? Do the hot-beds tend to favour more unknown tunes simply by dint of play-frequency? Have other people found the same thing, and what else to do about it in such one-off situations (except leave )...?
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I think there is a rather extensive repertoire of "session" tunes that people who have played in a lot of sessions for a number of years will know. You've said on the board that you only started playing in sessions a couple years ago and have otherwise played by yourself, so it's understandable that you wouldn't have all those tunes which you'd pretty much pick up by playing in sessions.
The Oran Mor, for instance, plays from my perspective the most standard of standard session tunes, sometimes painfully so. If obscure tunes are being regularly started, myself and D are usually the perpetrators, and I only do it once or twice a night as I feel like a self-indulgent ass if I do it much more. At Plockton and at the session you went to in Bells, they don't play a hugely obscure repertoire, either. But if you're not familiar with the standard selection of tunes played in sessions everywhere, they would be obscure to you.
I have been to plenty of sessions where they play a properly obscure repertoire. The best thing to do, they are good players, is sit and listen. Nothing wrong with that.
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>>The best thing to do, they are good players, is sit and listen. Nothing wrong with that.
Fair point, Emily - as we did in The Captain's Bar. But for those of us in the ITM sticks, having a play in the 'promised land' is too good an opportunity to miss if possible. O.K., I know I labour that point, but take it from me, playing in those Scottish sessions was a world away from playing down here. No offence to my locals, of course, but...
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Back in June I played 5 or 6 sessions in one week in Counties Galway and Clare. I knew about 85% of the tunes played. In one or two of those sessions, it was nearly 100%.
Perhaps more significantly, I heard only a handful of tunes that I'd never heard before. (One at a session in Kiltomer, a cracking reel, that I picked up on the fly by the 3rd time around, as did the whistle player next to me, but I didn't get a name for it.)
My experience is that you really can't expect to visit an unfamiliar session and have much of their repertoire unless you yourself know well over 1,500 tunes.
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This is something i tell myself when my expectations get to high about anything. "If you don't expect anything, you won't be disappointing." So in this case, go into a session with the mindset of some good listening, and don't expect to play. That way when those tunes pop up that you do know, you'll be pleasantly surprised instead of dissappointed when they don't play all the tunes in your repertoire.
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There's a monthly session here in Vancouver where I often know less than 50% of the repertoire. When I visit the session in my parents' city (Ottawa) 3-4 times/year, I tend to know more - this past June I was able to play along with some 90% of their tunes, and my repertoire doesn't even come close to the 1500 Will cites. It's not that I've gone out of my way to learn the Ottawa tunes while ignoring the Vancouver ones. In fact, last month I commented at the Ottawa session that a staggering proportion of my repertoire represents tunes I learned in Vancouver but only ever hear at sessions in Ottawa!
I've been to sessions where I recognized very little, and played almost nothing. With rare exception, in each of those sessions there were several people in the same boat as me. (Then there was a bizarrely polarized session out of town that I attended, whose participants could be partitioned into two groups: every tune was played either by everyone in Group A, OR everyone in Group B, and never both. There were obviously some politics there, but I didn't stick around to find out the particulars.) Often, many of those people not participating much were locals. I don't think that a session should change its repertoire to accommodate beginners or visitors, but I do think that a good host recognizes when someone's sitting idle for long stretches, and throw them a bone by starting a set or two of less obscure tunes.
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Just another thought to add to the mix, not new, I know... picking up "session" tunes isn't so easy when you are limited to 12 or so per year - which is the frequency of my local. That's rather different from 52 sessions per year.
Yes it gives you more learning time between meets, but not the same as learning in situ...
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I more often than not only play a tune or two here and there when I am in a different session, not having a big repetoire. But listening can be so much fun, it doesn't really matter if I am not playing all the time. Better that than detract from things by noodling, after all, I wouldn't appreciate them doing the same if they visited our pub...
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To add to Will's story about sessions in Ireland, I would concur, since I was alongside him that week. I knew at least 70% of what came up during those sessions, and picked up a few more along the way. What's interesting to me is that it was a complete departure from my previous experience in Ireland, about 4 years ago, where I would say I knew about 30% of the tunes, and could play along with only about 3/4 of those.
I would attribute the jump to where I'm at, musically. I've only officially 'learned' maybe 120 tunes in that time, but it's not like I learned "exactly the right tunes", it's that my general familiarity with the music has increased by leaps and bounds, from complete immersion in the music. And I now play a lot of tunes that I never sat down and officially "learned". I've just picked them up over time. The lines between what I've "learned" and "never learned" have blurred significantly. At times, that can be really frustrating, when you used to know all the tunes you "know" inside and out. But it's also a really empowering feeling to get to the point where you've heard tunes enough that you know them, but don't have any idea whether you've actually ever played them before (or whether your lack of ability in playing them is just because you stink).
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Snapshot experiences of my own (and some collecting of statistics) suggest to me that Will's estimate of 1500 tunes to know a lot of the repertoire at "any random session" is probably a siginificant underestimate. With that number, you would indeed find sessions where you knew almost everything played, but you'd still find others where you only knew a few.
I've known a handful of players with repertoires that appear to be in the thousands. A couple of them are also good players, but a couple of them are dreadful clunkers. Fast, but clunkers.
And of course, to reiterate the well-known point, if you only know a couple of hundred but can play them with real musicality, you'll always be able to get a good slice of playing in, since people will be happy for you to start your own sets and listen if they don't know your particular selection. Just don't overdo it!
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I called in at a couple of Edinburgh sessions a few weeks ago (and very good they were too). Both of them had a good dose of scottish tunes that I recognised but didn't play, plus a fair number of tunes completely new to me (including an excellent set of scottish sounding jigs that I need to search out and learn). I guess my "hit rate" was less than 30% and I was pleased to find it that high. Both sesions were well worth going to for the listenening. Playing along to some was icing on the cake.
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TSS was on the right track. The 'normal' session repertoire is fairly extensive. OTOH it's not as big as you might think.
The way I reckon it goes (purely on the basis of guesswork, and generalising shamelessly here) is that, at any one time, the general repertoire of sessions which would cover most places would be about 1500 tunes. I and most of the pals I enjoy sessioning with have about 1500 tunes (I reckon). But they're not (quite) the same 1500 tunes that are the 'normal' session repertoire at any given time. Also, most sessions play an additional, more localised repertoire of tunes over and above the 'normal' repertoire. Add to this that the 'normal' repertoire is constantly changing and you have a lifetime of fun. Always chasing after that next 'must have' tune.
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T D & M
We visited a couple of Vancouver session while over from the UK . We found about least 90% overlap of tunes from home at one session, a bit less at the other. Small world!
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'The 'normal' session repertoire is fairly extensive. OTOH it's not as big as you might think.'
I think that strongly depends on where you are and who you play with. Over here you may get a whole run of nights with all tunes you know well enough and then all of a sudden a night that taps into a whole different vein (triggered by a visitor or whatever other reason) where it's all contrary and very unusual stuff (that everybody else seems to know anyhow).
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I think the idea of the "hit rate" is just not one that works for me. As I see it, at any given moment I'm either playing a tune, or I'm hearing a tune and getting the hang of how it goes, or I'm hearing a tune and learning how to hear it.
Unless the tune is one I just don't like (and there are a few of those, not a lot, but a few) then hearing it is good.
I can understand the idea of placing a higher value on the time spent actively playing, but look at it like this: if someone plays a tune that you don't know, it's likely a tune that you ought to know. So by actively listening to it and trying to get it into your head, you're eventually going to increase your "actively playing" time.
This doesn't help you when you go to a new session and sit down and play on two tunes all night, I guess, but that's just pride stinging you. Nobody else minds at all if you don't know the same tunes they do. (do you look down on people who don't know your entire repertoire? no? neither do they)
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I know that if I go 300 yards from my regular session pub, there's another one that plays mainly tunes I don't know ( apart from the time 4 of us went over from our regular session and we were the only ones there because there was a big event on somewhere else ), and this is not uncommon.
So, as has already been suggested, don't sweat it, don't panic, enjoy the craic, if it's a friendly session that lets you start tunes, then you can put in a few you know, run them up the flagpole and see who'll salute them.
There's far worse things then sitting in a bar listening to tunes you don't know. There's being frozen out of a session, for a start.
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Well maybe time and experience will change things on that front, Jon. "Hit rate" was just my shorthand for getting an idea across - agreed it's crude, but perhaps apt in the circumstances.
At present, I've just marked ONE year of regular sessioning, though bear in mind that means only twelve regulars plus a number of others, maybe 20 in total, which is but a drop in most people's oceans, of course. But it does mean that there is still the premium buzz attached to going somewhere different and (hopefully) being able to join in, especially given the rarity of such opportunities (maybe only every couple of years). Is it too daft to consider that playing in Scotland/Ireland and hopefully being accepted, marks some kind of validation in this music? Or at least a milestone on one's personal path?
In total, I have nowhere near enough exposure to build my repertoire based purely on sessioning, but that's just a cross I have to carry - it's why I generally look elsewhere for tunes, but not guaranteed to find the same ones that everyone else is playing! Six months ago, I asked (Llig) for the names of some common Edinburgh session tunes so I could prepare in advance, and at least have a chance. Nothing came of that, and the idea got generally rather rubbished. But this is why I did it.
I understand the advice about sitting out, and will do so in extremis, but given the rarity of the event and the 1300-mile round trip, I had still hoped to find a few more familiar ones.
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After the initial epiphany, "I know a lot of tunes!" and wee buzz you get out of that, you realize that you're not any more validated than you were when you knew very few tunes.
Pete (Reverend) made a very good point when he said that you acquire a big repertoire not by painstakingly learning every tune note for note, but by developing the ability to absorb ones you hear a lot and play them accurately (more or less) without having consciously crammed them into your head. That said, I still learn tunes at home, phrase for phrase, if I hear one played at a session or more likely these days, hear a recording of one I like (that invariably no one else plays), but I've picked up a lot of the more "standard" or commonly played tunes by just existing in the world and listening.
One wee bit of advice... hopefully you won't take it too harshly... but perhaps your tune-absorption rate would increase at sessions if you listened to a few more sets, rather than played the bouzouki on the tunes you didn't know. Your bouzouki playing was fine, but I imagine that if you're thinking, "What chord am I going to play next?" you're not listening as closely to the tune as you could be.
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"In total, I have nowhere near enough exposure to build my repertoire based purely on sessioning, but that's just a cross I have to carry - it's why I generally look elsewhere for tunes, but not guaranteed to find the same ones that everyone else is playing"
You know, I thought the same thing for a long time. After a while, I realized that I wasn't getting where I wanted to be that way, so I started acting as if I were able to do it. And you what? Once I decided I was going to be the sort of person who can pick up tunes on the go, I started hearing them.
Emily's right, too. If you're playing chords, it's hard to really hear the tune. If you're playing a more Alec Finn style, you can sort of discover bits of the tune as you go, but if you're playing chords it's a lot harder. I'd put it up and just listen for a while.
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Thanks Emily and Jon, some fair points. The trip, sessions and all, was a great and memorable experience. – despite the weather I really enjoyed the whole thing, and on purely personal criteria, it more than did the job. I know it is daft to feel one has something to ‘prove’ but that bit is entirely in my own head, though it was partly prompted by the drubbing I’ve received on here in the past year... The ‘validation’ bit was purely to do with being able to hack it in a session up there...Emily, the old guy playing the fiddle on my right, didn’t get his name, was quietly encouraging, which was nice. Several other people said nice things, which also meant a lot...
