Commonly played ITM sets

[Gusten]

I’m fairly new to the Irish Traditional Music scene, and even more so my friends that I’ve inspired to join me in this wonderful journey. There’s great interest in the music in my surroundings, but not much knowledge. I’ve started joining sessions, and the enjoyment grows for every time! To quicken the development of my friends, I’ve decided to try and pull off some beginner’s sessions for me, my friends, and others who want to get a taste of it. We’ll play at a moderate tempo, and mainly play songs that were decided in advance.

 

To do this, I’m going to compile a list of the most commonly played tunes, grouped in the most commonly played sets. This is where I need help. What tunes are the most commonly played at your sessions? I’ve found this question asked on a wide range of forums, so I’ve got a general idea there. In order for me to lead the session though, I’m curious of what set of tunes you fellows normally play? I understand that this various a lot from player to player, time to time, and place to place, I just want to get a general idea.

 

I’m very thankful for all and any information on this matter! If you find my method to be bad, or hindering the development of a good “ear” for ITM, then I’d prefer to discuss that in private messages in order to keep this on track. I want to play ITM with my friends. My friends want to play ITM with me. My friends need some help on the road in order to play it, and I’ve got the time to write sheet music and make simple recordings for them. (And I’ve already gathered a whole bunch of recordings for them, for inspiration on how ITM is “supposed” to sound, and how every instrument is normally played to sound more “Irish”.) So, I might get a bit defensive if my method is criticized in this post, but I’m more than happy to discuss it in private messages. If you have any inputs on that, I’m all ears to ideas!

 

Thanks you very much for you time!

Best regards

Gusten, Sweden

[Gusten]

Sorry guys, I realize I sound rather lazy asking for this. After much searching on thesession.org, I've compiled a list of what seems to be commonly played sets. Let's start this discussion off with that, and maybe you can verify or sort out what seems to be common or not.

 

 

Tarbolton/Longford Collector/Sailor's Bonnet

 

Tulla/Skylark/Roaring Mary

 

Lord McDonalds/Ballinasloe Fair or O'Rourkes/Irish Girl

 

the two Copperplates

 

the Bothy Band's Salamanca/Banshee/Sailor's

 

O'Rourke's/the Wild Irishman

 

The Teetotaller/The Scholar/The Traveller

 

Haste to the Wedding/Tripping up Stairs

 

Boys of Bluehill/Harvest home

 

Speed the Plough/Shaskeen/Congress

 

Cuckoo's Nest/Home Ruler

 

Tone Rowe's/Rambling Pitchfork/The Black Rogue

 

Rose in the Heather/Caliope House/Going to the Well

 

Down the Broom/ The Gatehouse Maid

 

The Humours of Tullycrine/ Mickey Callaghan's

 

Rolling in the Barrell/ The Tap Room/ The Earl's Chair

 

Lady Anne Montgommery/ Maude Miller/ Molloy's

 

Taim in Arrears/ Hardiman the Fiddlers

 

The Old Time Wedding Reel x 3

 

King George IV/ The Old King's Reel/ The King's Reel

 

John Stenson's #s 1 & 2

 

Dinny O'Brien's/Farewell to Connaught

 

The Blackberry Blossom/Dick Gossip's

 

Doonagore/Road to Monalea/McGovern's

 

John Carty's/Feeding the Birds/Bunker Hill

 

Brosna/Mick Duggan's/Denis Murphy's

 

Dickie Sherlock's/The Mountain Top/Last Night's Fun

 

Humours of Tulla/The Bucks of Oranmore/Jolly Tinker

 

Faroe Rum/Aandowin at da Bow/Forfeit o da Ship

 

Fermoy Lasses / Dunmore Lasses / Limerick Lasses

 

Jer The Rigger/John Ryan/Dennis Murphy

 

Over The Waterfall/March of Saint Timothy

 

The Tarbolton /The Longford Collector/The Sailor's Bonnet

 

 

Thank you!

