This discussion has come up before, I know, but the problem still continues to irritate me.
By no means would I claim to be a particularly good or experienced musician, although I know a fair amount of tunes now. However, I really enjoy not knowing what's coming next in a session(OK, we can be warned shortly before the tune starts etc and even told the tunes of the whole set). What I get fed up with is hearing exactly the same sets of tunes every week and sometimes exactly at the same time of the evening---you can set your watch by them!!
"We'll do the jigs now" , "Fancy doing the hornpipes" etc.
If I can, I'll often try to add an extra couple of tunes at the end of the set but it's not always easy as some of these players are "programmed" to finish and even have an "ending" to the set. Also, if I start a set but don't play the expected tunes and in the correct order, it confuses them
OK. I was just talking about one particular (and particular type of) session here. I go to many others but I have to admit to preferring the unexpected. If there's a few new tunes I haven't heard, that's all the better and, if those I know suddenly fall into the mix, that's all part of the fun and challenge.
Of course, I've nothing against sets as such and have a few favourites myself. However, even these get changed from time to time, depending on my mood. Nothing should ever be "set in stone".
What do you think?
However, John J I went to a session with a friend, out of curiousity, on a Wednesday in Hughes and they played out of a set of tunes that were written down. There were 20 of the tunes written down. I felt uncomfortable with this.
I know how you felt because it happened here, only slightly worse as the tunes were on a sheet of paper.
I love to hear someone's version of a tune. A guy played his version of the Cliffs of Moher on the banjo last Monday and it really sounded lovely.
With you all the way John J, I can think of some sets at sessions I go to and my heart sinks because it's going to be the same set tunes, as predictable as night follows day. I do like it when people switch sets about, and there's always the pleasure of an unexpected change and something for instance you did not think would sound good.
And putting a new tune in the middle of a familiar set is a great way to get other session musicians into it.
I too enjoy a more spontaneous session especially one that includes new tunes even though I am only an alongsider. We had a gathering of eight musicians at our cottage in the mountains this past Saturday to Sunday. Two concertina players, a button box player and fiddler, three additional fiddlers, a bodhrán player, and myself playing the guitar and sometimes bodhrán. There were many tunes exchanged through out the evening. A friend that does not play the music commented that it was a real treat to watch one person start a new to the others tune and the rest picking it up as we got to the third go round whilst finishing the tune solidly together.
I play a good amount of time with a great fiddler and another who is a great mandolin player, mostly twice a week at least and I love it when we mix the sets up with different tunes as long as they yell out where we are going so that the changes are smooth. As has been said by those with greater wisdom than mine; “Variety is the spice of life”. We at times go from a couple of jigs right into a smoking reel. It’s brilliant!
I say let the inspiration flow with out obstacle. This to me this flat out beats all those great recreationals of the late sixties early seventies.
We have that trouble in Syracuse, where tune sets became ossified a long time ago. Apparently the sets were old before I showed four years ago. I like to shake things up too--I'll start one faster or slower than it's usually played, or push into another tune before anyone has a chance to stick to the same old rut. I run the risk of being a bully, but after several years of the same repertoire played in the same order and with the same shaky skill, I feel like I need to do something.
As much as I like the Bothy Band and Kevin Burke, they are part of the problem--I can frequently name the album that the sets came from. But then I understand high school rock bands are still playing "Stairway to Heaven."
We found a solution to this last year by starting a second session that is open by invitation only. I don't like being a snob usually, but love the chance to be creative, to play new tunes, and to play old tunes in new ways.
Our session is pretty predictable, but we do tend to evolve over time. You usually get a new tune from someone every week, and our sets change as time goes by, some tunes drop out of the rotation, that new tune gets paired with an old one, etc. Some of us play in a group together, and so the sets we play in performance appear sometimes, but we deliberately avoid the trickery that we might do in the group, and play them in straight unison. There are also people who are pre-programmed to play each tune a certain number of times, to point out another area of inflexibility.
Nothing wrong with a bit of continuity, Al. Or discipline, for that matter, as long as things don't get too stale.
Obviously, my example was quite extreme and there's many possibilities between that and complete anarchy which wouldn't be desirable either.
This is outrageous!
Poor Moses goes all the way up the mountain, dodging the burning bushes and plagues of locusts, struggles back down again lugging the stone tablets with the sets inscribed in stone, and you, you thoughtless, heartless, shifty no good wasters come along only 2,000 years later and think you have the right to meddle with them.