You’re right about the bouzouki – it had occurred anyway, though there’s a little more to it. On the one hand, I don’t need to think very much about the chords, and I had scaled back the infill stuff so as to have more ear-space for the tunes. I always do and always have worked back from the tunes, did so intuitively right from the start as a kid – this stuff about bashing out chords irrespective of the tune has always beggared my belief. On the other hand, the chance to try out the bouzouki in its own right, at some pace, was worth it. I’ve only had it a year, and I do like to be able to turn to some backing from time to time. Point still taken, though.
...and also taken about how to learn tunes, and that’s coming – I’m used to working that way from recordings in any case. But the chances of my doing so once-off, on the trip in question were slim and I think just being able to join in at all was the important thing for me this time round. Big repertoire is not important to me in itself – I would rather learn tunes I like and sit the others out. At my home session, some of the tunes are starting to ‘osmose’ like that, but as I said, once-a-month makes it a slow process...luckily the band guys are gradually providing some extra input on that front. Jon, point taken about actively deciding what to do, but I assume you would agree it is still essential to have sufficient opportunities to put plan into practice? That’s always an issue here.
The guys at one of the Edinburgh sessions let me run my recorder during the evening so I have a lot more tunes on there to listen through, but identifying them all is going to be another matter...Emily, would you care to shove me a few names from the Oran Mor session when you have a moment, please? Cheers.
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Ian, there's a number of reasons why I didn't give you a list of tunes. Most importantly, there is no way in the world that you'd learn the versions we play. And besides, the majority of the tunes we were playing 6 months ago are not the tunes we're playing now - and there would be no way I could have predicted what the minority are that we are still playing 6 months on. And besides, I'm not interested in playing with someone who wishes to "prove" their "validation".
(and besides, on a purely practical note, I don't know the names of most of 'em anyway)
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Llig, that wasn't a complaint, merely a statement of fact. I understand your reasons. I actually asked (IIRC) for the names of some tunes that were/are commonly played in Edinburgh, as a starting point.
What I need to 'validate' in my own head is surely my own business and surely not a reason to censure someone from playing in a session, so long as they can do the business. All I was doing was trying to improve my chances of doing it successfully.
I agree it's not an ideal approach, but just try having a little empathy for people who operate under different circumstances, please, for a moment.
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Ian, if Michael had given you a list of tunes commonly played in Edinburgh, it would have been irrelevant to the sessions you played with Duncan, as those guys play quite a different repertoire from Michael's Tuesday night crowd.
I probably could make a "list" for the Oran Mor, as the same tunes routinely get played every week. I'm not sure this is a good thing.
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I think that as far as lists of tunes to learn go, you can't go far wrong with Will's and Dow's. I don't think anyone could complain if someone new comes in and plays a couple of sets made from those lists. I'd certainly be more than happy to play along. I'd take it in the way it's given, an invitation for all to play along. And everyone plays their slightly different versions and the sound is a jolly sort of muffled contentment and general happiness and inclusivity abounds. Great. For a while anyway.
But there are sets you play with your mates that are honed. Not rehearsed at all in any formal sense, but you've spent a while really listening hard to how each other play and a sense of intense tightness takes it to somewhere beyond mere contentment. And then you get bored with them and don't play them again for ages.
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Crikey, this always gets so complicated! All I asked for was the names of a few tunes that I could do with knowing - just in the interest of widening my repertoire a bit, not a cast-iron guarantee that every one would always crop up everywhere I go...
Or are we basically saying that there is no way anyone can ever visit a session and hope to play anything, except by luck or having an encyclopaedic mind? I might as well give up now.
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"But there are sets you play with your mates that are honed. Not rehearsed at all in any formal sense, but you've spent a while really listening hard to how each other play and a sense of intense tightness takes it to somewhere beyond mere contentment. And then you get bored with them and don't play them again for ages."
In some places.: | I'd give a lot for a session like this. Such "intense tightness" is a real buzz.
Will's and Dow's lists pretty much cover what we play at the OM.
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Michael, I know that the regulars have their own routines, and there is little chance of any one-off outsider coping with all the ins and outs of that. I counted myself pretty lucky that Duncan and his mates were prepared to put up with me - they even asked me back . But I don't think I said anything about wanting to be the star attraction, or take over someone else's closed session, just improving my chances of being able to join in during open-ish sessions or where people will have me.
I don't want to labour the point, but I hope it is accepted by now that I am serious about my music, even if the views expressed aren't always congruent. How is anyone supposed to learn - especially those of us who don't have the same kind of local scene - if it all operates as such a closed shop?
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"Or are we basically saying that there is no way anyone can ever visit a session and hope to play anything, except by luck or having an encyclopaedic mind? I might as well give up now."
It's always going to be bit hit or miss when you walk into a strange session. That's part of the game. My repertoire's all right, but not long ago, we visited a session where some of the regulars appeared to be challenging one another to "who has the most obscure tunes and can play them the fastest." I must have played three sets all night.
In the meantime, the aforementioned lists are a great place to start and would get you through Oran Mor sessions no bother.
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You're not asking easy questions to answer. No one is trying to "close the shop doors."
Tunes tend to vary widely from session to session, or from night to night even in the same session.
Michael is not even likely to know what tunes Duncan and his pals are playing, as I never ever saw Michael in Bells on Monday nights.
That all said, people tend to be familiar with a lot of the tunes that were recorded by Planxty and the Bothy Band. They might not even like those groups, or have even listened to them, but quite a few of their tunes entered the stream of session repertoire. Similarly, a lot of tunes on Michael Coleman's recordings have entered the session repertoire even if the people who play them have no clue that Coleman was the first to record that set. I'd also suggest listening to Seamus Ennis' Return from Fingal and 40 Years of Irish Piping. Lots of common "session" tunes on those. And it's damned good music as well!
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Thanks Emily, I will indeed go to those lists, then. I don't disagree with your point above, but there's only one way to tackle it. I think you feel the 'stakes' are a bit higher when you rarely get the chance to play away from home...
Just to reiterate, I really enjoyed myself at the OM, as with all the sessions I (sort-of) played that week, so it's no big deal.
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Perhaps I also misunderstood the earlier comment about 'session tunes'. That seemed to me to imply a moderately discrete subset of the whole canon, i.e that which happens to be popular or current in a given place or time. As opposed, maybe, to tunes that happen not to find favour in the session setting. I can think of slow airs and perhaps set dances as not getting much airing.
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I'd have to agree that, as far as posts here go, Ian, it's looking like Michael's last sentence there is right.
I'm also disturbed by this notion that "there's only one way to tackle it". Tackle what, exactly? And what is that one way? If you're wanting to fit into sessions, well, it's a bit pot-luck when you're away from home, isn't it? How many times have you visited a strange city, sat on a bar-stool, and instantly had nice, pleasant conversation with the locals where everything you said and did blended in nicely? It usually helps if you share the same language and, if it's sessions you're interested in, then it's sessions where you're going to learn the relevant language.
It seems pointless to me to learn long lists of tunes. Particularly if you're just getting them in the form of lists of names and you're hoping to find some dots somewhere and then to fit in with how they're played in some strange place, in an environment that, by your own admission, is foreign to you in any case, wherever it is. Doing that is just a waste of time.
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No, Llig, the only thing that is important to me is that I feel happy with the music I am making.
But it's a learning process, so to some extent, that inevitably involves comparing where you are with where you want to be. That may well involve setting yourself some kind of objective or benchmark. I would call that a 'learning mindset', which can hardly be wrong. Don't tell me you never did that during your own development, or that your playing somehow magically just happened...
I won't remind you again why I might, however, be more conscious of that process than some.
The only 'stakes' I was referring to were a) a wish not to waste the relatively rare chances I had this summer to play in your neck of the woods, and b) not to muck it up for myself or others. Whether 'your neck of the woods' really is any big deal depends on who you are and where you come from, but from my persepctive, it was sufficiently different from what I am used to for me to think it is.
If I put too much emphasis on that, then I think some of the comments you, amonsgt others, have made to me over the past year may have something to do with it.
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EB, I have an uneasy feeling that this is headed in a familiar direction, and I have no wish nor intention of letting it go there... let’s just say there is more than one way to be active in this music, just as there is more than one way of learning it.
As I’ve said before, for music that is supposedly so much down to the individual, some people are all too keen to pass judgement on others ways just because they happen to be different.
>>Tackle what, exactly? And what is that one way?
If you have a repertoire that is too small to stand much chance of knowing the tunes, the only way is to increase the number of tunes you know. Seems fairly reasonable to me. I didn’t make any reference to how I would go about that, or in what time scale.
The best way to learn to speak a new language certainly is by going there and getting stuck in with the locals – when you have the chance – but in the meantime, the homework you do in advance can still help, and it can set you up with the basics.
There are many different ways of learning; personally I start from the grammar and move towards the idiom. Doesn’t work for everyone but it has always helped me.
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Llig, personally not, no - but how many comments have there been on here over the years expressing indignation about people who muscled in and ruined things?
For the record, the two sessions I set out to play were both invitations, albeit one by a person who then was not there in person himself (not you, Will )
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...and ruined things. Personally I start from the assumption that I am c**p, (are you listening, Emily? 8-D ) ably assisted by the comments I seem to elicit on here... it does kinda make you feel as though you have got to be extra-careful when you finally get out there... At least you can be pleasantly surprised when the glass turns out to be half-full...
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"Or are we basically saying that there is no way anyone can ever visit a session and hope to play anything, except by luck or having an encyclopaedic mind? I might as well give up now."
The primary thing I'd like to see come out of this conversation would be a change in the attitude underlying this. As I see it, the assumption here is that until you reach a point of mastery, there is no point in doing the thing at all.
There are a lot of tunes in the world, and if you have three or four or five hours in a night you can play a vanishingly small subset of them. I'll just pull some numbers from the air or somewhere like that: they are wrong, but illustrative.
Suppose that there are 10,000 distinct tunes the world. The reasonable estimates, I think, are a bit lower, but it's close enough.
Now suppose that your session averages 4 tunes in each five minutes, and someone is always playing, so that there are 48 tunes played in a given hour. That means that there are about 250 tunes played over the course of a five-hour session, if you are in such a paradise as to get five hours to play in.
Now you can do the obvious math and work out that if you go into this mammoth machine of a session and you know, say 400 tunes, you can expect to know about 10 of the tunes played on that night, and if you know 800 tunes you can expect to know about 20, and if you know 1200 tunes, you can expect to play on about 30.
And of course that's not the way it works out in the world, and the reason for that is obvious.
But the more interesting thing is: suppose you're a tune-learning machine and you learn a new tune every week. That would mean that if you were to go by the "learn the correct tunes" method, you'd have to spend five years learning the tunes that were "on the list" at this mythical session I've described, and of course they wouldn't be playing those tunes any more.
It's just not going to work out: mathematically, you've got the wrong approach. And, I think, you've also got an unproductive mindset for this: your goal is to play on every tune, more or less, and your way of achieving it is to learn the tunes that you expect to hear. The problem isn't with the method, although the method isn't going to work. The problem is with the goal.
Playing on every tune at a session that you haven't been to, and one that plays from a repertoire bigger than, say, the Bothy Band's and Planxty's recorded output, is the mark of a high level of achievement as a musician, and that's worth striving to, but it's not the only point of playing this music. If you'll only enjoy the music when you're there, you'll never reach there because you won't be enjoying yourself enough to notice when you've got there.
You seem to get frustrated in these discussions, because you feel you're asking a simple question and nobody seems to give you a straight answer, but the question isn't a simple one, and a straight answer would be wrong.
You're real good at thinking, so try to think your way out of this hole: mathematically speaking, if you learn a tune a week for 16 years, you're still likely to have not much better overall results dropping in at the mythical session - 30 tunes instead of 10 in the night, out of 250 played, that's not a great improvement for 16 years' work.
That's the hole you've put yourself in. There are wrong assumptions that lead you into it; find them and use them to climb back out, and try again.
