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.

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.

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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.

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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!

The day started early with the Festival Band being given the prime slot of 09:30. Alan set up the sound in a way that suited folk / amplified acoustic music very well (he always does) and off we went again and then all too quickly it was over.

So off to the corner cafe for a pot of tea and a bacon bap. It is so posh that they have one girl whose sole job is to stand by the door and ask if you are eating inside or outside. They need another now to fill up the sugar.

Sitting there with George, Shelagh, Judy and Will, listening to the band for whom we vacated the stage – Follia. A lowlands band who are stunningly good.

We watched the Faversham Formation Dancing Team dance along to bourres and we were joined by Chris Taylor & the lovely Jacqui and Martin Long.

And in no time at all, it was time for the lunchtime session. No one there already so we settled in and waited for them to arrive. I must say that it was more subdued than Saturday and more fragmented in a way as though there was less in common.

Nevertheless we went round the changing group and played some tunes and sang some songs. I can’t remember everybody who was there (I should take a register) but apart from Shelagh, Judy, George and myself, there was Chris Care who is always welcome in any session I run. Mike, Ruth and Barbara made a brief appearance, Martin the fiddle and Stephanie the accordian are regulars and unfortunately arrived quite late. It was nice to see Gerry the banjo again and there were two ladies who were there last year. One has a Serpent (instrument) the other has a Spaniel (dog). Someone did ask if she played it (the dog). They, and Gerry and another lady who plays recorder are members of Kits Coty Morris I believe.

Vague memories of a fiddle and singer duo. A chap who sang the Old Dun Cow. And that was pretty much it really.

There will be a session an entertainment tonight in the Bear.
There is an Irish Session on Sunday in the Unicorn at Bekesbourne.