The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173694 Message #4212619
Posted By: Johnny J
01-Dec-24 - 05:50 AM
Thread Name: “Lamentable Fiddlers” in Sandy Bell's Bar…
Subject: RE: “Lamentable Fiddlers” in Sandy Bell's Bar…
"the positive aspect of session .org is the resources of sheet music"
Well, that's actually the most used and visited part of site. I know of many people who check out tunes there who never contribute to discussions and many aren't even members of the forum.
I'm not sure if that's altogether a good thing or not as, while the tune section there is useful, many casual users aren't fully aware of its limitations. There are lots of non standard settings, some contain errors while a few are just "plain wrong". Even if the tune is the official "composer approved" published version, then this isn't necessarily ideal either as the ethos of the tune section is that members should submit tunes as "played at their local session". Actually, even the composers of tunes don't necessarily play them exactly the same way every time.
However, I'm not "dissing" the facility but its important to understand its limitations. It also gets unfairly criticised by some people including some well known musicians who aren't fully familiar with its flaws and idiosyncracies. It isn't perfect by any means but when you use it sensibly i.e. by listening to the actual tunes in sessions and recordings and "tweaking" to suit etc, it can be a very useful tool.
As I recall, Michael Gill himself didn't rate the tune section at all... His advice was always to "Listen, listen, listen". One classic comment was "The Tune Book is in your head and not some crazy cyber space nonsense.." ;-))