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Great post, Jon.
Another wee analogy for you.
If I said that I wanted a French language book so I could learn French, and attain such a degree of fluency at it that I could have a very learned discussion of post-modernist French philosophy (like Foucault) with French philosophy PhD students, BUT I didn't want to or couldn't go to a French-speaking country for more than one week every couple of years, then you'd probably tell me that was a ludicrous idea. That even if I worked very hard from books and tapes, I might be able to have basic, functional conversations with people in France, but I would struggle to discuss Foucault and the archeology of knowledge with French philosophy students.
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I have been encouraged to post this little gem - one of my own making [polishes lapels with pride ]. i will post it without comment, at first. I may comment later. Maybe.
"I'd like to be able to do some rock-climbing with anyone in the world. Mind you, I'm not prepared to go and do any practice at it, or go and find anyone else who does any rock-climbing - I just thought I'd go through a few moves in my living room. Can you recommend me a book?"
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"no one ever ruined anything with a mandolin"
I know one guy who uses it as music repellent. He's not bad on the fiddle, but will often turn up to sessions with a mando instead, and just sit in a corner noodling on it. Because everybody knows he *could* start a tune any time he wanted, they keep quiet and wait. But no tune ever starts.
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
" He's not bad on the fiddle, but will often turn up to sessions with a mando instead, and just sit in a corner noodling on it."
Perhaps he read this:
[Cucumber noodles look like spinach linguine, but are made out of fresh cucumbers. Make cucumber noodles by slicing cucumbers into uniform strips with a mandolin slicer.]
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Jon:
>> Is this just a matter of numerical odds being stacked against me here, or is there anything else to it?
That is from my OP. Thanks for developing the point, but yes, the statistical odds were my number one culprit right from the outset. I just wanted to check that I was right, and not missing anything that might help reduce them.
Secondly, my turn of phrase still seems to confuse... “might as well give up right now” was totally tongue-in-cheek. If I really had that attitude, most of the rest of what I said would make no sense, let alone a couple of decades of playing to that there wall of mine... I gave up thinking I was going to be the next Donal Lunny when I was about 15, and decided to enjoy it for what it is – to me.
The problem with your calculation is that it assumes all else is equal. I have heard it said numerous times that the number of regularly-played session tunes is not more than a couple of hundred. In any one session it might be no more than a few tens. That might be wrong, but you can only go on what you are told, or can find out.
In my local session, the same tunes seem to get recycled every couple of months, and some crop up virtually *every* time. Even if that is not so elsewhere, asking people what tunes might be popular/current/frequent in a particular session or even city might not be quite as pointless as first seems, particularly if, as in this case, you have a particular session in mind. I agree that expecting to play anything, anywhere, at random, is not reasonable.
From a distance, the scene can appear more homogenous and inter-connected than is actually the case, and I think I was perhaps deceived a bit by that – but you can but learn. On the other hand, people keep telling me that the trad community in any one place is actually very small...
You also made some assumptions about my ‘expected success rate’ – I wasn’t expecting anything like 100%, which is one of the reasons I took the bouzouki along too – I am reasonably able to sit a tune out the first time round and put something reasonable behind it from that – works most of the time. All I’m saying is that I would – in an ideal world – have *liked* to be able to know more than the three or four tunes that I actually did, my own sets aside. At the end of the day, it was no more than a minor detraction from some really good evenings.
Emily, I have never lived in France, but find it perfectly straightforward to communicate over there, thanks to text-book French and a couple of weeks immersion, thanks to some friendly French colleagues. The idioms came pretty quickly once the framework was in place, even if I have let it slip since...
The jibes about wanting to do things but not being prepared to make the effort are not kind. We all live different lives, and we all have different circumstances, no point in criticising other people's without seeing them for yourself. I am just trying to make the best of mine.
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Ian. I presume that last was directed at me. It's no wonder people get frustrated. I wasn't criticising you for your lifestyle choices or your circumstances. I wasn't throwing any jibes.
But here's what you're saying, in effect: "I desperately [how it comes across - desperation] want to play in sessions in Scotland and Ireland. [Another editorial - why there? Why not anywhere else?] I need to know how to do this. My lifestyle choices mean that I can't get to [won't?] play in many sessions".
Right. Now that much seems clear. What I'm saying is - if you want so desperately to play on most tunes in sessions far from your home, you have to play in many sessions, including ones far from your home.
No-one is being unkind. No-one is shutting the shop doors. You've done all the boxing in yourself. If you modify your lifestyle choices so as to be able to get out and about more and play in more sessions, you will be less boxed in, from several different respects.
Finally, I repeat (not wishing in any way to be unkind): it's a waste of time learning tune lists. It'll take you forever, and, when forever finally comes around, you'll find it won't have helped.
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O.K., EB, point accepted unconditionally - but that's what it looked like.
I think your last point is established and taken. But it wasn't really what I had in mind anyway.
Why Scotland/Ireland? Partly just silly sentiment, partly because I like the places, and partly for the same reason that I and others go to Italy for the best Italian food. O.K., I know we've already had that discussion...
As for modifying lifestyle choices, well yes that would clearly help. Except that for me, no. 1 priority will always be a spouse who doesn't herself play the music, and no. 2, to a degree far more than I can really control, has to be my chosen career. The consequences of getting that wrong are not pleasant - at least one colleague was 'removed' recently for such reasons - and leaving it is not quite as straightforward as it might seem.
Suffice it to say that I repeatedly encounter folk who don't comprehend why, for most of the year, I am simply not available for the levels of social life that they take for granted. Yes, lifestyle choices if you will, but how many people have complete control over that, especially as they grow older? It nonetheless means that the music does have to be squeezed into what spaces can be found. I can hardly be alone in that.
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R-i-g-h-t ... but do you follow the logical conclusion of that? You've made your choices. One of them is music, but not to the same extent as the people you want to emulate (it seems to me). So, when you do get a chance to get out there and play, do just that. Get out there and play. And listen when you don't know the tunes, and stop worrying about how many tunes you don't know. Learn to enjoy the listening as well as the playing.
At which point I well-nigh guarantee that you will find, if you stop to think about it, that you're playing much more than you thought you could. It's Zen. Or, as Frankie would have it ...
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"The jibes about wanting to do things but not being prepared to make the effort are not kind. We all live different lives, and we all have different circumstances, no point in criticising other people's without seeing them for yourself. I am just trying to make the best of mine"
Ian, be assured that my post was not intended as any kind of jibe. Clearly you are making an effort, and a great one. That's not the problem. The problem is what you are aiming your efforts at.
I can't be more plain about it: learning tunes, while it's fun and all, is not going to get you to where you want to be. The math says no.
Even if you could accurately rank the tunes by global and regional popularity, and select, say, certain Scottish and Irish cities and have a tune-learning trainer giving you the right tunes to learn for those cities, the math still says no.
And if you think about it, you don't really want to "know a lot of tunes". You want to play music with people. Learning a lot of tunes might be nice, but being able to sit down with another person and hear what they're doing and follow them is what you're really looking for. As a side benefit, you can learn a lot of tunes that way.
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ian, I think you are approaching all this far too logically and methodically. I have a tendency to do that myself, and while it helped me get started, now I think it actually holds me back. Once you get to a certain point, exposure to new things is the best way to learn. For years, I accompanied, and played in a band, and now, my home session has become one where the repetoire is fairly limited--and as a result of this, while there are tunes I know very well, there are many common tunes I need to learn. I think it is time for me to step out to new gatherings, get some more exposure to new tunes, get out of my comfort zone. Sounds like you are ready to do the same. But you can't plan organize or manage stepping out of your comfort zone, you just need to do it.
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Al - I'll believe you've stopped thinking about this too logically and methodically when I see you remove the guide to session playing from your profile.
" ... come for a tune in Edinburgh, we'll be guaranteed to have more tunes in common than just those on Will and Dow's famous lists (though these alone should be enough for a couple of sets between strangers)."
May 3rd 2011 by llig leahcim
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
>>You want to play music with people
You bet! The session scene is great fun, more than I suspected, but it's not where I had directed my efforts until relatively recently. Even then, I initially thought it was mostly going to be something of a means to an end - a way of meeting people to form a tighter group, and a way of making my own playing more natural. It definitely worked on the first count, and I think it probably has/is doing on the second.
So my main way of adapting to circumstance, not to say personal temperament, has been to pull that small group of people closer in a way that works for us. It is time- and place-manageable and luckily, the level of commitment seems both pretty high and pretty equal. I think that is partly down to the fact that those in it realise how rare a phenomenon it is in these parts.
In actual fact, I'm not the most availability-limited member, there's one who is sometimes missing on work for a month at a time, but luckily he's good enought so slot in when he is around, and the net keeps him up to speed when he's not.
It's not a session as you would probably recognise it, but it works for what it is. Hopefully, it will also result in a reasonable performing outfit, and we are currently also looking for a pub who will have us once a month as a kind of semi-closed session of the kind I played with Duncan and friends. Will hopefully keep things from becoming too disparate.
Al, my summer trip was precisely my attempt at 'stepping out to new gatherings' Unfortunately, my life divides between six weeks in the summer when all such things are possible, and the rest when they really mostly aren't. The switch takes place again in two days' time FWIW, plans are afoot to go and play with a few folk in Ireland next spring, so when opportunity presents, we do take it...
The OP was only really a throwaway point, because I was nonetheless surprised at just how few familiar tunes cropped up, not because I was expecting 100% action. Somewhere in there is still the suspicion that there is a connection between level of immersion and opportunity, and range of tunes being played. That makes me feel a little uncomfortable in terms of musical competence/experience. That's all.
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Maybe you should try getting together with some of your session players and just try to pick up each other's tunes: no paper, no breaking it down into bits, just play it slow and easy over and over and everyone try to get it. Probably each of you have enough tunes that the others don't know that you could all get some good practice that way.
The person who starts the tune will also get a good lesson in maintaining simplicity at a consistent, slow tempo. More difficult than it sounds, I think.
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Interesting idea Jon - will suggest it. At present, we have got around ten sets that we are working on full-throttle to get them tight and to get everyone's playing to gel (from scratch) - now happening nicely. That's taken eight months, and we expect it to take at least another seven before we're fit to be thrust on the public. But we're beginning to get to the point when your idea would be possible. Plus, that's fifteen months of good house sessions in the meantime
It was also a good thing to do, for each of us to make a play list - it speeded up finding what we had in common, and could work for what we have to learn, too.
Not saying sessions aren't good in themselves - especially when there's more than one of us present, but I soon knew I didn't have the amount of time needed to get fully into the session scene. I just didn't appreciate the full consequences of that, perhaps.
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I should add that the session host had a firm but polite chat with the aforementioned mandolin player, who subsequently mended his ways and is now rather pleasant to play with. It can happen!
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AL Brown, you seems to have disabled sending you messages, so here are some errata for your guide to session playing.
The Scottish spelling is "ceilidh" not "ceilidhe". You have fallen into the American kitsch cliche of aires and faires.
Strathspeys are in 4/4 and the Scottish snap rhythm as played exaggerates the inequality of the linked notes to more than 3:1. Highlands are not the same, and nobody used to Scottish music would ever think a highland was a strathspey.
Mazurkas are in 3/4, never 6/8.
Marches (in Scotland anyway) can be in almost any time signature. 3/4 marches ("retreats") are fairly common, and at least one 9/8 is very familiar.
B flat session tunes, in Scotland or anywhere else, have nothing to do with the Highland pipes, and none of them are playable on the pipes.
Spare us the "Celtic regions" crap.
The specific tips for chording and strumming are okay as far as I can tell, but need a rather strong warning that not everybody will do the same, and you need to actually listen to what other accompanists in your milieu do and ask them how they think.