[Larry Stout]

I'm sure my session is an outlier, but none of the sets you list is common there. Only some of the tunes you list are played, and they tend to be grouped with others. Her are a few we put together:

 

Banish Misfortune/ Merrily Danced the Quaker's Wife/Dingle Regatta (Know fondly as Banish the Quaker to Dingle)

 

Smash the Windows/Off She Goes --- sometimes followed by Haste to the Wedding and Joys of Wedlock

 

Coleraine/Jefferson and Liberty (Gobby O)

 

Ten Penny Bit/ Swallow's Tail/ Rakes of Kildare (all in A Dorian-- they're on the same page in Allan's Irish Fiddler)

 

Mairi's Wedding/ Bratach Banah

[michelv]

Sorry guys, I realize I sound rather lazy asking for this. After much searching on thesession.org, I've compiled a list of what seems to be commonly played sets. Let's start this discussion off with that, and maybe you can verify or sort out what seems to be common or not.

Small question: is this list with an Anglo or with an EC? I'm just beginning (EC), but I find a lot of session tunes quite difficult to play on EC...

[Gusten]

Sorry guys, I realize I sound rather lazy asking for this. After much searching on thesession.org, I've compiled a list of what seems to be commonly played sets. Let's start this discussion off with that, and maybe you can verify or sort out what seems to be common or not.

Small question: is this list with an Anglo or with an EC? I'm just beginning (EC), but I find a lot of session tunes quite difficult to play on EC...

 

The list is of tunes in general. I myself am a novice on Anglo, but I'm getting the hang of most songs I know from before. My main concern is making it sound more "irish", but... No, my main concern is getting my friends a decent repertoire to begin with, hence the list

[Larryo]

A lot of the sets played in Irish trad sessions in Ireland anyway come from recordings. A person or group make a recording, someone or some people think a certain set is great and it becomes popular for a short or long while to play the sets like so. The Humours Of Tullycrine and Micky Callaghans were recorded by Mary McNamara and so they became well known. It is possible that she in turn learnt them like that from some of the older players but she recorded them and so they became commonly played. Likewise Skylark and Roaring Mary- these became played together almost in homage to Joe Cooley. And as you touched on there is the Bothy Band sets. But as Dick said, play what works together. Depending on the instrument, some tunes end in a convenient place for certain others to follow but there is also different modalities of tunes and they don't mix. So it's case of trial and error but also as Dick mentioned, you would be looking for trouble going from a reel to a jig!!!

Edited November 28, 2008 by Larryo

[Lawrence Reeves]

My feeling is that a session is very much a unique entity. Certain tunes may be common to players in areas, or as heard as a recorded set, but I find the following. Players gather for a chance to share tunes, have a conversation, and maybe a drink or two. Each session evolves based on it's players and tunes that are played by one group on musicians in Orlando Florida flow, and swing effortlessly. A player visiting will be welcomed to join in, but would experience different combinations of familiar tunes. I think this uniqueness makes it more enjoyable, specially when visiting a session in another town,state, or country.

[Gusten]

I have, to my surprise, started to move from the strategy of putting together the most statistically common sets out there, to putting together my own sets of the most familiar tunes. I have to agree with Lawrence, that the uniqueness is part of the charm. If more seasoned sessioners visit our "newbie sessions", then they will know in advance that things will go somewhat slower than they're probably used to, that we have no old tradition ourselves to start from, and that (most of us) don't have a large repertoire to work with.

 

And, better yet, if my guys know the most common tunes rather than sets, they'll be more likely to jump in every now and then when joining a session elsewhere. It does sound more fun to play a single tune in every set, than play a complete set out of every 2-4 sets.

 

Thanks for the input guys, I think I'll take a different approach to this. I will save the list for my own purpose though, as I have more time on my hands (and ambition) than the rest of the folks I play with to learn more tunes. I'm in no way very skilled, but I have too much spare time

[Henrik Müller]

...to putting together my own sets of the most familiar tunes.

I have to agree with Lawrence, that the uniqueness is part of the charm. ...

