A Session Diary

The Sunday Irish at Rosencrantz (The Rose and Crown) was very sparse. A few stalwarts put on a brave show to a small but appreciative audience who thought it fabulous that traditional music was being kept alive. An out of the ordinary repertoire meant that the full ensemble couldn’t play on most of the tunes, but a great opportunity to learn. After a latecomer arrived with a new Saltarelle, the evening devolved to French tunes. And then there were two …

The Thursday session had its good points and its bad points. On the plus side, Martin the fiddle joined us and we had some very good tunes. On the bad side there were not one but two out-of-tune and out-of-rhythm (not to mention out-of-key) ‘basses’ and the reappearance of the staccato machine-gun percussion section. A more relaxed session generally with more people getting a chance to play early on, but singing appeared too early and there was a definite hogger. Still, the audience liked it.