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Dave - he was usually (more like 75% of the time than 99%) playing in the right key. His rhythm, though, was ALWAYS off; he had a tendency to inject his chord of choice where it had the highest chance of being heard, ie, between the beats.
Which led to the following conversation between me and another fiddler:
Other fiddler [after placing her fiddle on the table, halfway through a tune that she'd started and was no longer able to play along with because the mandolinist had his own ideas about rhythm - and this is a very good player we're talking about]: Ugh! Who IS that man?
Me: His name is [redacted]
Other fiddler: He is SO insenstive! [pauses] Can you imagine going to bed with him? [proceeds to furnish details as to precisely how this hypothetical scene would play out, for the benefit of those of us who hadn't considered the possibility.]
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I suppose, Ian, to those of us reading your posts, that it seems like what you would really desire is the ability to travel to Scotland or Ireland or wherever and be able to play along in any session on a respectable number of tunes, and ideally you would like to do this without having to play in a ton of sessions.
What we're saying, is that it ain't possible. The only way to get good at playing in sessions and acquire a wide and flexible repertoire is play in lots and lots of sessions. If you can't do that, I think one of things you have to accept is that you will be sitting out a lot of tunes when you visit a new session. That's fine, by the way, people will still be friendly to you if the session is at all worthwhile.
In the meantime, I reiterate -- listen to the old recordings I recommended above: Ennis, Coleman, and while I'm at it, Joe Cooley, Wllie Clancy, and Paddy Killoran. Tons of well-known and commonly played tunes on those old albums. They won't get you through every sessions and are no substitute for the "real" thing, but they can give you a bit of a grounding in the tradition.
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Emily, the first part is right, but...
>>ideally you would like to do this without having to play in a ton of sessions
...makes it sound as though the will isn't there, or that I want to cut corners. Well, when the opportunity presented itself, I was out several nights a week - not that I think Sara would like that as a long term proposition . Although I'm not the most naturally gregarious of people, it's not that. I'm simply trying to deal with my regular circumstances as they happen to be.
To be playing with that frequency based here, I would have to be driving hundreds of miles a week, and getting back at a time that means I simply wouldn't function the next morning - and that is something that I simply could not get away with professionally. And no, I suppose the will to spend so much more time in the car each week on top of the nine or so hours I already do each week, just isn't there...wer all have our limits.
>>Tons of well-known and commonly played tunes
...but we're back we're we came in - how am I to know which are the commonly played ones, under the circumstances - assuming that's the criterion of choice, anyway? I normally choose by what pleases the ear, but clearly that doesn't always help.
I think people have taken what I said was 'a propos not much' too seriously. I still enjoy my music and it works under my circumstances, especially as I enjoy playing the music in other settings too. Then there's all that fiddle practice! It's really no big deal, other than I was surprised by the difference in my recognition rate compared with round here.
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I wish it was a joke
But learning more tunes can't hurt. I might have learnt more than 1500 tunes, or not. I doubt I could remember how to start more than a hundred most of the time,but how it's amazing how after a couple of days at a festival playing in sessions, the fingers and the mind loosen up and the tunes come flooding back.
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@TD&M
Thanks, I just wanted to make sure I don't do the same thing!
I guess the short answer to the question of what he was doing wrong would be 'playing chords'. Fair enough.
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Oh, and Jack Campin, thanks for the input, some good feedback there. I don't agree with your point that my spelling of ceilidhe is incorrect, I'll stick with the way I spell it since that is the way it is spelled on the sign at the Irish club where we gather locally to dance, and it has been spelled that way since the club was founded many decades ago (one of many spellings of that word I have seen over the years). I agree highlands are not strathspeys, the point I was trying to make was that the two types of tunes are cousins, so I suppose I have to reword that, if you didn't get my point, others might not as well. And the amount of diversity in opinions regarding how time signatures should be notated is rather surprising when you go from source to source. Not sure why you couldn't send me a personal message, I didn't know there was any way to disable that on this site.
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Al, as I'm sure you don't need to be told, Scots Gaelic is different to Irish, and these days it's generally spelt ceilidh in Scotland and "ceili" in Ireland although historically, of course there have been many different Anglicised spellings of such words as you have noticed.
I presume at a "ceilidhe", I'd play a "mandoline" !
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I don't argue that the spelling is modern--the club was formed at about the same time as the Irish spelling reforms of the middle of the last century. I suspect that the folks who formed the club had learned to spell it in the more archaic manner, and emigrated before the modern standardized spelling was taught in Irish schools.
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Jack, I will amend my essay to include the more modern spellings. I have amended it fairly frequently over the years, as I am the first to admit that I am no scholar, merely someone who put together some basic information to make getting started in The Music a bit easier than I found it when I first started.
But I do find your accusation that I was engaging in "American kitsch cliche" to be a bit offensive to the Irish immigrants who founded the club that helps keep the Irish cultural heritage alive in this area.
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"Ceilidhe" seems to be an archaic Irish spelling, never used in Scotland."
As Al doesn't live in Scotland, and his session guide covers both Irish and Scottish music, I don't see the relevance.
As stated earlier, the spelling is Irish and pre-1950s.
Perhaps not so much 'archaic' as 'stubborn refusal to accept reform'.
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I'll accept stubborn as a description of my behavior from time to time.
And while I balked at the spelling advice, Jack did provide some good input--always room for improvement.
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Okay, I get the idea. If the reason for the spelling is given I don't have a problem with that (it's ingenious to come up with a spelling that present-day Scottish and Irish readers will find equally odd). But with no explanation this boggles the orthographic lobe of the brain somewhat:
"Some Scottish ceilidhe dances are even set to marches"
If you want to go into more detail, there is a subtlety here about the content, not just the spelling. Some dances like the Gay Gordons or Canadian Barn Dance use conventional pipe marches, or military marches in similar rhythms and straightforward folk modes. Barren Rocks of Aden into Farewell to the Creeks, say. You might well hear those tunes in an Irish session. But there's another kind of dance, like the Britannia Two-Step, which typically uses a kind of 6/8 march most often associated with Felix Burns: these are in several sections and use key contrasts and maybe chromaticisms. These you will never hear in an Irish session and not often in a Scottish one either - they're associated with the danceband scene and the accordion and fiddle clubs. They tend to go into keys that whistle players usually avoid and fiddlers aren't very enthusiastic about.
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More good input! Thanks, my knowledge of Scottish dance is limited to dancing at a Burns night, a few visits to the local Scottish Country Dancing group's gatherings, and dancing at one of the many highland festivals held in the local are during the warmer months.
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"But there's another kind of dance, like the Britannia Two-Step, which typically uses a kind of 6/8 march most often associated with Felix Burns: these are in several sections and use key contrasts and maybe chromaticisms. These you will never hear in an Irish session and not often in a Scottish one either - they're associated with the danceband scene and the accordion and fiddle clubs"
It depends on where you go for sessions - up north, it's not unusual to hear "Ronald Cooper" by Frank Jamieson, or "Frank Jamieson" by Ronald Cooper. Both these tunes (Shetland two-steps) fit your description - and fiddlers play them quite readily. Mind you, it's not unheard of to hear "Cullen Bay" (a 5/4 number) played in sessions in these far-flung places. This is presented as a "reel" in the tune section here. Good tune for you, Ian Stock.
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Same old ground covered here as with many previous discussions...or as with many tunes played in sessions - same old tunes knocked out over and over, But what the hell. This site is Obsessive/Compulsives' heaven. Yeah. American agents infiltrate another midle east country and destroy it in the name of democracy but the band played on. Never missing a beat, theyre that good.
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I enjoyed that letter from Fintan Valelly. Quite right too. The intelligent Irish people that I know (which would be all of them ) are as proud of their use of English as they are of their use of Irish, and do get incensed by the faux-Gaelic words that have crept in and are liberally sprinkled around by the ignorant.
Meanwhile, Ian, for someone who has by now repeated several times that your original moan was just a throwaway comment and that people shouldn't take you too seriously (I can't be bothered to look up the exact words, but you've said something like that more than twice in this thread now) you don't 'arf bang on about it. On and on with the "Yes but which tunes should I learn?" "You've told me to listen to old recordings, but I don't know which tunes" "Give me a list someone please". On and on.
Something that I think you haven't noticed is *quite* how helpful TSS has been to you on this thread. More than anyone else in coming up with something practical that might actually help you. Because I think you haven't noticed, I'll spell it out for you:TSS has given you a very practical suggestion to at least give you a grounding in the tradition - listen to the old recordings of the old greats. She's even named some that you might like to get hold of. Your question was (again) "Yes, but which tunes should I learn?" At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, the answer is, quite seriously, ALL OF THEM.
Here's another practical suggestion: don't bother to 'actively' learn all those tunes. Play the recordings over and over - have the CDs in the car and have them on while you're driving - have them on an old CD player in the kitchen while you cook your wife a lovely dinner (so she can't complain ). After a while (and it really won't take long, I promise) those tunes will be so ingrained that you'll find you know them in any case, and you won't even have had to make an effort.
I'm afraid your constant complaint that you're unable to make the effort required to achieve the Holy Grail that you say you want to achieve doesn't wash with me. That's why I've made my practical suggestion above. To save you having to make any effort.
Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Just a bit of retrospective musing, a propos of nothing much, certainly not intended as a ‘how big is yours?’ type discussion; your thoughts appreciated...
)...?
Summer holiday this year was spent in Scotland. I managed to play four sessions in just over a week, two pre-arranged and two from invitations received at the other two; could have done a couple of others from offers received, had time permitted. One was in Plockton, two in Edinburgh and one in Glasgow, all predominantly Irish music. I also went to one other session in Edinburgh, not as a player.
I had the mandolin with me, and the bouzouki as stand-by.
I’m not embarrassed to say that in those five evenings, I recognised only a handful of tunes to playable level, plus a few others at listening level. While I am reasonable at picking up tunes quite quickly, I wasn’t about to risk it on the fly, especially as I was already a bit nervous about goofing up. Luckily (?) I was able to listen hard enough to put some reasonable (or at least inoffensive) bouzouki behind a fair number of tunes – I hope Emily would agree with that – and to start a few sets myself (I chose very safe...) I would still have preferred to play more tunes though...
Quick calculation might conservatively estimate between one and two hundred tunes heard/played over those four evenings, which makes for a pretty poor recognition-rate.
Last time I made a list it had about 400 tunes on it, though I have since found I left off a fair few. Not massive I know, but not inconsiderable either. I normally know a fair selection of tunes heard in sessions round here (S.E. England). I also try to vary what I play from just the old standards, so I have a decent selection, i.e not just the old cliches that are known everywhere. Even so, I was disappointed not to know more than I did in Scotland.
Is this just a matter of numerical odds being stacked against me here, or is there anything else to it? To what extent do favoured tunes vary from region to region? Do the hot-beds tend to favour more unknown tunes simply by dint of play-frequency? Have other people found the same thing, and what else to do about it in such one-off situations (except leave
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I think there is a rather extensive repertoire of "session" tunes that people who have played in a lot of sessions for a number of years will know. You've said on the board that you only started playing in sessions a couple years ago and have otherwise played by yourself, so it's understandable that you wouldn't have all those tunes which you'd pretty much pick up by playing in sessions.
The Oran Mor, for instance, plays from my perspective the most standard of standard session tunes, sometimes painfully so. If obscure tunes are being regularly started, myself and D are usually the perpetrators, and I only do it once or twice a night as I feel like a self-indulgent ass if I do it much more. At Plockton and at the session you went to in Bells, they don't play a hugely obscure repertoire, either. But if you're not familiar with the standard selection of tunes played in sessions everywhere, they would be obscure to you.
