Session etiquette.

I came across this thread on Irish Music's infamous "Mustard board". Good dicussion here, even though it goes off the rails a bit.

www.thesession.org/discussions/display/24493

Things can go from friendly to awkward and on to downright maddening when playing tunes together. I myself have been caught out "practicing" during a session when I should have done the practicing at home. I could claim that I'm just enthusiastic about a tune or about learning a new instrument, but a big part of what causes awkwardness in the circle is a failure to listen and notice others'reactions.
To a degree, it's not even about one's skill with their chosen instrument. An example: Lately we've had some of Bowen's learning fiddlers come out and grace us with a tune or three. I think it's grand when we can play at a learner tempo, and I hope that our young friends (and their Suzuki-schooled parents)enjoy the experience of playing along with others.
And even though we sometimes limp a bit through a tune when playing with a beginner, it is so enjoyable because these kids (and their Suzuki-schooled parents) "get it". They listen. Lots. They don't play over their heads. They appear to care more about the tune coming out well than they do about playing along with every jig or reel or whatnot.
Or maybe they're just shy and starting out. Nevertheless, despite freshman skills on the fiddle or whatever, these kids are already skilled musicians because they seem so acutely aware of what's going on in the group and with the tune while we saw through it.

The tune of the week comes from Aria, but her setting is B-part first. And in A major instead of myxolidian. Never mind, just follow her lead when you play at The Snug.

www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1218

Jerry Holland has died

A monster of Canadian fiddle music, Jerry Holland has succumbed to the cancer he contracted a number of years ago. He died on Friday.

In his honour, here is my favourite Jerry Holland tune, which is delivered in a blistering perfromance by Liz Carrol and Laurence Nugent on his first album: Dave White's.

Tune of the week

Well last night was fun!
The gang from Vancouver's Wolf and Hound started this tune up last night. After they left on the last ferry, I played the few bars that I knew for those that remained because I've always wanted to learn the tune and it's name. No one knew.
The tune is An Phis Fliuch. The very polite translation is "The Choice Wife", but it's also known as "The Wet Fanny", and well, you get the idea.

Zoe Conway plays it here:

Rakish Paddy's Old Bush

Oops, yer right Keona. The B-part of Rakish Paddy does go up to and above A. For years I've been playing the B-part of this tune wrong. I've just been playing the B-part of The Old Bush with only three note changes, all the while thinking: "Gee, these tunes are sure similar."
Here's the side by side, for remediation purposes. See if you can spot the "roof shape" in the notes. I also recommend that Chris learn Rakish Paddy for remediation purposes. It's a better tune than you remember, Chris ;-)

Rakish Paddy

The Old Bush

I made the comment yesterday that I saw the shape of a roof in the B-part of Rakish Paddy, which caught Emily's interest briefly. No, Emily, I don't share your strong visual sense with tunes. Wish I did. For me, the shape is literally in the dots of the notation.
I don't really see notation any more. Tunes are more like, well, tunes. But in those instances when I've incorrectly made up some variation or I can't keep similar tunes separate, the little shapes of relative pitch help.

Here's the tune that Neil suggested for homework.

Molly Put The Kettle On

I stumbled across my old tunebook

Looking through the web to see what had become of Kavana's Craic over the years, I discovered that someone had reposted a tunebook I had on my site way back in 2000. I had completely fogotten about that. There are 268 tunes in the collection, and that was pretty much everything I knew back then. You can download the .txt file which should be able to be read by an ABC reader.

Nice Nice Nice

Been posting links to clips of big shows. Fiddlers with long black coats playing wicked fast. Been playing fast, too.
But the playing of these three is "just swell." I'm going to breath a bit more when we play.

Tune of the week

This weekend on Bowen saw the yearly start of day visitors stuck in the cove for an hour or two on Saturday night, when there is no ferry from 6pm-8pm. So people mill around in the nice weather after they get over the shock of not getting on a boat when they expected to. They wander into the Snug and listen some, and sometimes give us brief glances of indignance when they order food that we can't make for them.
Here's the deal. The kind owners of the Snug let us play in their cafe, and we sell prepared food and bevvies from a change bowl on the counter. We don't make the sandwiches that are advertised on the Specials board. The grill is off. The espresso machine is off, but we have really good drip coffee and tea available. When we explain that we don't actually work at the cafe, and that the owners trust us with the keys to their store, well people are just tickled pink and settle in for some locals making music. They catch the next ferry looking visibly more relaxed.
We don't mention that on some nights, more of the musicians are from the mainland.

Colin started this tune up on Saturday: The Lads of Laois.

Here's a video clip from Comhaltas

Straight or Swing?

We have this peculiar "groovy-swing" tempo, particularly with reels, when we play as a small group. Even when we start a tune set square and fast, it will often morph into this almost lazy off-beat West Coast kind of thing. But this tends to change when fiddlers are in the room. I don't know if the groove thing is a flute thing, or if bowing lends itself to that more traditional 4/4 drive.
This past Saturday we hit fiddler critical mass: 11-some musicians, three of them playing fiddle. Wonderful tune sets with that galloping straight ahead tempo.
Whenever our friends from town come over, I look forward to hearing this tune
And speaking of fiddler critical mass, here's the tune played at the end of a set.
This much talent on one stage is like all of the G8 leaders deciding to pile into one plane.

