Policing a session

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:50 am

There was this fellow last night listening to the session who put in a request for a song. "Well, I don't think any of us here sing, really," I replied.

(Listener)"It's just Ned of the Hill..."

(Me)"Oh...well, maybe we could play it...hey, there, J., do you have Ned of the Hill?"

(Listener)"You know, like The Pogues."

(Me)"Um...Pogues: I don't think so. So, J....Ned of the Hill?"

(J.)"I dunno, how's it go?"

(Listener)"Well, a folk music style would be okay, too."

(Me to J.)"Well, that's why I'm asking you. Thought if anyone'd have it, it'd be you."

(J., fingering at his fiddle for a bit and sorting through his memory)"Mmmm...nope, sorry."

(Me)"You know, I keep telling myself I've really gotta learn that one some day."

(Me to Listener)"Sorry. Guess not. But! We've got something just as good for you." (at which J. commences into an energetic run of jigs)

And the listener was reasonably mollified, and grooved to the chunes in his own special way which included noises. However it goes, it's nice when someone digs the music. Later he followed me out during a break to cadge a smoke and let me know he wanted to start playing guitar at sessions. Amid the usual alarm bells that set off (EDIT: this is not an antiguitar thing, but an antiwishfulthinkingthatyerguitarwillgetyouinanywhere thing), we chatted and discussed musicianship - which he said he had in spades - as opposed to knowing idioms and not just tunes, the nonnegotiable importance of listening, things like that...but I think his alcohol filter was a bit too thick. Later on just as a beginner-type was about to start in on a hornpipe, the listener started yowling, "Oy. Yam. The Aun-tea-Chroist! Oy. Yam. The Aun-tea-Chroist!" "Oh, well, so much for that idea," I said to the beginner. Between the publican, and another patron's lengthy goodnatured counsel, the listener simmered down and eventually left to return another day. But I get the impression that the fellow dimly got the idea that he was probably out of his depth, and likely wouldn't sit in some day after all.

Now THAT'S session control - entertainment included - in the strategically preemptive mode. Nip 'em in the bud.

And we did get to those hornpipes in the end.

rh · Post by rh » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:22 am

Nanohedron wrote:the listener started yowling, "Oy. Yam. The Aun-tea-Chroist! Oy. Yam. The Aun-tea-Chroist!"

didn't happen to be this geezer, did it?

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:28 am

Naw. Dark hair, and woozier than intense. Showed me his abdominal surgery scars, too.

gaelic_gale · Post by **gaelic_gale** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:44 am

Great authentic-like Irish Bar-room brawl at session last night. I was walking to the bar when some guy punched another guy in the nose
and he fell backwards, bar stool & all, into me! Right before I left
session for my mother-in-law's I got an Irish shower of beer & blood.
Nice!

And the musicians never missed a beat! Too funny! These guys rock. I
felt like an extra in the movie "The Boys & Girl from County Clare".

It was gross but exhilrating. Yet another memory for my old age.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:51 am

gaelic_gale wrote:Great authentic-like Irish Bar-room brawl at session last night. I was walking to the bar when some guy punched another guy in the nose
and he fell backwards, bar stool & all, into me! Right before I left
session for my mother-in-law's I got an Irish shower of beer & blood.
Nice!

And the musicians never missed a beat! Too funny! These guys rock. I
felt like an extra in the movie "The Boys & Girl from County Clare".

It was gross but exhilrating. Yet another memory for my old age.

That's entertainment. I fear the patrons have grown all too...um...civilised in the Twin Cities. Well, where the sessions are, anyway. Must be the vast 12-step recovery group industry here influencing us.

alurker · Post by **alurker** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:01 pm

gaelic_gale wrote:Great authentic-like Irish Bar-room brawl at session last night. ......I got an Irish shower of beer & blood.

Hey don't go blaming the Irish for your 'home grown' bar room brawlers.

We are a fairly peaceful crowd in our pubs. I can't recall ever seeing a punch-up at a session. What happens on the streets and in nightclubs after the pubs shut is a whole nother story.

gaelic_gale · Post by **gaelic_gale** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:14 pm

Damn! You mean it's not really like the movies?? I'm so dis-illusioned!!

