Harmonizing At Sessions

[Phantom Button]

My melodionist friend turned to me after a while and remarked that I knew quite a lot of the tunes. I had to admit that I didn't know a single one of them

I will sometimes make this same remark to people who are noodling on tunes they don't know, just to see their reaction.

 

I detest those sessions that are one dance tune after another.

This is the mainstay of the sessions I go to. They do occasionally include a song here and there though.

[fiddlerjoebob]

One of my most important rules for our session, a rule that I do have posted on the wall, and one that I mention to the assembly on occasion is this:

 

 

"Bring Food"

 

 

[Robert Booth]

Stephen

 

Let me extend an early welcome to the PNW. It's a wonderful place. Taste, look, play, visit, and when you go home,

Don't tell anyone else!

 

 

Seriously, we hope that your visit is happy and fun.

 

Robert

[Alan Day]

That's when I wish I had a bodhran ...

My God! You must really hate those sessions ...

 

Chris

If everyone was like John ,Chris you and I might just as well pack it all in.

All of the tunes I play are dance tunes.

Al

[Robin Harrison]

All of the tunes I play are dance tunes.

Al

True that.....Paul Read and I now run an English Session (Toronto ETM Session) and our repertoire is almost exclusively ( I use that word advisedly) English dance music .

My first love has always been playing for dancers and what I love particularly about our session is that when we get in the groove, then it has the feel of playing at a dance........there's exhilaration and joy in the room and a shared feel of having achieved something more than just played a few tunes through.

A point worth mentioning ,I think , is that sessions are meant to accomodate largish numbers of people playing tunes together and just having a wonderful social time together playing a genre of music you love.If you don't like a tune,wander over to the bar and order a beer and chat to someone there.

If you don't like a lot of the tunes ,find another session; if you don't like 6 concertina players in one room, find another session . If you are finding you are having to make to compromises at the expense of the music then this may be the time to get together with a small number of people and focus more narrowly on what suits you better.

Sessions are great for building community

In a separate thread I will tell you more about the Toronto session Paul and I now run.It's very exciting.

Regards Robin

[hjcjones]

It's fascinating just how much sessions, and people's attitudes, seem to vary.

 

If I'm understanding him correctly, Phantom Button's session sounds quite disciplined, with everyone knowing the tunes and expected not to join in tunes they don't know. I'm sure it's great, but I'm not sure I'd fit in

 

I'm curious how new tunes get introduced to the session, if only tunes known to everyone get played. For me, one of the pleasures of sessions is to pick up new tunes, and if I introduce a new tune myself I'm disappointed if someone doesn't try to join in - it's not meant to be a solo performance.

 

I must admit that the sessions I'm used to (both English and Irish) are much more free and easy, and most things are tolerated. It's first and foremost about having a good time playing music with friends old and new. Perhaps sometimes the music can get a bit ragged, but when it all comes together it's unbeatable. Robin mentioned that feeling of getting in the groove, and when that happens it can be as good as playing in a rehearsed band, with the added knowledge that it is unique and unrepeatable.

Edited March 20, 2008 by hjcjones

[Phantom Button]

If I'm understanding him correctly, Phantom Button's session sounds quite disciplined, with everyone knowing the tunes and expected not to join in tunes they don't know. I'm sure it's great, but I'm not sure I'd fit in

The Irish sessions I generally go to are not that different than the ones I've participated in Ireland, aside from the ones in Ireland having a greater wealth of talented and competent players. In both cases people who don't know the tunes being played are perfectly welcomed, but they should try not to disturb the flow of the music. If someone is sitting with their instrument in their lap they'll usually be asked to start a tune they know now and then, and of course they're welcome to join on the ones they already know, but if they’re not careful, people who noodle around can get in the way of the enjoyment of the session for the regulars and make it hard to play. It puts me off to have someone I can hear trying to follow along or reinventing the tune I’m trying to play. Unlike their CD player at home; I can hear them and it effects my playing.

 

The people who host or anchor the session and the regulars come out because they enjoy celebrating the music together. Their enjoyment involves the experience of making good music together. If people who don't know the tunes are noodling audibly it can hamper the flow of the music and have a negative impact on the music and consequently the enjoyment of the session for the regulars. In other words, they didn't come out for a session so that you can use it for your personal enjoyment regardless of what effect it might have on the enjoyment for the people actually playing the music. If they knew someone was coming who expected to take advantage of their session in this way, they might have opted to stay home instead.

 

I'm curious how new tunes get introduced to the session, if only tunes known to everyone get played. For me, one of the pleasures of sessions is to pick up new tunes, and if I introduce a new tune myself I'm disappointed if someone doesn't try to join in - it's not meant to be a solo performance.

