This might have just reflected a general warning – one of the amazing things about sheet music, both printed and on the internet, is how often it is just wrong, or at least, quite a bit different than any way you are likely to hear normal musicians playing it. (The first example that comes to mind is thesession.org’s version of “Farrell O’Gara” – it gives it as a 16-bar reel, but everyone I’ve ever heard play it doubles the parts to make 32-bars.)
But yes, there is no one right way to do things that every session follows. Your session there might just be less comfortable picking things up on the fly, or more set in its ways.
Another possible explanation for letting the person leading the tune play it all the way through is just for simply tune identification – not such a big deal in your average intermediate Irish session, but potentially important somewhere like Newfoundland, where tunes played might come from one of seven or eight different branches of the “Celtic” family tree. Off the top of my head, I know of two Newfoundland tunes which are very hard to distinguish from common Irish tunes until you hit the B part, and a couple more Irish tunes which have very distinct Newfoundland settings. (Though it was a pretty straight Irish session where they did this, and I didn’t particularly notice this behavior at the more mixed up sessions of our more recent trip out there.)
BTW, at our session here last night, only one of us called out the names of the tunes he was going into, and he did it only maybe half of the time. And sitting two seats away, I could only make out what he said less than half the time. The session would have been a nightmare for people who firmly believe in one set version of tunes, too, as there were probably somewhere around ten tunes played in the “wrong” key signature – once the fiddle players got started, they wouldn’t stop. (Much to my annoyance, I must admit.)
Most sessions I’ve been at the tune names are not even mentioned, unless someone asks after a set is over - and then as often as not the players don’t know it anyway.
Sounds like your sheet music man does need to lose his training wheels and start using his ears, but maybe it’s too late.
A session isn’t a concert or performance. I think it’s ridiculous to expect people, before they start a tune, to say “Now, everyone, let us play The Morning Dew, or the Hare Among The Heather as some call it, in the key of E minor, or actually Dorian for those keeping score. And let us play the version with the scalar runs throughout the third part. READY…GO!”
This is absurd. You just PLAY. It’s “every man for himself” after that. You grab an instrument you know how to play, and play the tune if you know it. If you don’t know the tune you listen, perhaps recording it, perhaps asking the name afteward (but don’t expect anyone to know the name).
One of the joys of a good session is its spontaneity and flow. The best part, for me, is when at the end of a tune someone goes into a tune which you’ve never heard the former tune go into, but the transition works like magic. Of course there’s times when two people go into two different tunes, but that goes with the territory. One or the other will soon win the day. So, the magic itself is lost by trying to program the session.
(And Colomon is so right- the printed version is almost never the way the tune is actually played in a session.)
Though this is not that uncommon a practice in my experience, I think that sessions like this that play the same tunes the same way each week are missing out. Some of my fondest session memories were of times when a traveller sat in with us and showed us a few new tunes as well as playing along with ours, even if a few notes were different–makes for good conversation after the set. There have even been times where the stranger’s version was interesting enough that it called for playing the tune all the way through again to listen to his/her version and perhaps chime in on the second or third repeat.
I certainly don’t want to play all of my tunes the exact same way as a group of people does… I’d prefer to have my own identity (yet still be able to dumb it down a bit to play smoothly with strangers if necessary). IMO A good player should have the ear to adapt to his surroundings a bit anyhow.
Most of the local sessions here will call out names of tunes if they are known and other times only key sigs are given so that the guitarist(s) can grab a capo, etc. Sometimes you simply hear the player call out “Reels” and then they start playing. I wouldn’t perceive someone who just started playing without title or key to be rude as long as they were either at their turn to call or asked by the caller to pick. Every session will be different and if your session is accustomed to calling the tunes then perhaps it would be good manners to practice such habits… though it does sound like your music stand man is in need of a straightening-out