A Bowen Island song

Song for the Cape:



This song is based on an old Irish tune with a chorus thrown in.

One stormy spring day
As I rambled at the Cape
And gazed out to the ocean
Where the seals sport and play.
From the sea foam and spray
There arose a fair maid
As she stepped on the rocky shore
To me she did say:

Oh the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come.
Oh the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come.

Her gaze met my eye
And she began to cry
And her keening stilled the south wind
In the far distant sky
Said she "Sir, you stand
Firmly rooted on this land
I appeal to your true heart
Will you give me your hand?"

For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come
For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come

The wind died away
And the sea foam and the spray
Took back the fair maiden
At the end of the day
In a grove of old fir
I felt my heart a-stir
To respond to her calling
And devote my life to her

For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come
For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come

Tunes of the week

It's tunes, because one of them is one that we frequently play but tends to go off the rails when new players visit our session.
The variation of "The Frost is All Over" that we play is this one
Apparently this is some cryptic variation generally known only to veterans of the former Irish Heather Session, and to recent players who want to be their friend (like me). The end of the B-part is atypical.

The Old Copperplate is certainly a well known tune, but I can't recall the last time we played it. Most all of us play it, so I'm posting it here as a reminder that we should play it more often.

But speed can be fun

Arty McGlynn plays guitar on so many recordings, but I've never seen video footage of the man himself. I'm a sucker for this tempo, if not lousy at keeping this tempo for a whole set.
I'll buy tea for the person who can name the tunes.
Tune of the week to follow:

The Grand Hotel

Nice session tonight, everybody. Thank you.
...the rest of this entire post is ripped off of Jon Bartlett's entry on Mudcat. You can get the midi entry (tune) from that link, too.

THE GRAND HOTEL

There's a place in Vancouver you all know so well,
It's a place where they keep rot-gut whisky to sell,
They also keep boarders, they keep them like hell,
And the name of that place is the Grand Hotel.

In the Grand Hotel when the loggers come in,
It's amusing to see the proprietor grin,
He knows they've got money, he'll soon have it all,
"Come on, boys, have a drink!", you will hear Tommy call.

Oh, the bartender laughs as the money rolls in
They drink beer and whisky, champagne, rum and gin
Till they all get so boozy they can't drink no more,
And the loggers lay scattered all over the floor.

In the morning the loggers wake up from their bed,
Their money's all gone and Oh lord! what a head,
They rush to the bar and they call for a drink,
And Tommy gets busy a-slinging the ink.

"Four bits for your bed, though you slept on the floor,
And the breakfast you've missed will be four bits more,
And a four dollar meal ticket, good at the bar,
And a pass back to camp on the old Cassiar."

Repeat verse 1.

note: coll. from Bennett King Lesley, Shaughnessy Hospital by Phil Thomas and in his Songs of the Pacific Northwest. Another version collected by Ed McCurdy is in Fowke. The building still stands. The song predates 1923, when Tommy Roberts, the proprietor, was shot and killed while gambling. With no banks for "stakey" loggers just arrived in town to use, they were prime targets for robbers of every sort, so Roberts would put their rolls in the hotel safe, and "run a slate" for them, first making sure he'd taken out enough money to pay for their trip back up to the remote logging camps on the coast steamer "Cassiar". JB

The Kettle Valley Line

Having decided to sing more BC songs in the interest of keeping them living (and because they're just plain great songs about our own home!), I thought I should post the words here once in a while. The Kettle Valley Line was the railway that used to run approximately where the Coquihalla highway is, now.

I seem to repeat the first verse in the middle and at the end, but I don't think that's usual.

I always ride upon the roof on the Kettle Valley Line
I always ride upon the roof on the Kettle Valley Line
I always ride upon the roof
I could pay the fare but what's the use
So I always ride upon the roof on the Kettle Valley Line

I order my meals through the ventilator on the Kettle Valley Line (2x)
I order my meals through the ventilator
Costs the same but you don't have to tip the waiter
So I order my meals through the ventilator on the Kettle Valley Line

I buy a sandwich from the cook on the Kettle Valley Line (2x)
I buy a sandwich from the cook
and he pockets the money, the dirty crook
But I buy a ...

Those railway bulls are gentlemen on the Kettle Valley Line (2x)
Those railway bulls are gentlemen
We'll never see their likes again
But the railway bulls...

They tip their hats and they call you sir on the Kettle Valley Line (2x)
They tip their hats and they call you sir
Then throw you into the local stir
But they tip their hats and they call you sir on the Kettle Valley Line

Whiskey Before Breakfast

Brenda starts this tune last night, and it's on the third repetition before I realize that it's "Whiskey Before Breakfast". The guys at Bowen's monthly kitchen junket play this one sometimes, and it's a tune I usually associate with the Old-Time-Canadianized-American tradition.
Maybe we ought to play more of this stuff at the Snug (uh-oh). For instance, here's Mike McGoldrick, Sharon Shannon, Bruce Molsky and a bunch of others that I should know if I listened to American Traditional music more often.
This title of the tune should win a contest. "Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further into the Fire"
Neil, if you'll kindly bring your Tea-chest Bass to the next session please...