People at our sessions introduce new tunes all the time and unless they were to do it incessantly no one accuses them of making the session a "solo performance." Most people use common sense and only introduce new tunes when it seems right. When this happens the others usually listen and enjoy hearing a new tune. If everyone jumped in and tried to play on a new tune as soon as it comes up then every new tune would be chaotic and cacophonous. Usually new tunes will show up somewhere within a medley of tunes others know so it rarely becomes anything resembling a solo performance.

 

So how do you pick up on new tunes if you choose not to jump in and start noodling? There are various ways. I usually start by asking where they got the tune and often this leads to discovering great CDs I don’t yet own. Other times I might capture it on a recording device so I can learn the tune at home later. If both of those options fail I will just enjoy listening to the tune as it comes up in consecutive sessions until I become familiar enough with it to gently start putting it into my fingers. The last option often takes the most time, but if you seek to participate in traditional music it’s a good idea not to be in too much of a hurry.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Phantom Button

[hjcjones]

The Irish sessions I generally go to are not that different than the ones I've participated in Ireland, aside from the ones in Ireland having a greater wealth of talented and competent players. In both cases people who don't know the tunes being played are perfectly welcomed, but they should try not to disturb the flow of the music.

 

It sounds like it's a great session and I'm sure it benefits from the self-restraint you and the others appear to show in not joining in if you don't know the tune.

 

If everyone jumped in and tried to play on a new tune as soon as it comes up then every new tune would be chaotic and cacophonous. Usually new tunes will show up somewhere within a medley of tunes others know so it rarely becomes anything resembling a solo performance.

 

If I start up a new tune, what usually happens is that one or two of the more competent players will start to join in once they've got the general idea. This might involve playing chords and harmonies until they've got the idea of the melody (and I understand that this wouldn't be welcomed in your session). That's often my own approach if I hear a tune I don't know, but I can usually get it within a couple of times through, unless it has some unusual phrases that are harder to work out. But there are times when I can't get it, and then I stop.

 

So how do you pick up on new tunes if you choose not to jump in and start noodling?

 

It depends what you mean by "noodling". To me it suggests fumbling around on the instrument in a fairly haphazard way, trying to pick up bits of the tune. This can certainly be annoying, especially if the noodler is several bars behind everyone else. However, with an understanding of the repetitive structure of most tunes (from the British Isles, anyway) and a good repertoire of the standard musical phrases, someone with a good ear who knows their way around their instrument can often pick up a tune very quickly without getting in the way of those who already know it.

 

Actually, what I find more annoying than noodlers (as long as they're noodling quietly) are those who just play along without really paying attention to what everyone else is doing. Especially when they're not even in the same key as the rest.

 

There are various ways. I usually start by asking where they got the tune and often this leads to discovering great CDs I don’t yet own. Other times I might capture it on a recording device so I can learn the tune at home later. If both of those options fail I will just enjoy listening to the tune as it comes up in consecutive sessions until I become familiar enough with it to gently start putting it into my fingers. The last option often takes the most time, but if you seek to participate in traditional music it’s a good idea not to be in too much of a hurry.

 

I agree in part with what you say. However the traditional players did not have the benefit of CDs or recorders, and must have learned how to pick up tunes from only one or two hearings. I think that's a useful skill to have, although a recorder certainly makes it easier!

[Phantom Button]

If I start up a new tune, what usually happens is that one or two of the more competent players will start to join in once they've got the general idea. This might involve playing chords and harmonies until they've got the idea of the melody (and I understand that this wouldn't be welcomed in your session). That's often my own approach if I hear a tune I don't know, but I can usually get it within a couple of times through, unless it has some unusual phrases that are harder to work out. But there are times when I can't get it, and then I stop.

I don't know what kind of tunes you're referring to here, many of the Irish trad tunes we play would require an idiot savant to pick up after only a couple of times through. I only know a couple of people who can do this convincingly. Most people I know who claim to be able to do this are kidding themselves according to what I've witnessed. Sure there are some tunes where it's possible, but many Irish tunes aren't so trite and predictable, and that's what keeps us interested in them. They have unpredictable passages that are exhilarating to hear but lose something when people are trying to pick it up on the fly and muddling the tune in the process.

 

• There was a great analogy at thesession.org recently on this point. If you had a room full of people drawing the same object, there could be a variety of skill levels working on it at the same time because the beginners, (or in this case people who don't know the tune,) aren't scribbling all over the drawings of the people who already know how to draw, (or people who know the tune.)
  

 

someone with a good ear who knows their way around their instrument can often pick up a tune very quickly without getting in the way of those who already know it.

I’ve always thought there should be a category in the All Irelands for this; you would be playing along with a tune you didn’t know and a mike would be connected to your instrument and it would be isolated in a separate room full of judicators. People would be judged in percentages for how close they came. There would be different difficulty levels as well.

 

But anyway, I personally feel that when I sit out I gain more about learning the tune than I do if I attempt to play along. I prefer to set it in my head without the mistakes I would be making before trying to actually play it.

