Hi to all squezzers! here's a question that has crossed my mind since I have become familier with the session tunes down here in Little Rock, Arkansas...we tend to play the same tunes when we get together..nothing wrong with that..the list is pretty long...but if I travelled to your part of the country what tunes are you playing? So the question is what tunes and where?

Little Rock top ten: morrison's jig, high reel, road to lisdoonvana, breton dance tune,blackthorn stick, drowsy maggie reel, dunmore lassies, sally garden reel, banish misfortune, the butterfly slip jig.

The purpose of course is for me to learn the tunes you play so as I might sit in if I'm ever in your town.
Thanks, Alan.

This has been discussed at considerable length and many times over at The Session (http://adactio.com/session/). You might check there.

Of course if you came to our session in Freshford you'd probably recognise one tune in fifty (that is assuming of course that Little Rock, Arkansas is not in England...).

Chris

Gee... that is not an easy question in Baltimore; it depends on the session you are going to. For the slow sessions, the tunes in Mel Bay's 100 Essential Session tunes would be a good start, though we do go off list occasionally. For the more advanced sessions; well those tunes would make a good start but there are literally hundreds if not thousands of tunes that might pop up depending on who shows up at the session.

--
Bill

The sessions I go to are more contradance-oriented than Irish-oriented. Years ago the standard list was the Nelson collection, but for the past decade or so it's been the Portland collection, so much so that once when I suggested a tune, someone asked "what page?"

With that tunelist you would have no trouble fitting in at the Harp, the Irish pub in Tempe, Sydney, Australia, Sunday evenings...

Chris

I am off to the George tonight and I can honestly say that from about twenty musicians the tunes could be from a selection of hundreds.I am taking three new tunes with me tonight and many others could be taking tunes played from twenty years ago or new tunes they have just learnt.The pleasure of playing by ear is that with old tunes you can pick them up so quickly and the fun is to remember how you used to play them.We have of course many favourites old and new and I know at least some of them that will be played tonight for certain.The tunes will range from English ,French, Breton possibly Swedish and possibly some suprises,dependant on who turns up.I have said on this site before that a group turned up to sing and play Outer Mongolion throat warbling songs,sadly I did not join in the chorus.
I rarely see music at our sessions and if I do it is used as a prompt rather than to play by.
Al

Sounds like fun! Is that the George at Southwark? The centre of London is just too far away for a session, for me, but maybe one day...

Chris

Love to see you Chris and the drinks are on me.
Down the alley first bar on the right starts about 8.30 ish
1st Monday in every month ( except Bank Holidays and it`s the following week)
Good for doubling up with the Horniman.
Al

Do a search on concertina.net for the royal at dungworth - over the first few meetings, we kept and posted a comprehensive list of the tunes played - these tunes are all concertina-friendly, not just fiddle-friendly.

Not quite twenty musicians at the George last night.
10 fiddles,2 melodions,cello,base guitar,saxophone,english concertina,anglo concertina(me) the rest of the band were either in Brittany or coming back from there.Packed out with students and some of our old friends all enjoying the evening.
If any of you are visiting and would like a play,I normally take a spare concertina.
Al