Pete Cooper wrote an article on the difference betwen different sessions and said English sessions often consisted of sets lifted from CDs - it looks like this has spread to other sessions as well. You could put track numbers up like hymn numbers in church!!
I don't mind some sets (particularly the reeaaally good ones) repeating themselves. I also like the string-them-together-when-you-find-em sets. But, like you, Johnny J, I really dislike it when the sets become, well, set in stone. Always more fun when things're a little more fluid than that.
What does anyone think of the CCE books, 'Foinn Seisuin'. The idea of these is partly to standardise sets so that people moving around know what to expect. The heavy hand of authority, a great idea or just a meaningless exercise - you might as well try and scoop up water with your fingers...
As a teacher, I never mind a set curriculum, particularly, and find them useful. But I would worry about beginners getting so used to certain sets that they can't play the middle and last tunes without the others coming first. Nothing wrong with a set of tunebooks giving sets, but it should be made clear that it's only one way of putting the tunes together.
i like having tunes come unexpectedly, but once in a while i like having a set that i play with certain people, because it means i can get into a really great groove with them and we can just play, change when we like, and be really together the whole time. it's a different kind of communication and it has just as much merit, but it definitely can't be overdone.
So it's a session, not a ceili, a real session. We're cranking though an intense and endless set of reels and some dancers get up to dance. Okay so far -- this is, after all, dance music, and if we've inspired people to get up and dance, we must be doing something right. Afterwards one of the dancers complains that some of the tunes aren't the "right tunes" (i.e., the tunes on the CDs they practice to). And that we kept right on going after they stopped dancing! LOL!
i'm more for the *spontaneous* tunes in sets option, as it keeps the music a bit more interesting and exciting. If you play the same sets, again and again, at the same tempo, with the same tunes, it ends up becoming boring (more like classical music, dare i say).
However, theres nowt wrong with having a few staple sets, which everyone knows, that can be cranked out in a moment of need- just make sure not every set ends up like that!
lol, tracie. We have the opposite problem - when people get up to dance here, they often don't stop until our arms are dropping off and we haven't had intimate contact with our beers for half an hour. Since it's usually a step dancing tag team thing, they can pretty much go indefinitely.
Anyway, I don't like standardized sets myself, as my reason for playing is kind of cathartic, so I don't like to stop until it's "out of my system". Depending on the mood I'm in, that might be two tunes or ten. I often put the same tunes together in sets, but never in the same order, and usually with several other tunes sprinkled in liberally.
That's when I'm in a small session. In a big session I usually just follow, but I'd stop going to a session with no spontenaiety, as that wouldn't do the thing I like music to do for me.
I think there is advantages to both approaches... though if push came to shove I would prefer the spontenaety of not having arranged sets. As it is I can get a little irritated when someone complains that we haven't followed up one tune with the "right" tune...
Kerri, we haven't had the "tag team" dancer problem (yet) because the dancers are rather inexperienced, but I swear I've been in sessions where we were playing tag team reels. Otherwise, no one would be able to drink their beer(s).
BTW, folks, if you haven't done it, click on Kerri's name to read a very comprehensive article on session etiquette. <grin>
There was this notion that I never captured when I was first learning tunes. It was an evasive concept that one needed to learn sets of tunes, that you needed to search out the "old sets". That when one learned a tune, that one then had to investigate and learn the set. There was a cultural linkage to be able to say "Fred Finn and Peter Horan always played those two together."
I call it evasive because, for me, it broke down. In learning tunes from various sources, one has the tendency to pick the best tunes and hodgepodge them together into their own repetoire.
In one sense, I have that appreciation for playing tunes together based on a "tradition", or even a strong memory. Like I play Lord McDonald's and Ballinasloe Fair together because I learned them at Willie Week with John Kelly and Bobby Casey. Or I might play Golden Keyboard and Lads of Laois together because my brother and I once made that switch spontanously together. (Maybe we both heard someone else do it.)
All this said, I hate having sets played over and over again in the same setting, week after week. And I would never insist on playing the tunes above together. In fact, I enjoy when people take tunes that I might have a tendency to play in sets and break them up.
Jode, I think it helps to know all those "old sets" just so you'll recognize them for what they are when someone hauls them out. And can better avoid them otherwise. Case in point--never start a set with the Tarbolton if you don't want to play Longford Collector and Sailor's Bonnet.