 

I agree in part with what you say. However the traditional players did not have the benefit of CDs or recorders, and must have learned how to pick up tunes from only one or two hearings. I think that's a useful skill to have, although a recorder certainly makes it easier!

I don't think that before recorders and such were so abundant that people "learned how to pick up tunes from only one or two hearings." The session was something that happened in your town or somewhere nearby that you visited on a regular basis and you would hear the tunes session after session until the tunes played in your head when you were nowhere near the pub. I believe that's the point people learned the tunes. This certainly is the case for me for many of the tunes I know. I have a regular session I've been going to for decades and because I sit out tunes I don't know my brain was recording the tunes I was hearing over and over. After a while when the tune came up in a session I would be so familiar with it that I would think I knew it and play along without missing hardly a note only to realize afterwards that I never actually tried playing the tune before.

 

This is how I believe people learned tunes before CDs and tape recorders etc. existed.

[hjcjones]

many Irish tunes aren't so trite and predictable, and that's what keeps us interested in them.

 

Trite, no, but I would argue that most (OK, not all) tunes are predictable to a degree.

 

Take a well-known tune, picked more or less at random: "Nine Points of Roguery". It can be broken down into 2-bar phrases. It starts with a 2-bar Phrase 1, followed by Phrase 2. Phrase 1 is then repeated, followed by another new Phrase 3. The B music starts with a new Phrase 4, then repeats Phrase 2, repeats part of Phrase 4 again with a different ending, and finishes by repeating Phrase 3.

 

This tune is a 3-parter, so it's more complex than most, but the C part basically repeats the A part an octave higher - OK it finishes slightly differently but by then you've got the idea. So you only have to pick up 4 short motifs, with some small variations, to have got the tune.

 

 

(I've simplified this to a degree, on the other hand I've ignored where single bars are repeated in different phrases, eg bar 3 is a repeat of bar 1 except for one note)

 

This pattern is very common in Irish and English tunes. Of course, some tunes are more complex, and some phrases with awkward intervals or unexpected accidentals may be more difficult to pick up, and may require some practice away from the session, especially on an instrument like concertina where you may want to experiment with alternative fingerings.

 

There was a great analogy at thesession.org recently on this point. If you had a room full of people drawing the same object, there could be a variety of skill levels working on it at the same time because the beginners, (or in this case people who don't know the tune,) aren't scribbling all over the drawings of the people who already know how to draw, (or people who know the tune.)

 

That's a good analogy, and it's hard to disagree. The question is, how much does it matter? It clearly does in your session, because you and your friends have certain expectations. The sessions I go to are perhaps more tolerant of mistakes. It is usually understood that a degree of restraint will be shown during the process of picking up the tune, and the true beginners are usually (unfortunately not always) too reticent to put themselves forward anyway. The more experienced players should be able to play to at least 80% accuracy fairly rapidly, and if they're discreet with the other 20% it should hardly show. There will also be more harmony playing and chording going on in these sessions (to drag this reluctantly back on-topic ), which helps to mask any mistakes. If your session doesn't encourage harmonies then I can see that any mistakes will be more obvious and more distracting.

 

(BTW, if any of this comes across as appearing critical of your session, that's certainly not intended. It just works to different guidelines to what I'm accustomed to)

 

I'm sure that traditional musicians learned the standard tunes from their regular sessions by osmosis, just as we do today. But people travelled even then, and when a visiting player brought new tunes they would have only a limited opportunity to learn these. I remember the traditional English melodeon player Bob Cann explaining how visiting musicians, such as gypsies and migrant Irish workers, would often appear briefly in his area and he would try to collect as many of their tunes as he could while they were around. This is how the tunes spread and how variants appeared.

 

Anyway, I'll soon be heading off to session in an obscure pub in an obscure part of the Welsh Borders, where I expect to enjoy good beer, good music and good company for a couple of days. If this thread's still running when I get back, I'll let you all know how it went.

[Robert Booth]

FWIW, from the standpoint of that rank beginner, it's the very devil trying to find one's way in learning the tunes of a set of musicians who are familiar with their repitoire and one another's quirks.

 

Being an unusually parsimonious type. I've never indulged in a recording device; The acoustics in the old Grange Hall that we meet in are such that said recorder would yield a muddy wash of sound not well suited to hearing anything clearly, much less harmonies or other subtlies ( lots of coffee fueled conversation, the thuds and blows of dancers, ect.). Perforce, I just gotta sit there and listen.

 

At home I'm faced with trying to remember what I've heard, then trying to reproduce the tunes.*

Transposition, old age, pre-Alzheimer's all gang up on me. Net result; very often I am the guy in the corner trying to quietly hit the chord on time.

