The day to day life of traditional music sessions and the characters and their music.
The main topic of the moment is of course the fascinating discussion taking place about the future course of the Wednesday night Irish session. There have been some wonderful insights into why people don’t come and some very helpful suggestions to swell the session to beyond critical mass.
On this day, 943 years ago, the Battle of Hastings was fought and started the Norman rule of England.
Just thought you’d like to know.
The Irish Session on Wednesday was a good one and although only 6 sessioneers turned out, half of them are very good melody players with large repertoires.
So it looks as though the Irish Session has run its course – as Judy feared. The session now is nothing like the session that started 12? 14? years ago so Andy’s point about the illusion of continuity is well made.
When it comes to sessions, I think of myself as a Darwinist – sessions do evolve and change and adapt and they will not stay the same. So I guess it’s natural that the participants change as well. Natural selection weeds out the nuisance players and a few people upgrade to alpha-sessioneers.
I’m game for starting something else and changing the format – we’ll discuss it tonight no doubt.
I am pleased that the Conyer session is happening again, and I hope all went well last night. Good luck to Shiner and the Bear cubs.
I am reminded that there is a session at Eastry (I think), sometime (Sundays?) which attracts quite a draw of reed players of the steel and brass variety. No scraping or hooting as far as I can tell. Players of twangy things are welcome though.
Not sure what is going to happen tomorrow. Given Mike’s new technique of arriving late and as a sitcom character, anything could be visited upon the unsuspecting sessioneers.
The debate recently, in the snug of the Furtive Ferret has been running along the lines of ‘Is it worth carrying on?’ and ‘Why do we do it?’. This is in a purely session related context you understand. Not a symptom of general depression.
The sessioneers at the regular Wednesday Irish Sessions have dwindled to below critical mass now on several ocassions and is sometimes as low on the Sundays. It is kept going by sheer determination at the moment but questions have been asked.
Why is attendance so low? well, the 5 of us there on Wednesday debated the reasons.
But the opinion is divided between stopping altogether which means no Irish music session and carrying on with low numbers which is disheartening.
The Thursday session was a bizarre session of two halves. Without the regular leaders there, I started proceedings as a normal session with the 10 or so sessioneers assembled. And then the leaders came in at 9:40 in stereotypical French costume (from ‘Allo ‘Allo – even down to ‘It is I, Leclerc!’) and I’m not quite sure what happened after that – it was all a bit chaotic. They certainly played through sets we’d already played and closed out the other sessioneers including Ernie who was eager to play on his concertina but didn’t get the chance.
The Deal Marathon though (12 – 5 in the Ship) was thoroughly enjoyable. Playing with the Desperates is always a pleasure, even though I did inadvertently provoke some disgraceful song about Nelly Cartwright when I played Redwing. John and Chris certainly perked up at that point!