I have been to plenty of sessions where they play a properly obscure repertoire. The best thing to do, they are good players, is sit and listen. Nothing wrong with that.
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
>>The best thing to do, they are good players, is sit and listen. Nothing wrong with that.
Fair point, Emily - as we did in The Captain's Bar. But for those of us in the ITM sticks, having a play in the 'promised land' is too good an opportunity to miss if possible. O.K., I know I labour that point, but take it from me, playing in those Scottish sessions was a world away from playing down here. No offence to my locals, of course, but...
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Back in June I played 5 or 6 sessions in one week in Counties Galway and Clare. I knew about 85% of the tunes played. In one or two of those sessions, it was nearly 100%.
Perhaps more significantly, I heard only a handful of tunes that I'd never heard before. (One at a session in Kiltomer, a cracking reel, that I picked up on the fly by the 3rd time around, as did the whistle player next to me, but I didn't get a name for it.)
My experience is that you really can't expect to visit an unfamiliar session and have much of their repertoire unless you yourself know well over 1,500 tunes.
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
This is something i tell myself when my expectations get to high about anything. "If you don't expect anything, you won't be disappointing." So in this case, go into a session with the mindset of some good listening, and don't expect to play. That way when those tunes pop up that you do know, you'll be pleasantly surprised instead of dissappointed when they don't play all the tunes in your repertoire.
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
sorry, "...you won't be *disappointed."
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
There's a monthly session here in Vancouver where I often know less than 50% of the repertoire. When I visit the session in my parents' city (Ottawa) 3-4 times/year, I tend to know more - this past June I was able to play along with some 90% of their tunes, and my repertoire doesn't even come close to the 1500 Will cites. It's not that I've gone out of my way to learn the Ottawa tunes while ignoring the Vancouver ones. In fact, last month I commented at the Ottawa session that a staggering proportion of my repertoire represents tunes I learned in Vancouver but only ever hear at sessions in Ottawa!
I've been to sessions where I recognized very little, and played almost nothing. With rare exception, in each of those sessions there were several people in the same boat as me. (Then there was a bizarrely polarized session out of town that I attended, whose participants could be partitioned into two groups: every tune was played either by everyone in Group A, OR everyone in Group B, and never both. There were obviously some politics there, but I didn't stick around to find out the particulars.) Often, many of those people not participating much were locals. I don't think that a session should change its repertoire to accommodate beginners or visitors, but I do think that a good host recognizes when someone's sitting idle for long stretches, and throw them a bone by starting a set or two of less obscure tunes.
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Just another thought to add to the mix, not new, I know... picking up "session" tunes isn't so easy when you are limited to 12 or so per year - which is the frequency of my local. That's rather different from 52 sessions per year.
Yes it gives you more learning time between meets, but not the same as learning in situ...
# Posted on August 31st 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I more often than not only play a tune or two here and there when I am in a different session, not having a big repetoire. But listening can be so much fun, it doesn't really matter if I am not playing all the time. Better that than detract from things by noodling, after all, I wouldn't appreciate them doing the same if they visited our pub...
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
To add to Will's story about sessions in Ireland, I would concur, since I was alongside him that week. I knew at least 70% of what came up during those sessions, and picked up a few more along the way. What's interesting to me is that it was a complete departure from my previous experience in Ireland, about 4 years ago, where I would say I knew about 30% of the tunes, and could play along with only about 3/4 of those.
I would attribute the jump to where I'm at, musically. I've only officially 'learned' maybe 120 tunes in that time, but it's not like I learned "exactly the right tunes", it's that my general familiarity with the music has increased by leaps and bounds, from complete immersion in the music. And I now play a lot of tunes that I never sat down and officially "learned". I've just picked them up over time. The lines between what I've "learned" and "never learned" have blurred significantly. At times, that can be really frustrating, when you used to know all the tunes you "know" inside and out. But it's also a really empowering feeling to get to the point where you've heard tunes enough that you know them, but don't have any idea whether you've actually ever played them before (or whether your lack of ability in playing them is just because you stink).
Well, maybe not that part
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by Reverend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Snapshot experiences of my own (and some collecting of statistics) suggest to me that Will's estimate of 1500 tunes to know a lot of the repertoire at "any random session" is probably a siginificant underestimate. With that number, you would indeed find sessions where you knew almost everything played, but you'd still find others where you only knew a few.
I've known a handful of players with repertoires that appear to be in the thousands. A couple of them are also good players, but a couple of them are dreadful clunkers. Fast, but clunkers.
And of course, to reiterate the well-known point, if you only know a couple of hundred but can play them with real musicality, you'll always be able to get a good slice of playing in, since people will be happy for you to start your own sets and listen if they don't know your particular selection. Just don't overdo it!
IMHO, of course, what else?
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by Alex Wilding
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I called in at a couple of Edinburgh sessions a few weeks ago (and very good they were too). Both of them had a good dose of scottish tunes that I recognised but didn't play, plus a fair number of tunes completely new to me (including an excellent set of scottish sounding jigs that I need to search out and learn). I guess my "hit rate" was less than 30% and I was pleased to find it that high. Both sesions were well worth going to for the listenening. Playing along to some was icing on the cake.
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by spindizzy
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
TSS was on the right track. The 'normal' session repertoire is fairly extensive. OTOH it's not as big as you might think.
The way I reckon it goes (purely on the basis of guesswork, and generalising shamelessly here) is that, at any one time, the general repertoire of sessions which would cover most places would be about 1500 tunes. I and most of the pals I enjoy sessioning with have about 1500 tunes (I reckon). But they're not (quite) the same 1500 tunes that are the 'normal' session repertoire at any given time. Also, most sessions play an additional, more localised repertoire of tunes over and above the 'normal' repertoire. Add to this that the 'normal' repertoire is constantly changing and you have a lifetime of fun. Always chasing after that next 'must have' tune.
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
T D & M
We visited a couple of Vancouver session while over from the UK . We found about least 90% overlap of tunes from home at one session, a bit less at the other. Small world!
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by minijackpot
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
'The 'normal' session repertoire is fairly extensive. OTOH it's not as big as you might think.'
I think that strongly depends on where you are and who you play with. Over here you may get a whole run of nights with all tunes you know well enough and then all of a sudden a night that taps into a whole different vein (triggered by a visitor or whatever other reason) where it's all contrary and very unusual stuff (that everybody else seems to know anyhow).
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Yes, I agree with that, Prof. (Well, I would, wouldn't I? It being, like, um, true.
)
I was generalising, as I said, and it's also why I kept stressing the 'normal' repertoire.
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I think the idea of the "hit rate" is just not one that works for me. As I see it, at any given moment I'm either playing a tune, or I'm hearing a tune and getting the hang of how it goes, or I'm hearing a tune and learning how to hear it.
Unless the tune is one I just don't like (and there are a few of those, not a lot, but a few) then hearing it is good.
I can understand the idea of placing a higher value on the time spent actively playing, but look at it like this: if someone plays a tune that you don't know, it's likely a tune that you ought to know. So by actively listening to it and trying to get it into your head, you're eventually going to increase your "actively playing" time.
This doesn't help you when you go to a new session and sit down and play on two tunes all night, I guess, but that's just pride stinging you. Nobody else minds at all if you don't know the same tunes they do. (do you look down on people who don't know your entire repertoire? no? neither do they)
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I know that if I go 300 yards from my regular session pub, there's another one that plays mainly tunes I don't know ( apart from the time 4 of us went over from our regular session and we were the only ones there because there was a big event on somewhere else ), and this is not uncommon.
So, as has already been suggested, don't sweat it, don't panic, enjoy the craic, if it's a friendly session that lets you start tunes, then you can put in a few you know, run them up the flagpole and see who'll salute them.
There's far worse things then sitting in a bar listening to tunes you don't know. There's being frozen out of a session, for a start.
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Well maybe time and experience will change things on that front, Jon. "Hit rate" was just my shorthand for getting an idea across - agreed it's crude, but perhaps apt in the circumstances.
At present, I've just marked ONE year of regular sessioning, though bear in mind that means only twelve regulars plus a number of others, maybe 20 in total, which is but a drop in most people's oceans, of course. But it does mean that there is still the premium buzz attached to going somewhere different and (hopefully) being able to join in, especially given the rarity of such opportunities (maybe only every couple of years). Is it too daft to consider that playing in Scotland/Ireland and hopefully being accepted, marks some kind of validation in this music? Or at least a milestone on one's personal path?
In total, I have nowhere near enough exposure to build my repertoire based purely on sessioning, but that's just a cross I have to carry - it's why I generally look elsewhere for tunes, but not guaranteed to find the same ones that everyone else is playing! Six months ago, I asked (Llig) for the names of some common Edinburgh session tunes so I could prepare in advance, and at least have a chance. Nothing came of that, and the idea got generally rather rubbished. But this is why I did it.
I understand the advice about sitting out, and will do so in extremis, but given the rarity of the event and the 1300-mile round trip, I had still hoped to find a few more familiar ones.
Just down to steep odds, I guess...
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
After the initial epiphany, "I know a lot of tunes!" and wee buzz you get out of that, you realize that you're not any more validated than you were when you knew very few tunes.
Pete (Reverend) made a very good point when he said that you acquire a big repertoire not by painstakingly learning every tune note for note, but by developing the ability to absorb ones you hear a lot and play them accurately (more or less) without having consciously crammed them into your head. That said, I still learn tunes at home, phrase for phrase, if I hear one played at a session or more likely these days, hear a recording of one I like (that invariably no one else plays), but I've picked up a lot of the more "standard" or commonly played tunes by just existing in the world and listening.
One wee bit of advice... hopefully you won't take it too harshly... but perhaps your tune-absorption rate would increase at sessions if you listened to a few more sets, rather than played the bouzouki on the tunes you didn't know. Your bouzouki playing was fine, but I imagine that if you're thinking, "What chord am I going to play next?" you're not listening as closely to the tune as you could be.
# Posted on September 1st 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"In total, I have nowhere near enough exposure to build my repertoire based purely on sessioning, but that's just a cross I have to carry - it's why I generally look elsewhere for tunes, but not guaranteed to find the same ones that everyone else is playing"
You know, I thought the same thing for a long time. After a while, I realized that I wasn't getting where I wanted to be that way, so I started acting as if I were able to do it. And you what? Once I decided I was going to be the sort of person who can pick up tunes on the go, I started hearing them.
Emily's right, too. If you're playing chords, it's hard to really hear the tune. If you're playing a more Alec Finn style, you can sort of discover bits of the tune as you go, but if you're playing chords it's a lot harder. I'd put it up and just listen for a while.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Thanks Emily and Jon, some fair points. The trip, sessions and all, was a great and memorable experience. – despite the weather
I really enjoyed the whole thing, and on purely personal criteria, it more than did the job. I know it is daft to feel one has something to ‘prove’ but that bit is entirely in my own head, though it was partly prompted by the drubbing I’ve received on here in the past year... 
The ‘validation’ bit was purely to do with being able to hack it in a session up there...Emily, the old guy playing the fiddle on my right, didn’t get his name, was quietly encouraging, which was nice. Several other people said nice things, which also meant a lot...
You’re right about the bouzouki – it had occurred anyway, though there’s a little more to it. On the one hand, I don’t need to think very much about the chords, and I had scaled back the infill stuff so as to have more ear-space for the tunes. I always do and always have worked back from the tunes, did so intuitively right from the start as a kid – this stuff about bashing out chords irrespective of the tune has always beggared my belief. On the other hand, the chance to try out the bouzouki in its own right, at some pace, was worth it. I’ve only had it a year, and I do like to be able to turn to some backing from time to time. Point still taken, though.
