Wednesday 14th October 2010
Reflecting on sessions recently. Particularly seating for some reason.
Due to some lurgal infection I missed sessions last week but I heard on the grapevine that the usual seats occupied by 4 of us on a Thursday were left empty. I would have thought that it would be natural to huddle together on the benches.
Let me explain about seating. The general theory of session seating has it that there is a nucleus or centre of the activity around which sessioneers coalesce. They do so in orbits with the more seasoned players innermost and the outer ranks filled with aspiring players, learners and beginners etc and hopefully untalented percussion and cutlery a long way out. In Irish sessions, you would be invited into the inner ring by one of the inner ring themselves. And it would be an honour.
Most spaces do not lend themselves to this sort of arrangement and sessioneers tip in to any corner or crevice available. This then is the special theory of session seating. Basic requirements really are: enough room for your instrument and somewhere to put your glass.
One absolutely fundamental requirement is that the leader is in a position to be seen by all the other musicians so that they can detect imminent changes and so on. Flout this need, and you may have anarchy. The sets being played at different speeds or even different sets being played! (yes it has been known)
So it is not a length of service award to be seated near the leader, it is a requirement of the leader (whose position is now fixed by geography) to be close to the more experienced players (as in the theoretical circle). This helps to provide a solid enough sound for the others to follow. Of course, if everyone is the same standard, then it doesn’t matter where they sit except for a preferred balance of instruments. Most people don’t want to sit between 2 banjos for example, or at the bass end of an accordion.
If that commanding position happens to be on some better seating, it can lead to some vying for promotion but really, it’s just an accident of the pub layout.
One detestable thing about popular sessions is when neighbours insist on cramming friends into a carefully maintained gap which is there for the comfortable playing of the larger instruments – guitar, banjo, pipes. It is no fun trying to play them vertically. in fact the only musicians who are virtually immune are whistle players. The flutes, fiddles and box players all suffer too.
And chairs with arms and without. Just provide chairs without arms for a session, then everyone will be happy. It is almost impossible to play some instruments in chairs with arms. Stools work but for 2 hours plus at a stretch, most of us could do with backs. And some sessioneers are prone to falling off stools.
Audiences are of course welcomed, but need to be separate from the session. You’d think they would naturally want to be as far from the great unwashed musicians as possible but some don’t. It just doesn’t work when they come and sit amongst you – no matter how well meaning they may be. And then they talk to musicians they know, each other, across the session and generally add another little obstacle to the process of playing music in consort.
Sessions are complicated things but seem so simple!