Most interesting discussion with some nice points raised about what mistakes are and what they aren't. Now I myself have never claimed to be perfect (don't know why - just plain old modesty and humiliy I suppose - just something I've always been good at) and I notice the same goes for every one of the crowd I session with, or the musoes I have the honour to play with. It seems to me that at concerts or other formal performances, especially where I've paid ma hard-earned guid money, the audience has a right to expect the performance to be reasonably acceptable, otherwise why go? Mistakes either technical or technique-al should have been mostly eliminated at rehearsals so everybody knows what they should be doing and so any inevitable actual errors are to be deplored and every effort made to correct them in the future. This does not include mistakes that are deliberate, or allowed to stand because they attract a laugh or get the audience's attention.

But - at informal ceilidhs or sessions a good deal of the fun, and the satisfaction, is in developing a way of delivering a song or tune or whatever. The only way you are ever going to get it right is to play around with it and see if it suits both you and the audience. Not that it's made any easier by different reactions from different audiences. In my book, which is a large brightly coloured one with simple spelling, many mistakes of a technique-al nature aren't so much mistakes as failed attempts to make effective communication with the audience.

As for technical mistakes, well, I'm a bodhran thumper - and proud of it - so what would I know anyway.