 

The attitude of the players in the session becomes key to whether new players can progress or not. A group of strict "traditionalists can put a guy off his stride pretty effectively. Contrarywise, folks who are more tolerant of inexperience are directly responsible for allowing a new musician to flower.

 

 

 

* In the liner notes to Music from Slieve Luchra, Jackie Daly reminices about his early days: " ...it was a question of keeping then (the tunes) in my head until I got home...

[Phantom Button]

The attitude of the players in the session becomes key to whether new players can progress or not. A group of strict "traditionalists can put a guy off his stride pretty effectively. Contrarywise, folks who are more tolerant of inexperience are directly responsible for allowing a new musician to flower.

We have beginners who come to our sessions, and I encourage my students to come as well. They sit and listen either nearby or with their instrument on their lap at the table waiting for a tune they know to come up, or to be asked to start one they know. They're able to do this without expecting the session to cater to their level or disturbing the flow of the music. By exposing their ears to the session on a regular basis they become familiar with the tunes we play and eventually are able to play along as they learn them. The people who stick with this MO have become regular members of our sessions and know a good few tunes now, and are learning more all the time. Eventhough many of us are "traditionalists," I believe it's the attitude of the session regulars that creates an atmosphere where these new comers can flourish.

[Phantom Button]

many Irish tunes aren't so trite and predictable, and that's what keeps us interested in them.

Trite, no, but I would argue that most (OK, not all) tunes are predictable to a degree.

In my quote above you left out the first part of the sentence that said, "Sure there are some tunes where it's possible..." The tune you use as an example, "Nine Points of Roguery," could be one, but if you came to our session there are a lot of tunes that are less predictable, but even some of the more predictable ones are being played at a brisk tempo that increases the difficulty in them being "picked up on the fly" without lagging behind, missing passages and muddling the sound.

 

The point is that the session is a valid venue for ITM and shouldn't be abused as a personal tune-learning tool. If it's exploited as a tune-learning tool the music suffers to a degree and the enjoyment of the music for punters and musicians alike can be hampered. I think the session deserves more respect, and even though tunes can be learned there, the integrity of the music needs to be supported as well. I've provided many ideas for how to do this without having a negative impact on the session, but nowhere am I discouraging people from coming and learning.

[Alan Day]

French Traditional Dance Music is a classic example of variants. I have been to a number of sessions in France and UK particularly Sidmouth where the A of one tune is mixed with the B of another, slight or big variations in tunes etc.I am not sure if this is a problem with the person leading the tune or the differences in tunes from different areas.Probably the latter. People playing by ear is of course the problem ,sometimes the tune is misheard or a small subtle difference is missed.Very little of French music was ever written down until recently, hence one of the problems.

Composing tunes or remembering tunes until you get home is almost impossible,there is many a fantastic tune that I have lost just hearing a jingle on the radio or TV,someone whistling a tune, another tune you know mixing in with the one you are trying to remember etc.I always carry a dictaphone with me and La La the tune into it.It is there then and you can relax.

I agree about trying to assist beginners,it is very easy to jump down someones throat when he is noodling, a gentle take to one side, a little assistance with a few recordings to learn in between sessions, a little encouragement and bingo you have got yourself an enthusiastic member of your group.

Al

[Robin Harrison]

The point is that the session is a valid venue for ITM and shouldn't be abused as a personal tune-learning tool. If it's exploited as a tune-learning tool the music suffers to a degree and the enjoyment of the music for punters and musicians alike can be hampered

 

I couldn't agree more.I think there is some element of "paying your dues" to a session.

I know I am somewhat thin-skinned about this, but if I've sweat bullets learning a tune at home, it seems cheeky to me for someone to dive into a tune they've never heard before, UNLESS they can do it quietly enough so no-one else can hear,which is unlikely.That's why corners were designed.

I think it is also unrealistic ( or poor etiquette) to come to a new session and expect to be able to participate 100% immediately unless you are fully up to speed on the repertoire.

Robin

[Dirge]

So do the melodion, accordion and guitar players stick religiously to the bare melody line or is it only the concertina players who are told to play just one note at a time?

[Phantom Button]

So do the melodion, accordion and guitar players stick religiously to the bare melody line or is it only the concertina players who are told to play just one note at a time?

I'm only familiar with Irish sessions, but the guitar usually plays backup. Since it's perfectly capable of playing melody it will do that now and then too. The accordion usually plays melody on the keyboard side and accompaniment on the other. As far as religion goes, I believe ITM is secular music for the most part. It might be played religiously if the session is held in Church, but not necessarily. Our session once had a musical priest playing flute, but he usually came long after mess had ended.

[Paul Read]

. Sure there are some tunes where it's possible, but many Irish tunes aren't so trite and predictable,

Of course there's also the problem at many Irish sessions where the players are more interested in recing each other than playing the tune well. In these sessions I would think it would be difficult to join in or pick up the tune. And sometimes that's the idea..............