Good man - all respect to the fact that certain sets sometimes become "standard"

in one town/county/country, but putting tunes together that "blend well" is very

enjoyable. Which leads me to another thing I noted in Ennis a few weeks ago:

 

There seem to be an accepted, widely used practice that one player will "sketch"

(play maybe half a bar or so) of a tune, look around, see acceptance, then play

another sketch: "Yeah? - fine..." and then maybe do this a third time. After

which he or she starts the first tune.

 

It then seems to be the responsibility of this person to signal when the change to

the next tune comes: if he or she is looking firmly at the floor, the tune continues.

A glance or two to the nearest neighbors signals: This time...". This allows a tune

to be played "till enough" or, say, once more as a courtesy to a player who has just

"landed" in the session.

 

This works very well, one is forced to focus at "the bridge" between the tunes, and

it still allows players to not play at all, play some of the tunes or all of them.

 

So if you do a "sketch" of a tune and find that the players around you immediately

bang away, you know they are tourists . (No, I did not consider myself a tourist )

 

/Henrik

 

Ses vi på söndag, Gusten?

[Gusten]

Ahh, interesting observations Henrik! I'll get to work on sending out some recordings and sheet music to the people around me, so I can get my first "Session for dummies" started within a few weeks. Could be a fun thing for everyone to do over the upcomming holidays!

 

I'll definately see you sunday! I've scheduled dinner with the old folks early, in order to make it. I'll bring my Rochelle - not for playing, but just for showing anyone who'd be interested in giving it a squeeze.

[Marien]

...to putting together my own sets of the most familiar tunes.

I have to agree with Lawrence, that the uniqueness is part of the charm. ...

Good man - all respect to the fact that certain sets sometimes become "standard"

in one town/county/country, but putting tunes together that "blend well" is very

enjoyable. Which leads me to another thing I noted in Ennis a few weeks ago:

 

There seem to be an accepted, widely used practice that one player will "sketch"

(play maybe half a bar or so) of a tune, look around, see acceptance, then play

another sketch: "Yeah? - fine..." and then maybe do this a third time. After

which he or she starts the first tune.

 

It then seems to be the responsibility of this person to signal when the change to

the next tune comes: if he or she is looking firmly at the floor, the tune continues.

A glance or two to the nearest neighbors signals: This time...". This allows a tune

to be played "till enough" or, say, once more as a courtesy to a player who has just

"landed" in the session.

 

This works very well, one is forced to focus at "the bridge" between the tunes, and

it still allows players to not play at all, play some of the tunes or all of them.

 

So if you do a "sketch" of a tune and find that the players around you immediately

bang away, you know they are tourists . (No, I did not consider myself a tourist )

 

/Henrik

 

Ses vi på söndag, Gusten?

Hey henrik,

 

I had the same experience in Ennis what you describing. Maybe you have been playing in the Cruises, that is where I have noticed this sketching of tunes when I played there sessions with a flute player called John and a banjo player called Marcus in May 2000. I like to play sessions in Ireland out of the high season, so you are not treated as just a "one of them bloody tourists". In 2000, it felt like the tourists were the team of Canadian television that entered the Cruises with camera's and heavily stuffed microfoons hung with rods above our session table, in the mean time filling the whole table with 35 pints of Guinness or more. We asked what the Guinness was for and they said it is to hit the right atmosphere of a typical Irish session. So our glasses of water and coffee cups went aside. Then they started to ask "real irish" musicians why they are in Irish music. The real irish musicians had escaped to the bar, and the musicians left by the table appeared to be inhabitants of New Zealand, the Netherlands (me) Sweden (playing bodhran, one of you?) and (last but not least) Canada. At the end they started hopelessly asking old men about irish music, and in the mean time the sketching started again around the session table.

 

The session leader is the one who proposes the tunes by playing a short riddle of the first notes and after that the set is made up and played. Is this typically Ennis? In other places I have been playing the session leader just shouts the key name of the next tune to come in the set, for example "D" or"G" and starts to play the next tune (and the key may even be the wrong one, solo instrumentalists do not think in chords). In stead of shouting the key, some shout only "Whoooh", "Yeeeeeh" or words of similar meaning, to announce the jump to the next tune in the set.

 

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Marien

Marien