Twenty-five years from now, the "old sets" will be those selected by ITM supergroups for their CDs (some even now getting a bit long in the tooth). Students of ITM in 2030 will be directed to "listen to the old guys" (e.g., Mick Moloney, James Kelly, Oisin Mac Diarmada, etc.), and their accompanists, many of whom people like me listen to intently, will be savaged much as we savage Michael Coleman's pianists.
Our local sessions sometimes degenerate into previously-recorded sets, and I can see where that can frustrate players who aren't mindreaders, or aren't familiar with the sets. But if someone wants to jump in with a tune, they certainly can, and if it's something unexpected, the more the merrier, I say.
lol, Zina, I'm the most vocal a lot of things on a lot of things, but I wouldn't put "authority" on "rules" that high on the list...
I'd like to think I'm just the most vocal authority on the personal preferences and musical experiences of Kerri Brown, (for-what-it's-worth, take-it-or-leave-it, etc.) although Michael Gill and Jack Gilder have both been contenders...
I think sets are like everything else in life - variety adds spice and enjoyment. Having said that , at my stage and proficiency I still depend largely on sets to remember what tunes to play.
I envy the guys who, when the tune is approaching the end, looks up at the ceiling, searching for a suitable tune to play, and then moves effortless into the flow of a new tune.
I like sessions where tunes are put into sets more or less spontaneously. Seems like in sessions around here, someone will start a set of tunes - maybe three in a row - then there will be a short pause until someone thinks of another tune or tunes to follow the first three. Sometimes these are shouted out by someone, but usually, someone just starts some more tunes. Jigs, reels, whatever. We don't have singers at the regular session, so there's no problem of excluding someone who wants to sing.
But there are some tunes that I always play together. The reels, Last House in Connaught with the Old Black Bush, and the jigs Joe Burke's with Gallagher's Frolic as well as Joys of My Life and Rose in the Heather. I think I do this because I remember learning them this way and when I play them together, I have a pleasant memory of the person I used to play them with.
In the session I used to take, we purposely tried to play predictable tunes so that people could go away and learn what would normally be played and then be able to take part in the majority of the session. However, this was a session specifically for those who were not yet at the level of being able to play in open sessions in pubs. I must admit that it worked for this reason, but it totally did my head in and I would not advocate that practice normally. Variety is the spice of life and not knowing what is coming next keeps you on your toes. It also reminds you of tunes that may be in your subconcious and you can play but have forgotten they existed until someone else starts them off. That's why I love session so much!
Pairs of tunes are not really a set - there is no harm in keeping two tunes together, and its an easy way to remember them (isn't it funny how they are sometimes difficult to play reverse order?).
I enjoy joining two or three pairs of tunes to make a set - a much more logical thing to do!
Right-ho, I'm a bit confused, so here's a potentially silly question. Me and me pals play pre-arranged sets, but I can see how playing more spontaneous sets would be fun. But, lets say we started with The Salamanca, and rather than do our usual routine of pretending to be the Bothy Band and following with The Banshee, we decided to be a little different. I start to play St Annes Reel, someone else chimes in with the Cup of Tea, and someone else starts Teetotallers. Arrgh, chaos! How do you get around this? I imagine one way around it would be for whoever starts the first tune to have the perogative to start the other tunes of the set. But what if they start with one thats not too well known? There could then be a bit of a problem when a set ends up being a solo performance.
I'm sure I might be missing something really obvious, but do you encounter these problems, and how does your session go about resolving them?
plinkeyplonkey,
In our session, everyone generally looks to the person who started the first tune in the set to start the second and the third. And as the accompanist, I "lock on" to that person's phrasing and tempo. I never heard anyone talk about it before, but it is like an unspoken, "you start it, you lead it" rule. That prevents musical "arguments" about what the next tune will be.
plinkeyplonkey, that is why sessions need at least some rules. Every session might be a little different in that regard. In some sessions the person who started the first tune might start it, in others they might go around the table.. so if you are to the right of the player who started the first tune, you better have one to follow up .
In one very good session I go to, a very experienced banjo player tends to lead off tunes.. he usually is very good about making sure even less experienced players get to play a few tunes. When a very good group (i.e. much better than me) shows up he will let the session take a life of its own on.. but usually he picks the tune. If he invites you to start a tune though he will usually pick the follow ups to it unless you suggest a specific set first.
