Is it cheating to add a session just so you can tell your story?
This is a new session, and to be honest, I haven't been back since the first night about a month ago, as I've been out of town, etc. etc. etc. The Gypsy Queen has nothing to do with it. Really.
We went up (Ft. Collins being about an hour and a half away from Denver) and got some dinner. A woman walks up and asks where the signup list is for the session. (This probably should have been our first clue.) She then informs us that she doesn't play an instrument, so she brought a tambourine and some Irish poetry to read to us.
"That's not a very traditional instrument," she says with a little airy smile and wave, "is it!"
"Er..." I look across the table in time to see John Carr (an excellent fiddler, probably one of the best in Colorado) blench and swallow, and I don't dare look at Dirk in case I start laughing. "No, it's not."
So, after some "long time no see" conversations (we later find out that she's telling the session organizer all about her gypsy blood), we decide to have a few tunes. We start into a first tune to feel out the thing, and -- jingle jingle jingle -- out comes the tambourine!
This is the first time I ever realize that one tambourine enthusiastically played can drown out two fiddles, two drums, a piper with a half-set and a guitar/mando player. John is fiddling with his head down next to Dirk's pipes trying to hear. I can't hear either of them across the table except between the jingles. We've none of us any idea if the guitar player and drummers are actually playing, perhaps including them, as they're sitting next to her. Are we still going the same speed? At least we can see each other's feet. Have we changed tunes yet? I think we have, Dirk waggled his eyebrows at me... Err...yes, yes, it's Coleman's now...
Finally I call a halt, which takes a while, because no one can hear me shouting to stop. "Um...we're having a problem hearing each other. The tambourine's awfully loud...d'you think we might tape it up a bit to see if we can get it a little quieter?" Fair play to her, she was just fine with that and leapt up to get some tape from the coffeeshop counter.
So we play a few more tunes, blessedly tambourine-less, and then ask Kristiana (a beginning drummer and organizer of this, her very first session) to sing a song. She nerves herself and start singing. Back comes the Gypsy Queen, who begins taping up her tambourine in the middle of the song. Jingle, jingle, jingle.
Aargh.
We start up some more tunes, and the tambourine is still incredibly loud -- did she DO anything to it? We come crashing to a halt two tunes later, mainly because none of us can bear to keep going. Dirk and John have already started quietly discussing (almost) everyone going over to John's house. I'm looking across at darling little Kristiana's face, who has such hopes for her new session, so I bite the bullet.
"Er...the tambourine is still pretty loud. D'you think we might add some more tape?" Bless her, the Gypsy Queen is still willing, so she goes back to get more tape.
In the blissful quiet, we ask Kristiana for another song (seeing as how she can't really play along yet, only having taken her first lesson by video the night before). Back comes the Gypsy Queen. Jingle, jingle, jingle. Finally I walk over and ask her in a whisper to wait til the song is done. "Oh," she says loudly, as Kristiana gamely keeps singing, "I thought she *was* done!"
That did it. We pretty much ignored her the rest of the short time she stayed, and she finally got the message and left. John later said that if she hadn't left, the cops would've had to be called in when he and the Gypsy Queen crashed through the front window while he tried to wrest the tambourine from her grasp...
It took me a week to figure out that she'd probably been taping the separate jingles of her tambourine to "deaden" them, instead of taping the damned things together!
True Story
Is it cheating to add a session just so you can tell your story?
This is a new session, and to be honest, I haven't been back since the first night about a month ago, as I've been out of town, etc. etc. etc. The Gypsy Queen has nothing to do with it. Really.
We went up (Ft. Collins being about an hour and a half away from Denver) and got some dinner. A woman walks up and asks where the signup list is for the session. (This probably should have been our first clue.) She then informs us that she doesn't play an instrument, so she brought a tambourine and some Irish poetry to read to us.
"That's not a very traditional instrument," she says with a little airy smile and wave, "is it!"
"Er..." I look across the table in time to see John Carr (an excellent fiddler, probably one of the best in Colorado) blench and swallow, and I don't dare look at Dirk in case I start laughing. "No, it's not."
So, after some "long time no see" conversations (we later find out that she's telling the session organizer all about her gypsy blood), we decide to have a few tunes. We start into a first tune to feel out the thing, and -- jingle jingle jingle -- out comes the tambourine!
This is the first time I ever realize that one tambourine enthusiastically played can drown out two fiddles, two drums, a piper with a half-set and a guitar/mando player. John is fiddling with his head down next to Dirk's pipes trying to hear. I can't hear either of them across the table except between the jingles. We've none of us any idea if the guitar player and drummers are actually playing, perhaps including them, as they're sitting next to her. Are we still going the same speed? At least we can see each other's feet. Have we changed tunes yet? I think we have, Dirk waggled his eyebrows at me... Err...yes, yes, it's Coleman's now...
Finally I call a halt, which takes a while, because no one can hear me shouting to stop. "Um...we're having a problem hearing each other. The tambourine's awfully loud...d'you think we might tape it up a bit to see if we can get it a little quieter?" Fair play to her, she was just fine with that and leapt up to get some tape from the coffeeshop counter.
So we play a few more tunes, blessedly tambourine-less, and then ask Kristiana (a beginning drummer and organizer of this, her very first session) to sing a song. She nerves herself and start singing. Back comes the Gypsy Queen, who begins taping up her tambourine in the middle of the song. Jingle, jingle, jingle.
Aargh.
We start up some more tunes, and the tambourine is still incredibly loud -- did she DO anything to it? We come crashing to a halt two tunes later, mainly because none of us can bear to keep going. Dirk and John have already started quietly discussing (almost) everyone going over to John's house. I'm looking across at darling little Kristiana's face, who has such hopes for her new session, so I bite the bullet.
"Er...the tambourine is still pretty loud. D'you think we might add some more tape?" Bless her, the Gypsy Queen is still willing, so she goes back to get more tape.
In the blissful quiet, we ask Kristiana for another song (seeing as how she can't really play along yet, only having taken her first lesson by video the night before). Back comes the Gypsy Queen. Jingle, jingle, jingle. Finally I walk over and ask her in a whisper to wait til the song is done. "Oh," she says loudly, as Kristiana gamely keeps singing, "I thought she *was* done!"
That did it. We pretty much ignored her the rest of the short time she stayed, and she finally got the message and left. John later said that if she hadn't left, the cops would've had to be called in when he and the Gypsy Queen crashed through the front window while he tried to wrest the tambourine from her grasp...
It took me a week to figure out that she'd probably been taping the separate jingles of her tambourine to "deaden" them, instead of taping the damned things together!
Zina
# Posted on March 10th 2003 by Zina Lee
This session is defunct. The Gypsy Queen has nothing to do with it. Really.
Join us at Conor O'Neill's on Wednesdays in Ft. Collins.
# Posted on March 20th 2004 by Zina Lee