brewerpaul wrote:\
Go back to your session,listen to the tunes and get the names of ones you like,preferably several different types eg jigs,reels,slip jigs. Those would be the ones to learn since the other session members already know them.
BTW-- for all the respondents who have said they've never been to a session, find one and go ASAP! It's the single best way to really get a feel for Irish trad.Even if you're not up to session playing speed, you'll learn a lot.
I feel like what I've learned about ITM from going to sessions or reading about sessions hasn't made me like it very much. I like hearing the music, but as far as I can tell the culture of sessions is cliquish and unwelcoming. People typically have sort of grimly serious expressions on their faces, and there isn't a lot of conversation. Over at "the session.org' there was recently a thread about how to ditch the people who ruin sessions because they don't "get it.". There are lots of threads the gist of which is something like "oh some guy came to the session and started playing "the sally gardens" and I'm so sick of that tune how do we get rid of the guy." There's a thread now about playing really fast and how it's mainly useful to weed people out. The whole point looks like exclusivity, not welcome. There's no formal list of tunes to learn, there's no standard way of playing the tune: you are just supposed to magically "know." It's like joining a different lunch table in high school.
Obviously lots of people find great joy in it and more power to them: also any social interaction looks weird from the outside. And of course there's everything to be said for actually learning the tradition rather than thinking you're entitled to wank away: respect and courtesy should be foremost and you can't expect to just walk up and join a group of great players, of course not.
I'd love to know the history of "the session" as a thing. A great deal of the practice of irish traditional music appears to have been, at one time, solo playing, a guy in his home, a family after dinner, a single piper or fiddler, or ensemble performance at public events. There would be multiple musicians at wedding and fairs, and of course later ceili bands, but O'Neill describes groups of people gathering in someone's home to play tunes, or in clubs. In Passing the time in Ballymenone Henry Glassie talks about lots of private playing, people gathering in someone's home and taking turns playing tunes solo, enjoying the individual's expression of a tune. I've just read a couple of Jr. Crehan's oral histories, and a lot of what he describes is appreciation for solo playing. The session today is an odd hybrid of private music making, friends getting together to play tunes, and public performance, and it seems to simultaneously invite participation and repel it. I suppose it also has to do with the peculiarity of folk music as a pursuit. On the one hand you want everyone to like it, on the other it's fragile and needs to be protected from oafs.