...and also taken about how to learn tunes, and that’s coming – I’m used to working that way from recordings in any case. But the chances of my doing so once-off, on the trip in question were slim and I think just being able to join in at all was the important thing for me this time round. Big repertoire is not important to me in itself – I would rather learn tunes I like and sit the others out. At my home session, some of the tunes are starting to ‘osmose’ like that, but as I said, once-a-month makes it a slow process...luckily the band guys are gradually providing some extra input on that front. Jon, point taken about actively deciding what to do, but I assume you would agree it is still essential to have sufficient opportunities to put plan into practice? That’s always an issue here.
The guys at one of the Edinburgh sessions let me run my recorder during the evening so I have a lot more tunes on there to listen through, but identifying them all is going to be another matter...Emily, would you care to shove me a few names from the Oran Mor session when you have a moment, please? Cheers.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Ian, there's a number of reasons why I didn't give you a list of tunes. Most importantly, there is no way in the world that you'd learn the versions we play. And besides, the majority of the tunes we were playing 6 months ago are not the tunes we're playing now - and there would be no way I could have predicted what the minority are that we are still playing 6 months on. And besides, I'm not interested in playing with someone who wishes to "prove" their "validation".
(and besides, on a purely practical note, I don't know the names of most of 'em anyway)
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Llig, that wasn't a complaint, merely a statement of fact. I understand your reasons. I actually asked (IIRC) for the names of some tunes that were/are commonly played in Edinburgh, as a starting point.
What I need to 'validate' in my own head is surely my own business and surely not a reason to censure someone from playing in a session, so long as they can do the business. All I was doing was trying to improve my chances of doing it successfully.
I agree it's not an ideal approach, but just try having a little empathy for people who operate under different circumstances, please, for a moment.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Ian, if Michael had given you a list of tunes commonly played in Edinburgh, it would have been irrelevant to the sessions you played with Duncan, as those guys play quite a different repertoire from Michael's Tuesday night crowd.
I probably could make a "list" for the Oran Mor, as the same tunes routinely get played every week. I'm not sure this is a good thing.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I think that as far as lists of tunes to learn go, you can't go far wrong with Will's and Dow's. I don't think anyone could complain if someone new comes in and plays a couple of sets made from those lists. I'd certainly be more than happy to play along. I'd take it in the way it's given, an invitation for all to play along. And everyone plays their slightly different versions and the sound is a jolly sort of muffled contentment and general happiness and inclusivity abounds. Great. For a while anyway.
But there are sets you play with your mates that are honed. Not rehearsed at all in any formal sense, but you've spent a while really listening hard to how each other play and a sense of intense tightness takes it to somewhere beyond mere contentment. And then you get bored with them and don't play them again for ages.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Crikey, this always gets so complicated! All I asked for was the names of a few tunes that I could do with knowing - just in the interest of widening my repertoire a bit, not a cast-iron guarantee that every one would always crop up everywhere I go...
Or are we basically saying that there is no way anyone can ever visit a session and hope to play anything, except by luck or having an encyclopaedic mind? I might as well give up now.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"But there are sets you play with your mates that are honed. Not rehearsed at all in any formal sense, but you've spent a while really listening hard to how each other play and a sense of intense tightness takes it to somewhere beyond mere contentment. And then you get bored with them and don't play them again for ages."
In some places.: | I'd give a lot for a session like this. Such "intense tightness" is a real buzz.
Will's and Dow's lists pretty much cover what we play at the OM.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Michael, I know that the regulars have their own routines, and there is little chance of any one-off outsider coping with all the ins and outs of that. I counted myself pretty lucky that Duncan and his mates were prepared to put up with me - they even asked me back
. But I don't think I said anything about wanting to be the star attraction, or take over someone else's closed session, just improving my chances of being able to join in during open-ish sessions or where people will have me.
I don't want to labour the point, but I hope it is accepted by now that I am serious about my music, even if the views expressed aren't always congruent. How is anyone supposed to learn - especially those of us who don't have the same kind of local scene - if it all operates as such a closed shop?
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"Or are we basically saying that there is no way anyone can ever visit a session and hope to play anything, except by luck or having an encyclopaedic mind? I might as well give up now."
It's always going to be bit hit or miss when you walk into a strange session. That's part of the game. My repertoire's all right, but not long ago, we visited a session where some of the regulars appeared to be challenging one another to "who has the most obscure tunes and can play them the fastest." I must have played three sets all night.
In the meantime, the aforementioned lists are a great place to start and would get you through Oran Mor sessions no bother.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
You're not asking easy questions to answer. No one is trying to "close the shop doors."
Tunes tend to vary widely from session to session, or from night to night even in the same session.
Michael is not even likely to know what tunes Duncan and his pals are playing, as I never ever saw Michael in Bells on Monday nights.
That all said, people tend to be familiar with a lot of the tunes that were recorded by Planxty and the Bothy Band. They might not even like those groups, or have even listened to them, but quite a few of their tunes entered the stream of session repertoire. Similarly, a lot of tunes on Michael Coleman's recordings have entered the session repertoire even if the people who play them have no clue that Coleman was the first to record that set. I'd also suggest listening to Seamus Ennis' Return from Fingal and 40 Years of Irish Piping. Lots of common "session" tunes on those. And it's damned good music as well!
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Thanks Emily, I will indeed go to those lists, then. I don't disagree with your point above, but there's only one way to tackle it. I think you feel the 'stakes' are a bit higher when you rarely get the chance to play away from home...
Just to reiterate, I really enjoyed myself at the OM, as with all the sessions I (sort-of) played that week, so it's no big deal.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
>>people tend to be familiar with a lot of the tunes that were recorded by Planxty and the Bothy Band
well I've done that bit right then...
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Perhaps I also misunderstood the earlier comment about 'session tunes'. That seemed to me to imply a moderately discrete subset of the whole canon, i.e that which happens to be popular or current in a given place or time. As opposed, maybe, to tunes that happen not to find favour in the session setting. I can think of slow airs and perhaps set dances as not getting much airing.
Is this a misconception?
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Ian, it's because you feel there are "stakes" at stake you use language like "prove" and "validation". You have the wrong mindset.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I'd have to agree that, as far as posts here go, Ian, it's looking like Michael's last sentence there is right.
I'm also disturbed by this notion that "there's only one way to tackle it". Tackle what, exactly? And what is that one way? If you're wanting to fit into sessions, well, it's a bit pot-luck when you're away from home, isn't it? How many times have you visited a strange city, sat on a bar-stool, and instantly had nice, pleasant conversation with the locals where everything you said and did blended in nicely? It usually helps if you share the same language and, if it's sessions you're interested in, then it's sessions where you're going to learn the relevant language.
It seems pointless to me to learn long lists of tunes. Particularly if you're just getting them in the form of lists of names and you're hoping to find some dots somewhere and then to fit in with how they're played in some strange place, in an environment that, by your own admission, is foreign to you in any case, wherever it is. Doing that is just a waste of time.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
No, Llig, the only thing that is important to me is that I feel happy with the music I am making.
But it's a learning process, so to some extent, that inevitably involves comparing where you are with where you want to be. That may well involve setting yourself some kind of objective or benchmark. I would call that a 'learning mindset', which can hardly be wrong. Don't tell me you never did that during your own development, or that your playing somehow magically just happened...
I won't remind you again why I might, however, be more conscious of that process than some.
The only 'stakes' I was referring to were a) a wish not to waste the relatively rare chances I had this summer to play in your neck of the woods, and b) not to muck it up for myself or others. Whether 'your neck of the woods' really is any big deal depends on who you are and where you come from, but from my persepctive, it was sufficiently different from what I am used to for me to think it is.
If I put too much emphasis on that, then I think some of the comments you, amonsgt others, have made to me over the past year may have something to do with it.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
EB, I have an uneasy feeling that this is headed in a familiar direction, and I have no wish nor intention of letting it go there... let’s just say there is more than one way to be active in this music, just as there is more than one way of learning it.
As I’ve said before, for music that is supposedly so much down to the individual, some people are all too keen to pass judgement on others ways just because they happen to be different.
>>Tackle what, exactly? And what is that one way?
If you have a repertoire that is too small to stand much chance of knowing the tunes, the only way is to increase the number of tunes you know. Seems fairly reasonable to me. I didn’t make any reference to how I would go about that, or in what time scale.
The best way to learn to speak a new language certainly is by going there and getting stuck in with the locals – when you have the chance – but in the meantime, the homework you do in advance can still help, and it can set you up with the basics.
There are many different ways of learning; personally I start from the grammar and move towards the idiom. Doesn’t work for everyone but it has always helped me.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Ian, it doesn't matter if you muck something up
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Llig, personally not, no - but how many comments have there been on here over the years expressing indignation about people who muscled in and ruined things?
)
For the record, the two sessions I set out to play were both invitations, albeit one by a person who then was not there in person himself (not you, Will
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
...and ruined things. Personally I start from the assumption that I am c**p, (are you listening, Emily? 8-D ) ably assisted by the comments I seem to elicit on here... it does kinda make you feel as though you have got to be extra-careful when you finally get out there... At least you can be pleasantly surprised when the glass turns out to be half-full...
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
no one ever ruined anything with a mandolin
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"Or are we basically saying that there is no way anyone can ever visit a session and hope to play anything, except by luck or having an encyclopaedic mind? I might as well give up now."
The primary thing I'd like to see come out of this conversation would be a change in the attitude underlying this. As I see it, the assumption here is that until you reach a point of mastery, there is no point in doing the thing at all.
There are a lot of tunes in the world, and if you have three or four or five hours in a night you can play a vanishingly small subset of them. I'll just pull some numbers from the air or somewhere like that: they are wrong, but illustrative.
Suppose that there are 10,000 distinct tunes the world. The reasonable estimates, I think, are a bit lower, but it's close enough.
Now suppose that your session averages 4 tunes in each five minutes, and someone is always playing, so that there are 48 tunes played in a given hour. That means that there are about 250 tunes played over the course of a five-hour session, if you are in such a paradise as to get five hours to play in.
Now you can do the obvious math and work out that if you go into this mammoth machine of a session and you know, say 400 tunes, you can expect to know about 10 of the tunes played on that night, and if you know 800 tunes you can expect to know about 20, and if you know 1200 tunes, you can expect to play on about 30.
And of course that's not the way it works out in the world, and the reason for that is obvious.
But the more interesting thing is: suppose you're a tune-learning machine and you learn a new tune every week. That would mean that if you were to go by the "learn the correct tunes" method, you'd have to spend five years learning the tunes that were "on the list" at this mythical session I've described, and of course they wouldn't be playing those tunes any more.
It's just not going to work out: mathematically, you've got the wrong approach. And, I think, you've also got an unproductive mindset for this: your goal is to play on every tune, more or less, and your way of achieving it is to learn the tunes that you expect to hear. The problem isn't with the method, although the method isn't going to work. The problem is with the goal.
Playing on every tune at a session that you haven't been to, and one that plays from a repertoire bigger than, say, the Bothy Band's and Planxty's recorded output, is the mark of a high level of achievement as a musician, and that's worth striving to, but it's not the only point of playing this music. If you'll only enjoy the music when you're there, you'll never reach there because you won't be enjoying yourself enough to notice when you've got there.
You seem to get frustrated in these discussions, because you feel you're asking a simple question and nobody seems to give you a straight answer, but the question isn't a simple one, and a straight answer would be wrong.
You're real good at thinking, so try to think your way out of this hole: mathematically speaking, if you learn a tune a week for 16 years, you're still likely to have not much better overall results dropping in at the mythical session - 30 tunes instead of 10 in the night, out of 250 played, that's not a great improvement for 16 years' work.
That's the hole you've put yourself in. There are wrong assumptions that lead you into it; find them and use them to climb back out, and try again.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Great post, Jon.
Another wee analogy for you.