I remember being at a session in Ireland somewhere with a bunch of younger players from Clare. Someone would start a tune, and they would be off for a set of 10-15 tunes at a pretty good clip. I asked one of them how they did that, and he said that they were all from around the same town, and everybody had an idea of the tune that came next. There were very few collisions. A bit restrictive in some ways, but it was a good way to get through a lot of tunes in a session.
I can't speak and play at the same time. Some other player who thinks they're in charge of the set shouts "Pull!" or some similar thing meaning "I'm about to change tune" and there's a little lull while they go where they like and no-one notices I've put my left eyeball behind my right ear and was ready with the most fantastic changeover ever.
Well, Jimmy Troy's signals can help there too, Gallopede. Learn to shout "no!" or shake your head violently when someone hijacks your set.
Around our bunch of tunehogs, we usually look first to the person who started the set to see if they've something else. If you get a nod, it means, "yes, I have something, but can't get it out while I'm playing" and means there's going to be a bit of a solo there until we've figured out what tune it is. If the person does not want to play a solo, sometimes they'll stop playing to shout out the tune to someone they know knows the tune. If someone looks at the backer and yells a key, it means they have a tune in mind.
If you get a blank look and a shrug, it usually means "can't think of a tune, have you got one?" and then it's up to you to think of one or pass it on to someone else with another shrug or interrogative look, or maybe just quit after two tunes and no inspiration.
But it's kind of dangerous to just yell "do it again" or "one more" or "a tune name" if you're not sure someone actually heard what you said. The whole session can come to a screeching halt waiting for you to start a tune when you actually said "one more" or "anybody got one?"
"That tune's not part of the set!!!"
"That tune's not part of the set!!!"
This discussion has come up before, I know, but the problem still continues to irritate me.
By no means would I claim to be a particularly good or experienced musician, although I know a fair amount of tunes now. However, I really enjoy not knowing what's coming next in a session(OK, we can be warned shortly before the tune starts etc and even told the tunes of the whole set). What I get fed up with is hearing exactly the same sets of tunes every week and sometimes exactly at the same time of the evening---you can set your watch by them!!
"We'll do the jigs now" , "Fancy doing the hornpipes" etc.
If I can, I'll often try to add an extra couple of tunes at the end of the set but it's not always easy as some of these players are "programmed" to finish and even have an "ending" to the set. Also, if I start a set but don't play the expected tunes and in the correct order, it confuses them
OK. I was just talking about one particular (and particular type of) session here. I go to many others but I have to admit to preferring the unexpected. If there's a few new tunes I haven't heard, that's all the better and, if those I know suddenly fall into the mix, that's all part of the fun and challenge.
Of course, I've nothing against sets as such and have a few favourites myself. However, even these get changed from time to time, depending on my mood. Nothing should ever be "set in stone".
What do you think?
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Johannes J
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I endevour not to play the same stuff.
However, John J I went to a session with a friend, out of curiousity, on a Wednesday in Hughes and they played out of a set of tunes that were written down. There were 20 of the tunes written down. I felt uncomfortable with this.
I know how you felt because it happened here, only slightly worse as the tunes were on a sheet of paper.
I love to hear someone's version of a tune. A guy played his version of the Cliffs of Moher on the banjo last Monday and it really sounded lovely.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by flauta dolce
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
With you all the way John J, I can think of some sets at sessions I go to and my heart sinks because it's going to be the same set tunes, as predictable as night follows day. I do like it when people switch sets about, and there's always the pleasure of an unexpected change and something for instance you did not think would sound good.
And putting a new tune in the middle of a familiar set is a great way to get other session musicians into it.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Cath
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I too enjoy a more spontaneous session especially one that includes new tunes even though I am only an alongsider. We had a gathering of eight musicians at our cottage in the mountains this past Saturday to Sunday. Two concertina players, a button box player and fiddler, three additional fiddlers, a bodhrán player, and myself playing the guitar and sometimes bodhrán. There were many tunes exchanged through out the evening. A friend that does not play the music commented that it was a real treat to watch one person start a new to the others tune and the rest picking it up as we got to the third go round whilst finishing the tune solidly together.
I play a good amount of time with a great fiddler and another who is a great mandolin player, mostly twice a week at least and I love it when we mix the sets up with different tunes as long as they yell out where we are going so that the changes are smooth. As has been said by those with greater wisdom than mine; “Variety is the spice of life”. We at times go from a couple of jigs right into a smoking reel. It’s brilliant!
