Re: How Do I Start and Run A Session?
Well, i don't know if this is what you're looking for, but my group has done a beginning session for about 35 years or so and it has created some musicians who have gone on to bigger and better sessions but it certainly has fluctuated over the years.
here's what we have:
* one or two people who are willing to run the thing. This is a must. They don't run themselves. Somebody has to be in charge and make decisions and they have to show up all the time or have someone designated to run the session when they're gone. That may be you, but you might want to see if someone will be willing to second you.
* a regular day and place and time. We meet at the local Gaelic American Club. the problem with meeting at a pub or something is they go out of business, they change ownership, they have special events and whatnot. So find a place with some stability. If it's someone's house, there should be room for parking. When we meet at someone's house, we bring food, but when we meet at the GAC, there's a bar and restaurant.
* people willing to teach. If you want to start up a beginner session, it helps to have someone willing to sit down with newbies with an interest and no skill. We have a couple people who teach people the tin whistle, teach flute and teach fiddle. I'm not talking about certified teachers -- these are people who know the instrument enough to get someone started. One of our whistle teachers stays about 2 lessons ahead of his students but he's willing to spend the time.
* chairs, generally arranged in a circle. if you bring sheet music, you can use another chair to hold your dots. We don't discriminate against sheet music users, but we encourage people to learn by ear.
* a standard set list. We break it up into four weeks, about 10 sets of three tunes a list, Week 1 is always the first week of the month, week 2 is the second week and so on. For months that have five Mondays, you can play anything you want. When playing the list, we start at the top and play it down. For the free-for-all, we go around the circle and let someone start a tune at their own pace and we all join in. Our format is to play the piece as written -- generally AABB or AABBCC, and play it three times before going on to the next tune. Between tunes, someone yells "hup!" to let those of us who have trouble counting to 3 know that it's time to change.
* a leader who has a good sense of timing and knows how to play as slowly as needed without putting everybody to sleep. We've never used a metronome, just someone with a loud instrument keeping time for us. We've had our share of train wrecks, but it's all good fun.
* We have an actual tune book in a binder but -- and this is important -- we have audio of every tune in the book. Not everybody reads music and we certainly have people who are dead set against sheet music so they need to hear what the tune sounds like. Since the tunes and sets in our book are classics or come from sources like the comhaltas books, we include the classic recordings or recordings of professionals.
*socializing happens. People talk all the time between sets. People tell terrible jokes. People wander out to the bar and back. Sometimes it's hard to rein them in, so we'll start a tune just to get them to play music. This might not be regimented enough, but it does make the sessions more like fun and less like a classroom. just putting that out there.
* we're a 501(c)(3) non-profit with officers and whatnot. Once a year, we have a meeting and elect officers. It's mostly a vanity job but it does hearken back to one of our group's functions, which is to play out. We play at nursing homes, schools and the occasional private party. To play a nursing home or school, you need a good core of tunes that people are comfortable with and a couple of strong players to carry the others along. we allow sheet music if needed, but we do encourage everybody to participate. it gives the group something to work for.
OPTIONS: OK we're particularly lucky out here in the wilds of connecticut, but we do have access to house concerts and other venues that feature traditional irish musicians. We even sponsor them. And we all show up as a group and make up the audience so we can hear all this wonderful music first-hand. Another way we're lucky is we encourage people to attend workshops and we're relatively close to the Catskills, so can send people to Catskills Irish Arts Week in July, or Swannanoa or Fiddle Hell or other workshops where ITM is available. And we do have some particularly lovely sessions locally that we can go to listen or play at, and we have a comhaltas branch which holds a session once a month where anybody is invited and we have a pro or semi-pro as the leaders.
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1920 Lyon & Healy bowlback
1923 Gibson A-1 snakehead
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