How Do I Start and Run A Session?

[PhillipeTaylor]

Hey all!

I'm in Sacramento, CA. There used to be Irish sessions around town, but they dissipated prior to the Covid-19 lockdown. One of my goals is to use this lockdown to work through and nail all the tunes in Nigel Gatherer's Tune of the Week, mainly because it's free online (with donations), and accessible to everyone who might want to join an Irish learning session. I would like to use that as the basic "text" for an Irish learning session that hopefully might evolve to have 'layers' of learning sessions a more advanced session and a learning session as people distinguish themselves.

The learning session I attended several years ago was fun, and the lady who ran it was pretty experienced and a good, solid musician, though a flute player. That was how her groups evolved. She started a learning session and a group developed that she called the 'performance session' where they would practice tunes, but do these little performances in her home, and it was all good fun. I got a good foundation from that experience and almost made it to the 'performance' sessions, but I had grad school, which shut down my session attendance for a while. I'm not really an advanced player, but since no one else is running a session, I'm going to have to do it if I want one.

I want to know some basic things I should have ready and know to run a good Irish music session. Here are some standards that the person who put on the great learning session I experienced had together.


I plan to copy her administration, since it was such a good experience, and her sessions were popular, since it was so well organized and administered.

Here is how it went:

______

Materials she had:

Chairs
Music stands
Copies of music used for the day
A metronome

Format:

Tune instruments.

Start with a number of tunes people were familiar with.

Introduce a couple new tunes slowly

Do them again more fast.

Take a break (people would bring treats/snacks)

Do some more familiar couple tunes

Introduce one more new tune

End. Socialize, hang, eat the rest of the treats


Foundational Procedures:

We played A part 3 times and B part 3 times each time as a standard.

We started at a slow tempo, and did the song again faster if people felt confident about it.

She spoke to people who were bored or were doing well at breaks and after the session, and told them the tunes they do for the more advanced sessions and checked if they wanted to attend those.

_________

What other things should I know/be ready for to run a decent learning session that might evolve and meet people's expectations?

Thanks!

[foldedpath]

It sounds like you may have already decided on a format, but what stands out to me as someone who regularly attends Irish and mixed Irish/Scottish sessions is the mention of sheet music and music stands.

That's not the typical format of a trad session in most places, where the tunes are learned at home and then played from memory at the session. You won't attract local musicians familiar with the usual session culture if you focus on reading from sheet music. The mention of a metronome is also somewhat worrying. I've never attended a session where one was used. It's more of a student-teacher thing, or for practicing at home.

If group reading from sheet music is what you want to do, then by all means go ahead and see if you can get that kind of group together. I don't want to be too discouraging, but I'll point out that it's going to be a different experience than sessions where everyone plays tunes by ear, and will attract different types of amateur musicians.

Good luck with the project, however you decide the format!

[PhillipeTaylor]

Thanks for your feedback folded path!

Don't feel bad, reflections like this are exactly what I was looking for. I haven't decided on a format, just putting the plan out there to get feedback.

I hear what you're saying, and I used to attend some of those. Here in Sacramento, they were sparsely populated years ago, now they don't exist, and when they were happening, they were a gathering of 2-4 people who knew all the tunes, were very advanced musicians that practiced with those tunes and basically never spoke to anyone who attended or even announced the names of tunes and wouldn't talk to anyone there but one another. It was a little presumptuous to bring your instrument along, kind of thing. In this sense, it wasn't a "traditional" session either. There was a session in Nevada City - a 2 hour drive away - that was more like the "traditional" session in a pub, very friendly, there was an etiquette, and I'm good at picking up on that stuff, so I was able to jump in sometimes, sit back others if they played a song I didn't know or played it faster or too differently than I was used to. But those sessions stopped happening as well. They also didn't happen regularly because attendance was sparse and disjointed.

So, I got the sense that the "learning" session that this lady developed in Auburn/Sacramento CA was about building a session community. She has passed now, unfortunately, but I am starting to see method to her madness. I think she was basically trying to build a little session community to eventually get TO a traditional session, which she had developed, and I got to attend those sessions a few times before grad school took over. It was run the way you mentioned, and the way I've read about on "the Session" website. But she drew from the learner sessions to invite people to the more traditional sessions. Some of those people would then participate in little performances in peoples homes around town if they wanted to really dig in and develop some cool renditions with others. She basically built a little Irish music/session community.

When she passed, that community dissipated, and no one picked up the baton. My concern is that if I run a "traditional" session the way you suggest from the get go, I'll be there, play some tunes, people who want to learn about and attend some traditional Irish sessions will stare at me and even some more competent musicians will only be able to play Bach or something when their turn comes around... Waiting for people educated in session community/culture to show seems to just lead to a solo practice session.

But perhaps there are a lot of people out there just waiting for someone to host it. Perhaps I should give that a try first.

Pubs in Sacramento also call various events they have a "Irish Music Session." But don't bring your instrument. It's actually "Irish Music Performance". They book some local performers and the performers play at the bar and the bar calls it a "Session." If you actually bring your mandolin, you'll be embarrassed.

[John Kelly]

I would agree with Foldedpath's caveats, Phillipe. There are teaching groups, for which you have a good model there, and live sessions, and the two are very different.

Here in Scotland I have experience of both formats, and they do tend to attract different folk to them. The teaching sessions (I go to a fiddle workshop and have attended other mixed instrument workshops) are well structured and do much of what you have laid out above, and there is music and music stands galore. Mixed workshops can tend to have a preponderance of one instrument, usually fiddles, and I have been at some where I might be the only guitar and mandolin player attending, which can be fun!

In the live playing sessions one or two folk might have some pieces of sheet music but generally it is very much a playing-by-ear environment. My regular session is in a local pub (on hold just now) and we have a mix of guitars, mandolins, fiddles, accordions and concertina, small pipes and whistles and occasionally a cello. We all bring tunes to the session and there is a big repertoire now of common tunes we all play. The playing levels and experience of the players covers quite a wide range, but everyone is treated equally and all contributions are welcome as long as they are traditional in some way!

You may wish to try both to see who turns up at each. Good luck with this and I hope you have success.

[Randi Gormley]

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.

[PhillipeTaylor]

Thanks for the feedback and advice John and Randy! Excellent information.

I am envious of your community Randy. Maybe I should do a twice a month thing to start - learning session and regular session to start and see which one attracts consistent players, then put the “chips” of my time and energy into whichever event turns out to have the most appeal to people.

I realize that if you want a community that you don’t have, I have to take responsibility to build it. Your observations Randy about what is required to do that are helpful. Thank you again!

Phillip

[Bren]

A home group is a good way to get comfortable with tunes and other musicians before venturing out into the wild world of sessions at pubs and festivals etc.

Nigel Gatherer is based in Scotland and his site draws heavily on Scottish tradition but is also very eclectic and a good a place to start as any.