I say let the inspiration flow with out obstacle. This to me this flat out beats all those great recreationals of the late sixties early seventies.
Peace,
Ed
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by ejsant
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
We have that trouble in Syracuse, where tune sets became ossified a long time ago. Apparently the sets were old before I showed four years ago. I like to shake things up too--I'll start one faster or slower than it's usually played, or push into another tune before anyone has a chance to stick to the same old rut. I run the risk of being a bully, but after several years of the same repertoire played in the same order and with the same shaky skill, I feel like I need to do something.
As much as I like the Bothy Band and Kevin Burke, they are part of the problem--I can frequently name the album that the sets came from. But then I understand high school rock bands are still playing "Stairway to Heaven."
We found a solution to this last year by starting a second session that is open by invitation only. I don't like being a snob usually, but love the chance to be creative, to play new tunes, and to play old tunes in new ways.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by dwdeacon
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Our session is pretty predictable, but we do tend to evolve over time. You usually get a new tune from someone every week, and our sets change as time goes by, some tunes drop out of the rotation, that new tune gets paired with an old one, etc. Some of us play in a group together, and so the sets we play in performance appear sometimes, but we deliberately avoid the trickery that we might do in the group, and play them in straight unison. There are also people who are pre-programmed to play each tune a certain number of times, to point out another area of inflexibility.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by AlBrown
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Nothing wrong with a bit of continuity, Al. Or discipline, for that matter, as long as things don't get too stale.
Obviously, my example was quite extreme and there's many possibilities between that and complete anarchy which wouldn't be desirable either.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Johannes J
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
This is outrageous!
Poor Moses goes all the way up the mountain, dodging the burning bushes and plagues of locusts, struggles back down again lugging the stone tablets with the sets inscribed in stone, and you, you thoughtless, heartless, shifty no good wasters come along only 2,000 years later and think you have the right to meddle with them.
OK, shall we do the polkas?
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Ottery
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Pete Cooper wrote an article on the difference betwen different sessions and said English sessions often consisted of sets lifted from CDs - it looks like this has spread to other sessions as well. You could put track numbers up like hymn numbers in church!!
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Tarrantella
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
"We have that trouble in Syracuse"
That's a phrase you don't hear all that often.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I don't mind some sets (particularly the reeaaally good ones) repeating themselves. I also like the string-them-together-when-you-find-em sets. But, like you, Johnny J, I really dislike it when the sets become, well, set in stone. Always more fun when things're a little more fluid than that.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
What does anyone think of the CCE books, 'Foinn Seisuin'. The idea of these is partly to standardise sets so that people moving around know what to expect. The heavy hand of authority, a great idea or just a meaningless exercise - you might as well try and scoop up water with your fingers...
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by the wounded hussar
Nailing jello to a tree
As a teacher, I never mind a set curriculum, particularly, and find them useful. But I would worry about beginners getting so used to certain sets that they can't play the middle and last tunes without the others coming first. Nothing wrong with a set of tunebooks giving sets, but it should be made clear that it's only one way of putting the tunes together.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
i like having tunes come unexpectedly, but once in a while i like having a set that i play with certain people, because it means i can get into a really great groove with them and we can just play, change when we like, and be really together the whole time. it's a different kind of communication and it has just as much merit, but it definitely can't be overdone.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by heth
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
So it's a session, not a ceili, a real session. We're cranking though an intense and endless set of reels and some dancers get up to dance. Okay so far -- this is, after all, dance music, and if we've inspired people to get up and dance, we must be doing something right. Afterwards one of the dancers complains that some of the tunes aren't the "right tunes" (i.e., the tunes on the CDs they practice to). And that we kept right on going after they stopped dancing! LOL!
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Tracie
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
i'm more for the *spontaneous* tunes in sets option, as it keeps the music a bit more interesting and exciting. If you play the same sets, again and again, at the same tempo, with the same tunes, it ends up becoming boring (more like classical music, dare i say).
However, theres nowt wrong with having a few staple sets, which everyone knows, that can be cranked out in a moment of need- just make sure not every set ends up like that!
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by aaron b
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
lol, tracie. We have the opposite problem - when people get up to dance here, they often don't stop until our arms are dropping off and we haven't had intimate contact with our beers for half an hour. Since it's usually a step dancing tag team thing, they can pretty much go indefinitely.
