Mad Mick the Mad Person

1. regarding musicians who have “lost touch” with the session

a “press release” of the changes (once agreed, if course!) can be put up on Beau’s “kentfolk” website as soon as the changes are in place

for those musicians who may not be aware of the continued existence of the session, those details can be drawn to their attention by e-mail – or even printed out and posted if that’s a more suitable way to do it.

I think that a modest amount of publicity should cater for those to whom this applies

2. regarding those who find the session “too competitive”

I’m afraid that I can’t see any way of getting round this – and one has to admit that it is a perfectly valid way of viewing the session activity as such. most sessions work on the basis of musicians “sparking off” one another – the very best sessions are alive with electricity and you can almost see the creative sparks flying around the room. if you are the sort of musician who doesn’t enjoy that kind of atmosphere, then going to sessions is probably an activity that should be avoided. with our frail wednesday session, anything that reduces the creative spark runs the risk of alienating the existing musicians completely – at least one has already commented that the session isn’t sufficiently high-powered to make him want to attend regularly ……

3. regarding young (or not so young) people who have transport difficulties

I think this is a matter of identifying the people involved and fixing up suitable lifts etc. several existing sessioneers are extremely accommodating in this respect and others may well be able to assist if asked. I think that getting people to the George is a smaller problem than trying to find a venue in central Canterbury which will be happy to host the session and where the existing members can get reasonable access/parking.

thanks to Shelagh for the insight – contacting “lost” members and arranging to get round transport difficulties for other potential members are both important & useful points to be dealt with

to take up John Paddy’s point, there is (as far as I know) no suggestion that Wednesdays would be a “teaching” session for the whole evening – just that some of the earlier part of the evening would be devoted to that aspect. if one judged that this part of the evening was not of interest, it would be relatively simple to get to the pub around 8.30 – 9.00 so as to avoid that bit.

as to a “critical mass” of good players, attaining this on a more regular basis is at least part of the point of this exercise – beginners at ITM are not necessarily novice musicians but can be experienced players from other genres who want to find out what ITM is about ….

to take up Barbara Kelly’s point, this discussion is dealing solely with the regular Wednesday evening session (presently at the George @ Molash). this happens every Wednesday around 8pm – 10.30pm and a regular lift from Faversham would be fairly simple to arrange. sadly, this session does clash with Faversham Folk Club – but there doesn’t seem to be another night of the week that is any better …..

to take up Simon Dundas’s point, there is a problem with the use of midi-files in that there is no “official” version of any tune apart from those recently composed items where there exists a proper copyrighted original (and even then, tunes sometimes get altered from an official original version to something that everyone plays!). in some cases, the versions of tunes uploaded to tune databases on the web appear to be fairly dull and, in any event, midi-files cannot reproduce the dynamics of a piece of music in the same way that a musician can ….. the only practical solution is to record the tunes as played at the George and work from there, noting variations in the playing if you hear the tune at a different event. if a written version were to be produced for what is played at the George, it would be no more than a guideline and could claim no more authenticity than any other version you might find ……

please let’s have some more input from the people who might (or might not) attend in the future – the more views we get, the better the chance of arriving at a new format that will attract more players !

We could solicit Laura’s views as a newcomer as we don’t want to lose this fine violinist. Maybe we could learn one of her favourite sets.

The other difficulty for me has been that I’ve never been quite sure where and when the Irish sessions are happening and by the time I get Shelagh’s e mails it’s often too late. A regular time and place would solve that one. I can’t promise to come every week, but I’m interested in being more involved than I have been so please keep me posted with the progress of the discussions.

it seems that the broad consensus so far is that an informal period of anything from half an hour to an hour or so should be set aside at the beginning of the session to “work through” sets of tunes

this “working through” can take whatever form seems appropriate but is likely to be more in the nature of learning the feel, swing, sound & tempo of the tunes rather than getting the actual notes “down pat” (though there will inevitably be some of that as well – we all have holes in our knowledge here and there ……….. :-)

some recording and written material seems fairly simple to do (easier than I had expected) so that things can be carried over from week to week without undue difficulty

it does seem apparent that a limit should be set this activity so that a “normal” session can take place as well. whilst a certain amount of this kind of thing is interesting to experienced musicians, the danger of tedium is ever-present. perhaps a “start of proper session” time should be set …… ?

if the consensus felt it was useful, a slightly earlier start time might be one way to extend the period for the new elements

At slower speeds the dots might be useful to play from or to make sure we agree on what we’re playing. It would also be useful to help new comers. Maybe music allowed for first 30 minutes for new tunes, then on with the usual session. I am more than happy to print out music if needed, either in full or the set reminder versions I’ve done. I appreciate that using music would be a departure from usual practice.

I find tune learning best done in solitude since we all learn in different ways. Going through a tune note by note doesn’t seem appropriate in a pub. This would tie in with the idea of homework sets where we learn the tunes by heart at home but play them in the session at gradually increasing speeds over a few weeks. Pete’s list has many tunes we rarely play so there is plenty of material there and we all of us keep finding new tunes.

The disadvantage of a learning section of a session is that the better players might find it less enjoyable and stop coming. Good players have an insight of what is going on in the music i.e. how the rhythm works as well as variations and ornaments. Listening to and watching good players has to be the best way to improve, so if we can get a working compromise we have a chance of continuing.

It would be good to attract players new to the music (it’s 5 years since I found you) but we must make it attractive for good players. Think of the fun Susannah and Serena brought to the session.

I was heartened to read Pete’s last line: I’m committed to playing and developing ITM, I love the tunes.

I am very grateful to all you more experienced players and do hope we can keep playing the music.