If I said that I wanted a French language book so I could learn French, and attain such a degree of fluency at it that I could have a very learned discussion of post-modernist French philosophy (like Foucault) with French philosophy PhD students, BUT I didn't want to or couldn't go to a French-speaking country for more than one week every couple of years, then you'd probably tell me that was a ludicrous idea. That even if I worked very hard from books and tapes, I might be able to have basic, functional conversations with people in France, but I would struggle to discuss Foucault and the archeology of knowledge with French philosophy students.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Dang! I made a really good post. But it's disappeared.
I like yours too, Jon.
I might have another go in a bit ...
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I have been encouraged to post this little gem - one of my own making [polishes lapels with pride
]. i will post it without comment, at first. I may comment later. Maybe. 
"I'd like to be able to do some rock-climbing with anyone in the world. Mind you, I'm not prepared to go and do any practice at it, or go and find anyone else who does any rock-climbing - I just thought I'd go through a few moves in my living room. Can you recommend me a book?"
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"no one ever ruined anything with a mandolin"
I know one guy who uses it as music repellent. He's not bad on the fiddle, but will often turn up to sessions with a mando instead, and just sit in a corner noodling on it. Because everybody knows he *could* start a tune any time he wanted, they keep quiet and wait. But no tune ever starts.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
" He's not bad on the fiddle, but will often turn up to sessions with a mando instead, and just sit in a corner noodling on it."
Perhaps he read this:
[Cucumber noodles look like spinach linguine, but are made out of fresh cucumbers. Make cucumber noodles by slicing cucumbers into uniform strips with a mandolin slicer.]
http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8516916_make-cucumber-noodles.html
He's not noodling per se, just processing cucumbers.
I know many a salad ruined by indiscriminate use of a mandolin.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Jon:
>> Is this just a matter of numerical odds being stacked against me here, or is there anything else to it?
That is from my OP. Thanks for developing the point, but yes, the statistical odds were my number one culprit right from the outset. I just wanted to check that I was right, and not missing anything that might help reduce them.
Secondly, my turn of phrase still seems to confuse... “might as well give up right now” was totally tongue-in-cheek. If I really had that attitude, most of the rest of what I said would make no sense, let alone a couple of decades of playing to that there wall of mine... I gave up thinking I was going to be the next Donal Lunny when I was about 15, and decided to enjoy it for what it is – to me.
The problem with your calculation is that it assumes all else is equal. I have heard it said numerous times that the number of regularly-played session tunes is not more than a couple of hundred. In any one session it might be no more than a few tens. That might be wrong, but you can only go on what you are told, or can find out.
In my local session, the same tunes seem to get recycled every couple of months, and some crop up virtually *every* time. Even if that is not so elsewhere, asking people what tunes might be popular/current/frequent in a particular session or even city might not be quite as pointless as first seems, particularly if, as in this case, you have a particular session in mind. I agree that expecting to play anything, anywhere, at random, is not reasonable.
From a distance, the scene can appear more homogenous and inter-connected than is actually the case, and I think I was perhaps deceived a bit by that – but you can but learn. On the other hand, people keep telling me that the trad community in any one place is actually very small...
You also made some assumptions about my ‘expected success rate’ – I wasn’t expecting anything like 100%, which is one of the reasons I took the bouzouki along too – I am reasonably able to sit a tune out the first time round and put something reasonable behind it from that – works most of the time. All I’m saying is that I would – in an ideal world – have *liked* to be able to know more than the three or four tunes that I actually did, my own sets aside. At the end of the day, it was no more than a minor detraction from some really good evenings.
Emily, I have never lived in France, but find it perfectly straightforward to communicate over there, thanks to text-book French and a couple of weeks immersion, thanks to some friendly French colleagues. The idioms came pretty quickly once the framework was in place, even if I have let it slip since...
The jibes about wanting to do things but not being prepared to make the effort are not kind. We all live different lives, and we all have different circumstances, no point in criticising other people's without seeing them for yourself. I am just trying to make the best of mine.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Ian. I presume that last was directed at me. It's no wonder people get frustrated. I wasn't criticising you for your lifestyle choices or your circumstances. I wasn't throwing any jibes.
But here's what you're saying, in effect: "I desperately [how it comes across - desperation] want to play in sessions in Scotland and Ireland. [Another editorial - why there? Why not anywhere else?] I need to know how to do this. My lifestyle choices mean that I can't get to [won't?] play in many sessions".
Right. Now that much seems clear. What I'm saying is - if you want so desperately to play on most tunes in sessions far from your home, you have to play in many sessions, including ones far from your home.
No-one is being unkind. No-one is shutting the shop doors. You've done all the boxing in yourself. If you modify your lifestyle choices so as to be able to get out and about more and play in more sessions, you will be less boxed in, from several different respects.
Finally, I repeat (not wishing in any way to be unkind): it's a waste of time learning tune lists. It'll take you forever, and, when forever finally comes around, you'll find it won't have helped.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
O.K., EB, point accepted unconditionally - but that's what it looked like.
I think your last point is established and taken. But it wasn't really what I had in mind anyway.
Why Scotland/Ireland? Partly just silly sentiment, partly because I like the places, and partly for the same reason that I and others go to Italy for the best Italian food. O.K., I know we've already had that discussion...
As for modifying lifestyle choices, well yes that would clearly help. Except that for me, no. 1 priority will always be a spouse who doesn't herself play the music, and no. 2, to a degree far more than I can really control, has to be my chosen career. The consequences of getting that wrong are not pleasant - at least one colleague was 'removed' recently for such reasons - and leaving it is not quite as straightforward as it might seem.
Suffice it to say that I repeatedly encounter folk who don't comprehend why, for most of the year, I am simply not available for the levels of social life that they take for granted. Yes, lifestyle choices if you will, but how many people have complete control over that, especially as they grow older? It nonetheless means that the music does have to be squeezed into what spaces can be found. I can hardly be alone in that.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
R-i-g-h-t ... but do you follow the logical conclusion of that? You've made your choices. One of them is music, but not to the same extent as the people you want to emulate (it seems to me). So, when you do get a chance to get out there and play, do just that. Get out there and play. And listen when you don't know the tunes, and stop worrying about how many tunes you don't know. Learn to enjoy the listening as well as the playing.
At which point I well-nigh guarantee that you will find, if you stop to think about it, that you're playing much more than you thought you could. It's Zen. Or, as Frankie would have it ...
"Relax. Don't do it ..."
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"The jibes about wanting to do things but not being prepared to make the effort are not kind. We all live different lives, and we all have different circumstances, no point in criticising other people's without seeing them for yourself. I am just trying to make the best of mine"
Ian, be assured that my post was not intended as any kind of jibe. Clearly you are making an effort, and a great one. That's not the problem. The problem is what you are aiming your efforts at.
I can't be more plain about it: learning tunes, while it's fun and all, is not going to get you to where you want to be. The math says no.
Even if you could accurately rank the tunes by global and regional popularity, and select, say, certain Scottish and Irish cities and have a tune-learning trainer giving you the right tunes to learn for those cities, the math still says no.
And if you think about it, you don't really want to "know a lot of tunes". You want to play music with people. Learning a lot of tunes might be nice, but being able to sit down with another person and hear what they're doing and follow them is what you're really looking for. As a side benefit, you can learn a lot of tunes that way.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
ian, I think you are approaching all this far too logically and methodically. I have a tendency to do that myself, and while it helped me get started, now I think it actually holds me back. Once you get to a certain point, exposure to new things is the best way to learn. For years, I accompanied, and played in a band, and now, my home session has become one where the repetoire is fairly limited--and as a result of this, while there are tunes I know very well, there are many common tunes I need to learn. I think it is time for me to step out to new gatherings, get some more exposure to new tunes, get out of my comfort zone. Sounds like you are ready to do the same. But you can't plan organize or manage stepping out of your comfort zone, you just need to do it.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Al - I'll believe you've stopped thinking about this too logically and methodically when I see you remove the guide to session playing from your profile.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
... tune list requests ~ playing away from home
" ... come for a tune in Edinburgh, we'll be guaranteed to have more tunes in common than just those on Will and Dow's famous lists (though these alone should be enough for a couple of sets between strangers)."
May 3rd 2011 by llig leahcim
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
>>You want to play music with people
Unfortunately, my life divides between six weeks in the summer when all such things are possible, and the rest when they really mostly aren't. The switch takes place again in two days' time 
FWIW, plans are afoot to go and play with a few folk in Ireland next spring, so when opportunity presents, we do take it...
You bet! The session scene is great fun, more than I suspected, but it's not where I had directed my efforts until relatively recently. Even then, I initially thought it was mostly going to be something of a means to an end - a way of meeting people to form a tighter group, and a way of making my own playing more natural. It definitely worked on the first count, and I think it probably has/is doing on the second.
So my main way of adapting to circumstance, not to say personal temperament, has been to pull that small group of people closer in a way that works for us. It is time- and place-manageable and luckily, the level of commitment seems both pretty high and pretty equal. I think that is partly down to the fact that those in it realise how rare a phenomenon it is in these parts.
In actual fact, I'm not the most availability-limited member, there's one who is sometimes missing on work for a month at a time, but luckily he's good enought so slot in when he is around, and the net keeps him up to speed when he's not.
It's not a session as you would probably recognise it, but it works for what it is. Hopefully, it will also result in a reasonable performing outfit, and we are currently also looking for a pub who will have us once a month as a kind of semi-closed session of the kind I played with Duncan and friends. Will hopefully keep things from becoming too disparate.
Al, my summer trip was precisely my attempt at 'stepping out to new gatherings'
The OP was only really a throwaway point, because I was nonetheless surprised at just how few familiar tunes cropped up, not because I was expecting 100% action. Somewhere in there is still the suspicion that there is a connection between level of immersion and opportunity, and range of tunes being played. That makes me feel a little uncomfortable in terms of musical competence/experience. That's all.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Maybe you should try getting together with some of your session players and just try to pick up each other's tunes: no paper, no breaking it down into bits, just play it slow and easy over and over and everyone try to get it. Probably each of you have enough tunes that the others don't know that you could all get some good practice that way.
The person who starts the tune will also get a good lesson in maintaining simplicity at a consistent, slow tempo. More difficult than it sounds, I think.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Bloody hell, Jon! Go steady! He'll be thinking we're trying to be helpful.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Interesting idea Jon - will suggest it. At present, we have got around ten sets that we are working on full-throttle to get them tight and to get everyone's playing to gel (from scratch) - now happening nicely. That's taken eight months, and we expect it to take at least another seven before we're fit to be thrust on the public. But we're beginning to get to the point when your idea would be possible. Plus, that's fifteen months of good house sessions in the meantime
It was also a good thing to do, for each of us to make a play list - it speeded up finding what we had in common, and could work for what we have to learn, too.
Not saying sessions aren't good in themselves - especially when there's more than one of us present, but I soon knew I didn't have the amount of time needed to get fully into the session scene. I just didn't appreciate the full consequences of that, perhaps.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
>>just play it slow and easy over and over
thinking about it, we've already been doing it...
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Could I have a list of tunes played in your session, Ian?
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Babs, do you mean the house session?
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Yes, if you have one.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"no one ever ruined anything with a mandolin"
Not going to get into detail here, but - you're wrong, llig. Wrong wrong wrong. So very wrong.
And now I'm having painful flashbacks to The Time Things Were Ruined By A Mandolin.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
List sent off-group...
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
It wasn't me, TDaM, honest...
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Cheers!
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I should add that the session host had a firm but polite chat with the aforementioned mandolin player, who subsequently mended his ways and is now rather pleasant to play with. It can happen!
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
What was he doing wrong, TD&M?
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DaveL35
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
AL Brown, you seems to have disabled sending you messages, so here are some errata for your guide to session playing.
