A Session Diary

As you know, I usually start these posts off with an historical fact or seasonal aside. It turns out that nothing at all remarkable happened today. So maybe today is remarkable for its unremarkableness. Or so I thought.

Apparently Edward 1st (longshanks) became King today in 1272 and England declared war on Holland in 1780 for the 4th time and gained the East and West Indies as a result. There was pretty much a big argy-bargy at the time with France, America, Spain and Holland. Ah, the stuff of folk songs. All together now, Arran sweaters on and fingers in ears. Edward 1st was not universally loved for it was he who made parliament a permanent institution. And he was unkind to the Scots. More folk songs.

The relaunched, revamped Irish Session has been going very well. There are encouraging signs of growth (no, not like the economy) with some new and different faces. It will take a while for all the hard work to filter through but it is being widely advertised in the local press and on the KentFolk web site and theSession.org site.

The session brings forth an array of recording devices as the start of each session is a gentle run-through of selected sets or tunes and this is ideal for practice. The ensemble plays the same tunes or sets later at normal tempo when the ‘real’ session gets going.

On the subject of recording devices at sessions in general, I have seen a wide variety and tried a few myself. There is the traditional hand held cassette recorder, the something-plugged-in-to-the-ipod, the dictaphone (microcassette and digital), the minidisc recorder and the digital recorder. I’ve also seen a laptop being used. Now with all these devices, the storage medium is not drastically important as far as recording quality goes (give or take), but the microphones are. The other considerations are:

• battery life
• recording time
• portability
• ease of navigation of the recordings
• ease of use

The traditional cassette recorder (Play/Rec FF, REW)  is therefore hard to beat except on ease of navigation of the recordings which is an inherent problem of linear tapes. Sod’s law says the recording you want is at the other end of the tape. They also suffer from not knowing whereabouts in a tape you are, especially if you’ve taken one out, put another in and messed around with the counter reset. Oops, there goes the priceless recording of when you met Willie Taylor and in its place is a bloke who wandered in with a djembe with a vague Irish tune in the background. Don’t mention the wow and flutter or the head alignment. Bear in mind that the Tascam 4 track (on cassette) did more for affordable reasobale quality recording than any other device. Their modern one is digital and that’s the way to go if you have a computer. Stereo, stunningly good noise-free recording etc. etc. Some of them will do 26 hours of recording on 1 AA battery (its true – yamaha and olympus both) while others do about 4 hours and worst of all, only have a rechargeable internal battery! Useless for sessions really.

Now there was much stirring of interest when Beau announced that our old haunt, the Anchor at Wingham, the well known spoonerism was open for business with an Irish landlady and a sound recordist husband. Having been disappointed on previous occasions by going back to old venues (particularly the George on Stone Street), we approached this one with caution. The sessioneers consisdered it in the snug and agreed to try a one-off to test the water. Everything was set. It was a Thursday which meant foregoing the English Mixed Lumpy. And what do you suppose happened next boys and girls? You’re right. It was cancelled. Some story about not sure whether their music licence covered Thursday nights. Why not just say no thanks and be honest? We might try again.

Anyway, as a result I did get to go to the English Mixed Lumpy which is the Bear and it was a normal session going round the assembled musicians who wanted to play. Event of the evening must be Barbara and friends teaching some Romainians the Gay Gordons while the rest of us played Cock of the North (ABAB ad nauseum). There was a bit of Mazurking going on and there would have been some Bourée-ing if any of us could have come up with a Bourée. There were some faces there not normally seen when it isn’t a session, but a good smattering of the regulars as well. Songs were included and I hope a good time was had by all.

I know some of you were expecting instant updates over the weekend so first of all, apologies for not getting the diary updated sooner.

Overall, I enjoyed the weekend very much and took great pleasure in playing some nice tunes with friends.

Despite the stupendous oversight by the organisers of not advertising the sessions properly, we more or less ended up with the right sort of people at the right sort of do. And a few bewildered as well.

The Irish session on Friday night was well attended, and thanks to Andy Renshaw for coming along and showing how a Bodhran should be played. It does make a difference when there is a good rhythm going. You can imagine how our hearts dropped when a djembe player arrived! Fortunately he was one of the better ones and played quietly. Ian the piper ran the session skilfully making sure that nothing outrageous threatened the session. This included a tactful proactive challenge to a person with no visible means of instrumentation sitting amongst us. It turned out that he was a well known song worrier and eventually wondered off to find some more singers. Now at Deal, they *ADVERTISE* and *LAY ON* both *SINGAROUNDS* and *MUSIC SESSIONS*. No more hints. Next time it’s a poke with a specially sharpened banjo or a ferral Morris man down your breeches.

We played some cracking stuff for about 3 hours, didn’t empty the pub and actually got quite a bit of very positive feedback. Yes, there’s a surprise. The atmosphere was good and the pub wasn’t full of rowdies. We did miss the dancer though. Some regulars from Thursday crept in to see what was happening.

Saturday dawned and the Festival Band called. 9:30 for 10 at the Preston Street stage. A glorious setting in front of the bus station and opposite someone who apparently it is easy to upset. The set-up never goes completely smoothly but we were ready to go shortly after 10:00 with noise level meters bristling from windows and the thrum of a burger van generator (plus the griddle exhaust. It didn’t have a catalytic converter but it sure needed one. Or a filter. Or moving to the outskirts of town). Usual big band extravaganza but sadly missing drums this year. Opinion is divided about the full rock drum kit. I love it to bits but I fear that I am in a minority. Good to see Bob Kenwood, Felix – all the old Festival Band gang. I realised that I had come out without any plectrums so I borrowed one off Bob. A little tip for banjo players. Thin plastic plectra don’t make it through an hour’s gig. I used all three points of a Gibson and split each one in no time. I really appreciate my little Dunlop nylon plectra now. Bless them.

And then off for Elevenses at Havershams before the session in the Bear.

And so, avid sessioneers and followers of this strange world – more in a wee while.