This brings to mind my most emarrassing moment (which was in Ireland) Ha!...which will HAVE to be another discussion thread...

...WATCH THIS SPACE...

(I'll go post it.)

misterpatrick · Post by **misterpatrick** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:07 pm

The session in town that I frequent is fairly new and also fairly small. We've had everything from 3 people to about 12 when I've been there which is as often as I can make it. Lately, the session has become a little rhythmically, um..., retarded. Now, I'm not the most solid rhythmically when I start a set of tunes as I am a). a relatively new player and b). starting a set of tunes for fecks sake and that always makes me nervous. So when I start noticing that a goatwacker is playing to the beat of his own drummer, well, it's to be bad.

I know I've tried to start tapping my feet louder to get the point across, but doesn't really help. He also plays one of those deeeep goats that carries and muddies. Anyway, one of our regulars took him aside and offered some fine advice and he has gotten a bit quieter, but my god, how do you teach our boy some rhythm?

He was lectured in the local ethic of one-bodhran-player-at-a-time dammit by someone on this boars who's handle rhymes with "Banana treat fun". That was some fine policing.

I'm off to California (the state not to hornpipe) next week and will be interesting to see what the session is like at the Plough & Stars. Any regulars here?

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:35 pm

If you're on TheSessiondotorg you should get in touch with The Phantom Button, aka (I hardly dare mention it!) Jack Gilder, who's a regular at The Plough and Stars I believe. You won't, ahem, see him around here much!

Post by **Nanohedron** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:48 pm

misterpatrick wrote:I know I've tried to start tapping my feet louder to get the point across, but doesn't really help. He also plays one of those deeeep goats that carries and muddies. Anyway, one of our regulars took him aside and offered some fine advice and he has gotten a bit quieter, but my god, how do you teach our boy some rhythm?

With a cudgel?

I want to invent a strobe metronome. Put it down plunk on the sesh table and set the timing - to be determined, set by set, by consensus and compromise, of course - and with a blinding *FLASH* *FLASH* *FLASH* *FLASH*, Bob's yer uncle.

misterpatrick wrote:He was lectured in the local ethic of one-bodhran-player-at-a-time dammit by someone on this boars who's handle rhymes with "Banana treat fun". That was some fine policing.

I don't know whether to blush or e-thump you for that: first, for blowing my cover; second, for presenting me as a black-leather-and-chrome jackboot Trad Nazi; third, for calling my succinct layout of the situation a "lecture", and fourth, for waxing Freudian in rhyming my nick.

You know I'm more prone to hold my counsel when it comes to situations; usually things iron themselves out. But, sometimes someone has to step up and do the right thing for everyone's sake, and even though I was polite (if firm) about it, for my trouble I had to bear the mantle of Session Prick. And once you do that, it follows you around. Sigh.

But the situation had got to such a turn that even the Keeper of the Rocks of Shame, himself a model of restraint and probity, felt he had to bring the dread stones to the session. You know it's bad, then.

BigDavy · Post by **BigDavy** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:25 pm

Hi gaelic_gale

Is this evidence for the prosecution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vcxqFXPwG8

David

Edited to add more evidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8emWbY2_BLk

gaelic_gale · Post by **gaelic_gale** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:41 pm

Ha! Davy! You are brilliant for finding that! I know those guys!!

They sit in my livingroom on the odd Friday nights, but our offending spoonsman was not there. That was Johnny on the bodhran. He plays well and politely.

This is Seamus', another of the great sessions in my town, but not the one I was speaking of.

straycat82 · Post by **straycat82** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:51 pm

BigDavy wrote:Hi gaelic_gale

Is this evidence for the prosecution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vcxqFXPwG8

David

Edited to add more evidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8emWbY2_BLk

Harsh.

There weren't even any spoons or a djembe in that video and the bodhran was only played a fraction of the time

BigDavy · Post by **BigDavy** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:17 am

Hi straycat82

I could have sworn I heard spoons in the first one

David

straycat82 · Post by **straycat82** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:39 am

Nope.