Avi Ziv
Dec-05-2004, 11:30pm
Folks, sorry if you saw this already but I just realized that I posted it to the wrong area by mistake. - Avi
-----------------------------------------------------------
I just played my first ever Irish session!!!
Feeling completely unprepared but fully inspired, I recently decided that procrastinating would not do me any good and I should just dive in. I love the music but lack the repertoire on the mandolin. It’s one thing to sit on the porch and pick and another thing to participate in a session. Well – it was fabulous! #The musicians were friendly and I felt surprisingly relaxed even in the face of them asking me to start the off on a couple of tunes (I looked behind me but they were talking to me ). #We had 4 fiddles, concertina/bouzouki, guitar/bodhran, and another mandolin/banjo – round the table we sat at the pub and played for three hours. This was the afternoon session, which preceded an evening session at another pub but I couldn’t make it to the second one. Maybe next time. #My biggest fear was the awkwardness of now knowing the tunes. I mean I play only about 15 session tunes and there are many hundreds out there. To my surprise I did know a few of the tunes (a sign that my list of essential session tunes is not bad) and the musicians were nice enough to play any tune I asked them to, as they saw that I was a beginner session player. #I was also satisfied that the tempo was not outside of my abilities and I think I could play almost any of those tunes with a little practice. Of course the problem was that they could not name most of the tunes.... But I was able to pick up at least fragment phrases out of each tune, by the time they got to the third turn at it. #
One thing I’d like to ask here is – can anyone really hear a mandolin playing melody lines in a session? From where I was sitting (around the table) I could hardly hear myself against 4 fiddles. Any advice? I also believe that I started playing so loudly (out of desperation) that my tone probably went to trash. Would I hear a big difference in volume if I switched to an octave mandolin? I am thinking about getting one in the coming months. Anyway, I also tried to do some backup lines during the tunes that were new to me. That worked out not too badly. At times we also had a bouzouki playing backup and I didn’t want to muddy things up with two sets of chords on top of one another. So I moved to single note rhythmic lines high above the bouzouki and that seemed to clean things up nicely – at least to my ears. #An interesting thing happened – at one point one of the proprietors came into the room and asked us to confirm that we are playing all “original music and not covers”. He obviously had no clue what we were playing, with a question like this, but the point was that someone from ASCAP or BMI or such probed him to see if we are violating any copyright material. The guy leading the session told him that this is all traditional music from the past 150 years or more. The man walked away without much of an argument. I have heard about this happening around pubs, and wherever there is live music, but I’d never experienced it myself. #As a nice side benefit, the place supplies the musicians dinner and #a pint – a gesture much welcomed by us after three hours of playing.
This was a very very good experience and I am looking forward to many more. The immediate challenges are picking up as many tunes as possible and figuring out how to be heard.
Thought I’d share my excitement
Have a nice week
Avi
-----------------------------------------------------------
I just played my first ever Irish session!!!
Feeling completely unprepared but fully inspired, I recently decided that procrastinating would not do me any good and I should just dive in. I love the music but lack the repertoire on the mandolin. It’s one thing to sit on the porch and pick and another thing to participate in a session. Well – it was fabulous! #The musicians were friendly and I felt surprisingly relaxed even in the face of them asking me to start the off on a couple of tunes (I looked behind me but they were talking to me ). #We had 4 fiddles, concertina/bouzouki, guitar/bodhran, and another mandolin/banjo – round the table we sat at the pub and played for three hours. This was the afternoon session, which preceded an evening session at another pub but I couldn’t make it to the second one. Maybe next time. #My biggest fear was the awkwardness of now knowing the tunes. I mean I play only about 15 session tunes and there are many hundreds out there. To my surprise I did know a few of the tunes (a sign that my list of essential session tunes is not bad) and the musicians were nice enough to play any tune I asked them to, as they saw that I was a beginner session player. #I was also satisfied that the tempo was not outside of my abilities and I think I could play almost any of those tunes with a little practice. Of course the problem was that they could not name most of the tunes.... But I was able to pick up at least fragment phrases out of each tune, by the time they got to the third turn at it. #
One thing I’d like to ask here is – can anyone really hear a mandolin playing melody lines in a session? From where I was sitting (around the table) I could hardly hear myself against 4 fiddles. Any advice? I also believe that I started playing so loudly (out of desperation) that my tone probably went to trash. Would I hear a big difference in volume if I switched to an octave mandolin? I am thinking about getting one in the coming months. Anyway, I also tried to do some backup lines during the tunes that were new to me. That worked out not too badly. At times we also had a bouzouki playing backup and I didn’t want to muddy things up with two sets of chords on top of one another. So I moved to single note rhythmic lines high above the bouzouki and that seemed to clean things up nicely – at least to my ears. #An interesting thing happened – at one point one of the proprietors came into the room and asked us to confirm that we are playing all “original music and not covers”. He obviously had no clue what we were playing, with a question like this, but the point was that someone from ASCAP or BMI or such probed him to see if we are violating any copyright material. The guy leading the session told him that this is all traditional music from the past 150 years or more. The man walked away without much of an argument. I have heard about this happening around pubs, and wherever there is live music, but I’d never experienced it myself. #As a nice side benefit, the place supplies the musicians dinner and #a pint – a gesture much welcomed by us after three hours of playing.
This was a very very good experience and I am looking forward to many more. The immediate challenges are picking up as many tunes as possible and figuring out how to be heard.
Thought I’d share my excitement
Have a nice week
Avi