Anyway, I don't like standardized sets myself, as my reason for playing is kind of cathartic, so I don't like to stop until it's "out of my system". Depending on the mood I'm in, that might be two tunes or ten. I often put the same tunes together in sets, but never in the same order, and usually with several other tunes sprinkled in liberally.
That's when I'm in a small session. In a big session I usually just follow, but I'd stop going to a session with no spontenaiety, as that wouldn't do the thing I like music to do for me.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I think there is advantages to both approaches... though if push came to shove I would prefer the spontenaety of not having arranged sets. As it is I can get a little irritated when someone complains that we haven't followed up one tune with the "right" tune...
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by bill_mchale
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Kerri, we haven't had the "tag team" dancer problem (yet) because the dancers are rather inexperienced, but I swear I've been in sessions where we were playing tag team reels. Otherwise, no one would be able to drink their beer(s).
BTW, folks, if you haven't done it, click on Kerri's name to read a very comprehensive article on session etiquette. <grin>
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Tracie
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Yes, Kerri is very serious about session etiquette. I'd say she's probably our most vocal authority on rules for all situations.
;)
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
There was this notion that I never captured when I was first learning tunes. It was an evasive concept that one needed to learn sets of tunes, that you needed to search out the "old sets". That when one learned a tune, that one then had to investigate and learn the set. There was a cultural linkage to be able to say "Fred Finn and Peter Horan always played those two together."
I call it evasive because, for me, it broke down. In learning tunes from various sources, one has the tendency to pick the best tunes and hodgepodge them together into their own repetoire.
In one sense, I have that appreciation for playing tunes together based on a "tradition", or even a strong memory. Like I play Lord McDonald's and Ballinasloe Fair together because I learned them at Willie Week with John Kelly and Bobby Casey. Or I might play Golden Keyboard and Lads of Laois together because my brother and I once made that switch spontanously together. (Maybe we both heard someone else do it.)
All this said, I hate having sets played over and over again in the same setting, week after week. And I would never insist on playing the tunes above together. In fact, I enjoy when people take tunes that I might have a tendency to play in sets and break them up.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Jode
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Jode, I think it helps to know all those "old sets" just so you'll recognize them for what they are when someone hauls them out. And can better avoid them otherwise. Case in point--never start a set with the Tarbolton if you don't want to play Longford Collector and Sailor's Bonnet.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Will CPT
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I hear you! Wasn't there a thread about standard sets before?
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Jode
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Twenty-five years from now, the "old sets" will be those selected by ITM supergroups for their CDs (some even now getting a bit long in the tooth). Students of ITM in 2030 will be directed to "listen to the old guys" (e.g., Mick Moloney, James Kelly, Oisin Mac Diarmada, etc.), and their accompanists, many of whom people like me listen to intently, will be savaged much as we savage Michael Coleman's pianists.
Our local sessions sometimes degenerate into previously-recorded sets, and I can see where that can frustrate players who aren't mindreaders, or aren't familiar with the sets. But if someone wants to jump in with a tune, they certainly can, and if it's something unexpected, the more the merrier, I say.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by High-strung
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
lol, Zina, I'm the most vocal a lot of things on a lot of things, but I wouldn't put "authority" on "rules" that high on the list...
I'd like to think I'm just the most vocal authority on the personal preferences and musical experiences of Kerri Brown, (for-what-it's-worth, take-it-or-leave-it, etc.) although Michael Gill and Jack Gilder have both been contenders...
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I think sets are like everything else in life - variety adds spice and enjoyment. Having said that , at my stage and proficiency I still depend largely on sets to remember what tunes to play.
I envy the guys who, when the tune is approaching the end, looks up at the ceiling, searching for a suitable tune to play, and then moves effortless into the flow of a new tune.
# Posted on August 3rd 2005 by MrGanAinm
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I like sessions where tunes are put into sets more or less spontaneously. Seems like in sessions around here, someone will start a set of tunes - maybe three in a row - then there will be a short pause until someone thinks of another tune or tunes to follow the first three. Sometimes these are shouted out by someone, but usually, someone just starts some more tunes. Jigs, reels, whatever. We don't have singers at the regular session, so there's no problem of excluding someone who wants to sing.
But there are some tunes that I always play together. The reels, Last House in Connaught with the Old Black Bush, and the jigs Joe Burke's with Gallagher's Frolic as well as Joys of My Life and Rose in the Heather. I think I do this because I remember learning them this way and when I play them together, I have a pleasant memory of the person I used to play them with.
