Yes, going back to the original post, we did have musicians sessions at the Beverley Beck Shanty Festival, on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons at the Grovehill pub. I'm sorry you didn't find them. As you say Shanty Festivals don't usually have musicians sessions (didn't get there myself as we were a bit busy elsewhere) but if there's a need that can be satisfied (cheaply!) then there's no reason not to do so.

All the same Betsy (no she he, Snail!) and others raise some excellent points. Maggie and I prefer general sessions, with tunes accompanied and unaccompanied songs, plus monologues, poems and hopefully a visit from a rapper team! Now this seldom happens (although it did at the Roebuck in Warwick last weekend) and sometimes people do need dividing up.

Musician sessions should not be used to show how fast you can play. If you want to show how well you can play then practice your ornamentation. Tunes evolved from a dance tradition and to play them too fast just shows how ignorant of that tradition the player is. Speed may impress the general public, or even folkies who don't play tunes so save your speed for public performances, not for what is intended to be a shared session. The same goes with tunes that other people in the session won't know - don't exclude them, but limit them and say before why you are playing them ('this is a tune called ???? and I think it deserves to be better known'). And remember that there are more sorts of tunes than just jigs and reels.

And for tune players who find themselves in a general session - it helps if you can accompany a song. Accompanying a song does not mean playing the tune of the song louder than the singer. In fact it usually doesn't mean playing the tune at all. If you are guitar player don't just play the same chord shapes as the singer/guitar player, capo up five or so frets. Otherwise you are only making the guitar stuff louder and muddier.

But for all session attendees - learn to listen. And if the song or tune is something you can't stand that is what the pee break, the fag break or the visit to the bar are for. Actually it isn't, sometimes there's a general need or craving to be satisfied, and I don't want anyone getting paranoid that I always disappear when a particular tune, song or performer is evident!

Anyway, long boring rant over.