Thanks for the boost re the twice-monthly traditional music classes I'm starting at the Gun & Spitroast, Horsmonden Valmai!

I do agree with you about not playing so loudly that you can't hear anyone else - for one thing, if you don't, you can't know whether the tune that's been started the tune is what you think it is.

Differences arise in timing or phrasing, in chords, or in the notes themselves. They may be quite subtle or they may be important, but you won't know whether they were interesting if you can't hear them because of other people's playing or your own, or you don't listen out.

It's true too that there's no 'right' or 'standard' version of a folk dance or session tune; there's only the way the person who starts it plays, and I think it's much nicer to follow their lead as much as possible. You wouldn't want to force a different speed or key on them, so why change anything else?

In picking up a new tune, I quite often don't play the first time or couple of times through a new tune and listen closely instead, perhaps playing a few quiet chords. Once I've got to where I can hum a tune and keep it in my head, I'm 90 per cent of the way to playing it. The opposite is even more true - if I can't hum it, I can't play it.

Gavin