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by John Culhane
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
In the session I used to take, we purposely tried to play predictable tunes so that people could go away and learn what would normally be played and then be able to take part in the majority of the session. However, this was a session specifically for those who were not yet at the level of being able to play in open sessions in pubs. I must admit that it worked for this reason, but it totally did my head in and I would not advocate that practice normally. Variety is the spice of life and not knowing what is coming next keeps you on your toes. It also reminds you of tunes that may be in your subconcious and you can play but have forgotten they existed until someone else starts them off. That's why I love session so much!
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by Fi
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Pairs of tunes are not really a set - there is no harm in keeping two tunes together, and its an easy way to remember them (isn't it funny how they are sometimes difficult to play reverse order?).
I enjoy joining two or three pairs of tunes to make a set - a much more logical thing to do!
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Right-ho, I'm a bit confused, so here's a potentially silly question. Me and me pals play pre-arranged sets, but I can see how playing more spontaneous sets would be fun. But, lets say we started with The Salamanca, and rather than do our usual routine of pretending to be the Bothy Band and following with The Banshee, we decided to be a little different. I start to play St Annes Reel, someone else chimes in with the Cup of Tea, and someone else starts Teetotallers. Arrgh, chaos! How do you get around this? I imagine one way around it would be for whoever starts the first tune to have the perogative to start the other tunes of the set. But what if they start with one thats not too well known? There could then be a bit of a problem when a set ends up being a solo performance.
I'm sure I might be missing something really obvious, but do you encounter these problems, and how does your session go about resolving them?
Cheers.
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by plinkeyplonkey
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
plinkeyplonkey,
In our session, everyone generally looks to the person who started the first tune in the set to start the second and the third. And as the accompanist, I "lock on" to that person's phrasing and tempo. I never heard anyone talk about it before, but it is like an unspoken, "you start it, you lead it" rule. That prevents musical "arguments" about what the next tune will be.
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
plinkeyplonkey, that is why sessions need at least some rules. Every session might be a little different in that regard. In some sessions the person who started the first tune might start it, in others they might go around the table.. so if you are to the right of the player who started the first tune, you better have one to follow up
.
In one very good session I go to, a very experienced banjo player tends to lead off tunes.. he usually is very good about making sure even less experienced players get to play a few tunes. When a very good group (i.e. much better than me) shows up he will let the session take a life of its own on.. but usually he picks the tune. If he invites you to start a tune though he will usually pick the follow ups to it unless you suggest a specific set first.
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by bill_mchale
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I remember being at a session in Ireland somewhere with a bunch of younger players from Clare. Someone would start a tune, and they would be off for a set of 10-15 tunes at a pretty good clip. I asked one of them how they did that, and he said that they were all from around the same town, and everybody had an idea of the tune that came next. There were very few collisions. A bit restrictive in some ways, but it was a good way to get through a lot of tunes in a session.
# Posted on August 4th 2005 by Gzeg
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
I can't speak and play at the same time. Some other player who thinks they're in charge of the set shouts "Pull!" or some similar thing meaning "I'm about to change tune" and there's a little lull while they go where they like and no-one notices I've put my left eyeball behind my right ear and was ready with the most fantastic changeover ever.
A foghorn with a foot pedal would be good.
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by LowProfile
Re: "That tune's not part of the set!!!"
Well, Jimmy Troy's signals can help there too, Gallopede. Learn to shout "no!" or shake your head violently when someone hijacks your set.
Around our bunch of tunehogs, we usually look first to the person who started the set to see if they've something else. If you get a nod, it means, "yes, I have something, but can't get it out while I'm playing" and means there's going to be a bit of a solo there until we've figured out what tune it is. If the person does not want to play a solo, sometimes they'll stop playing to shout out the tune to someone they know knows the tune. If someone looks at the backer and yells a key, it means they have a tune in mind.
If you get a blank look and a shrug, it usually means "can't think of a tune, have you got one?" and then it's up to you to think of one or pass it on to someone else with another shrug or interrogative look, or maybe just quit after two tunes and no inspiration.
But it's kind of dangerous to just yell "do it again" or "one more" or "a tune name" if you're not sure someone actually heard what you said. The whole session can come to a screeching halt waiting for you to start a tune when you actually said "one more" or "anybody got one?"
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by Zina Lee