The Scottish spelling is "ceilidh" not "ceilidhe". You have fallen into the American kitsch cliche of aires and faires.
Strathspeys are in 4/4 and the Scottish snap rhythm as played exaggerates the inequality of the linked notes to more than 3:1. Highlands are not the same, and nobody used to Scottish music would ever think a highland was a strathspey.
Mazurkas are in 3/4, never 6/8.
Marches (in Scotland anyway) can be in almost any time signature. 3/4 marches ("retreats") are fairly common, and at least one 9/8 is very familiar.
B flat session tunes, in Scotland or anywhere else, have nothing to do with the Highland pipes, and none of them are playable on the pipes.
Spare us the "Celtic regions" crap.
The specific tips for chording and strumming are okay as far as I can tell, but need a rather strong warning that not everybody will do the same, and you need to actually listen to what other accompanists in your milieu do and ask them how they think.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Dave - he was usually (more like 75% of the time than 99%) playing in the right key. His rhythm, though, was ALWAYS off; he had a tendency to inject his chord of choice where it had the highest chance of being heard, ie, between the beats.
Which led to the following conversation between me and another fiddler:
Other fiddler [after placing her fiddle on the table, halfway through a tune that she'd started and was no longer able to play along with because the mandolinist had his own ideas about rhythm - and this is a very good player we're talking about]: Ugh! Who IS that man?
Me: His name is [redacted]
Other fiddler: He is SO insenstive! [pauses] Can you imagine going to bed with him? [proceeds to furnish details as to precisely how this hypothetical scene would play out, for the benefit of those of us who hadn't considered the possibility.]
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I suppose, Ian, to those of us reading your posts, that it seems like what you would really desire is the ability to travel to Scotland or Ireland or wherever and be able to play along in any session on a respectable number of tunes, and ideally you would like to do this without having to play in a ton of sessions.
Tons of well-known and commonly played tunes on those old albums. They won't get you through every sessions and are no substitute for the "real" thing, but they can give you a bit of a grounding in the tradition.
What we're saying, is that it ain't possible. The only way to get good at playing in sessions and acquire a wide and flexible repertoire is play in lots and lots of sessions. If you can't do that, I think one of things you have to accept is that you will be sitting out a lot of tunes when you visit a new session. That's fine, by the way, people will still be friendly to you if the session is at all worthwhile.
In the meantime, I reiterate -- listen to the old recordings I recommended above: Ennis, Coleman, and while I'm at it, Joe Cooley, Wllie Clancy, and Paddy Killoran.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Emily, the first part is right, but...
. Although I'm not the most naturally gregarious of people, it's not that. I'm simply trying to deal with my regular circumstances as they happen to be.
>>ideally you would like to do this without having to play in a ton of sessions
...makes it sound as though the will isn't there, or that I want to cut corners. Well, when the opportunity presented itself, I was out several nights a week - not that I think Sara would like that as a long term proposition
To be playing with that frequency based here, I would have to be driving hundreds of miles a week, and getting back at a time that means I simply wouldn't function the next morning - and that is something that I simply could not get away with professionally. And no, I suppose the will to spend so much more time in the car each week on top of the nine or so hours I already do each week, just isn't there...wer all have our limits.
>>Tons of well-known and commonly played tunes
...but we're back we're we came in - how am I to know which are the commonly played ones, under the circumstances - assuming that's the criterion of choice, anyway? I normally choose by what pleases the ear, but clearly that doesn't always help.
I think people have taken what I said was 'a propos not much' too seriously. I still enjoy my music and it works under my circumstances, especially as I enjoy playing the music in other settings too. Then there's all that fiddle practice! It's really no big deal, other than I was surprised by the difference in my recognition rate compared with round here.
Will do some listening, though.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
When I travel I find I know between 5% and 30% of the tunes people start at the sessions, and about 80% of the ones I start myself.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Bren
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Good one, Bren!
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I wish it was a joke
But learning more tunes can't hurt. I might have learnt more than 1500 tunes, or not. I doubt I could remember how to start more than a hundred most of the time,but how it's amazing how after a couple of days at a festival playing in sessions, the fingers and the mind loosen up and the tunes come flooding back.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Bren
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Jon,
Regarding my session guide, it is an artifact of the days when I was more methodical!
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
@TD&M
Thanks, I just wanted to make sure I don't do the same thing!
I guess the short answer to the question of what he was doing wrong would be 'playing chords'. Fair enough.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by DaveL35
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Oh, and Jack Campin, thanks for the input, some good feedback there. I don't agree with your point that my spelling of ceilidhe is incorrect, I'll stick with the way I spell it since that is the way it is spelled on the sign at the Irish club where we gather locally to dance, and it has been spelled that way since the club was founded many decades ago (one of many spellings of that word I have seen over the years). I agree highlands are not strathspeys, the point I was trying to make was that the two types of tunes are cousins, so I suppose I have to reword that, if you didn't get my point, others might not as well. And the amount of diversity in opinions regarding how time signatures should be notated is rather surprising when you go from source to source. Not sure why you couldn't send me a personal message, I didn't know there was any way to disable that on this site.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
>>I know between 5% and 30% of the tunes people start at the sessions
Well it's good to know I'm not alone!
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Al, as I'm sure you don't need to be told, Scots Gaelic is different to Irish, and these days it's generally spelt ceilidh in Scotland and "ceili" in Ireland although historically, of course there have been many different Anglicised spellings of such words as you have noticed.
I presume at a "ceilidhe", I'd play a "mandoline" !
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Bren
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"of course there have been many different Anglicised spellings "
Naff all to do with Anglicised spelling. Before the standardisation in the 1950s (An Caighdeán Oifigiúil), the common Irish spelling was "céilidhe.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I don't argue that the spelling is modern--the club was formed at about the same time as the Irish spelling reforms of the middle of the last century. I suspect that the folks who formed the club had learned to spell it in the more archaic manner, and emigrated before the modern standardized spelling was taught in Irish schools.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
We cross posted Weejie--thanks for the input.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
What Google says:
ceili: About 2,030,000 results
ceilidh: About 2,270,000 results
ceilidhe: About 16,400 results
"Ceilidhe" seems to be an archaic Irish spelling, never used in Scotland.
What the dictionary says:
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/SWE/TBI/TBIIssue9/Ceilidh.html (follow the links to the DotSL and search, the full story is interesting)
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Jack, I will amend my essay to include the more modern spellings. I have amended it fairly frequently over the years, as I am the first to admit that I am no scholar, merely someone who put together some basic information to make getting started in The Music a bit easier than I found it when I first started.
But I do find your accusation that I was engaging in "American kitsch cliche" to be a bit offensive to the Irish immigrants who founded the club that helps keep the Irish cultural heritage alive in this area.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"Ceilidhe" seems to be an archaic Irish spelling, never used in Scotland."
As Al doesn't live in Scotland, and his session guide covers both Irish and Scottish music, I don't see the relevance.
As stated earlier, the spelling is Irish and pre-1950s.
Perhaps not so much 'archaic' as 'stubborn refusal to accept reform'.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Stop the press!
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/5103#comment107977
Posted on December 1st 2004 by Zina Lee (w/help from Fintan Vallely)
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I'll accept stubborn as a description of my behavior from time to time.
And while I balked at the spelling advice, Jack did provide some good input--always room for improvement.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Stop the press once more...
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/7033/comments
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Okay, I get the idea. If the reason for the spelling is given I don't have a problem with that (it's ingenious to come up with a spelling that present-day Scottish and Irish readers will find equally odd). But with no explanation this boggles the orthographic lobe of the brain somewhat:
"Some Scottish ceilidhe dances are even set to marches"
If you want to go into more detail, there is a subtlety here about the content, not just the spelling. Some dances like the Gay Gordons or Canadian Barn Dance use conventional pipe marches, or military marches in similar rhythms and straightforward folk modes. Barren Rocks of Aden into Farewell to the Creeks, say. You might well hear those tunes in an Irish session. But there's another kind of dance, like the Britannia Two-Step, which typically uses a kind of 6/8 march most often associated with Felix Burns: these are in several sections and use key contrasts and maybe chromaticisms. These you will never hear in an Irish session and not often in a Scottish one either - they're associated with the danceband scene and the accordion and fiddle clubs. They tend to go into keys that whistle players usually avoid and fiddlers aren't very enthusiastic about.
# Posted on September 2nd 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
More good input! Thanks, my knowledge of Scottish dance is limited to dancing at a Burns night, a few visits to the local Scottish Country Dancing group's gatherings, and dancing at one of the many highland festivals held in the local are during the warmer months.
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"But there's another kind of dance, like the Britannia Two-Step, which typically uses a kind of 6/8 march most often associated with Felix Burns: these are in several sections and use key contrasts and maybe chromaticisms. These you will never hear in an Irish session and not often in a Scottish one either - they're associated with the danceband scene and the accordion and fiddle clubs"
It depends on where you go for sessions - up north, it's not unusual to hear "Ronald Cooper" by Frank Jamieson, or "Frank Jamieson" by Ronald Cooper. Both these tunes (Shetland two-steps) fit your description - and fiddlers play them quite readily. Mind you, it's not unheard of to hear "Cullen Bay" (a 5/4 number) played in sessions in these far-flung places. This is presented as a "reel" in the tune section here. Good tune for you, Ian Stock.
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Same old ground covered here as with many previous discussions...or as with many tunes played in sessions - same old tunes knocked out over and over, But what the hell. This site is Obsessive/Compulsives' heaven. Yeah. American agents infiltrate another midle east country and destroy it in the name of democracy but the band played on. Never missing a beat, theyre that good.
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
Thanks for the expert diagnosis Dr. Rudall;
http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/o-cd.htm
Is this the worst of times & the best of times?
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
If traditional music is the old tunes played again, shouldn't the discussions be the old words repeated again?
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
"If traditional music is the old tunes played again, shouldn't the discussions be the old words repeated again?"
So long as you don't use new fangled contemporary words like 'céilí'.
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: Tune 'hit rate' when playing away from home...
I enjoyed that letter from Fintan Valelly. Quite right too. The intelligent Irish people that I know (which would be all of them
) are as proud of their use of English as they are of their use of Irish, and do get incensed by the faux-Gaelic words that have crept in and are liberally sprinkled around by the ignorant.
). After a while (and it really won't take long, I promise) those tunes will be so ingrained that you'll find you know them in any case, and you won't even have had to make an effort.
Meanwhile, Ian, for someone who has by now repeated several times that your original moan was just a throwaway comment and that people shouldn't take you too seriously (I can't be bothered to look up the exact words, but you've said something like that more than twice in this thread now) you don't 'arf bang on about it. On and on with the "Yes but which tunes should I learn?" "You've told me to listen to old recordings, but I don't know which tunes" "Give me a list someone please". On and on.
Something that I think you haven't noticed is *quite* how helpful TSS has been to you on this thread. More than anyone else in coming up with something practical that might actually help you. Because I think you haven't noticed, I'll spell it out for you:TSS has given you a very practical suggestion to at least give you a grounding in the tradition - listen to the old recordings of the old greats. She's even named some that you might like to get hold of. Your question was (again) "Yes, but which tunes should I learn?" At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, the answer is, quite seriously, ALL OF THEM.
Here's another practical suggestion: don't bother to 'actively' learn all those tunes. Play the recordings over and over - have the CDs in the car and have them on while you're driving - have them on an old CD player in the kitchen while you cook your wife a lovely dinner (so she can't complain
I'm afraid your constant complaint that you're unable to make the effort required to achieve the Holy Grail that you say you want to achieve doesn't wash with me. That's why I've made my practical suggestion above. To save you having to make any effort.
# Posted on September 3rd 2011 by ethical blend