Subject: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:36 AM So, without raging (too much) on about incidents when people have been 'orrible. The situation is thus, You have been sat in a session for a little while, you have been joining in, you start a tune (or song) when asked and the person sat next to you starts playing loud inappropriate guitar that's putting you off. What is the best way to shatter their dreams and tell them they shouldn't be doing that, or would you just struggle on?
Thanks. -Joe Offer- |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Leadfingers Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:39 AM You COULD try pausing and saying " Please stop - You are putting me off" - That HAS been known to work when I have joined in with someone at a session ! |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Richard Bridge Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:45 AM Didn't we discuss this at length and with some dudgeon some time ago? |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:47 AM I tried polite version and seen others try rude versions of saying that. I haven't yet seen positive response. Problem is, the culprit thinks they're doing a good job. You have to shatter this. :O( |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:48 AM i'm looking for a dudgeon free solution |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Jack Campin Date: 12 Oct 10 - 06:21 AM Fire a series of impossible and highly precise technical requirements at them, which they'd have to be Nic Jones to satisfy. Playing in 5/4. Bossa nova backbeat. Tell them they need a Martin Carthy tuning for the next one. Can you do flamenco body-taps on beat 1 through the second part?... |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,MC Fat (at work) Date: 12 Oct 10 - 06:27 AM Like that one jack but perhaps the more direct approach is either 'Which part of shut up don't you understand' or something that happened when a mate of mine was at a session in Australia this bloke was playing along and hadn't a clue he was awfull but carried on playing regardless. someone in the audience asked if he could borrow his guitar. The chap strummed the guitar and shouted to his mate @yeah Bruce it is in tune' |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Zen Date: 12 Oct 10 - 07:11 AM Which part of shut up don't you understand? I do occasionally need to supress an urge to say that but generally find a quiet word or aside in a non-aggressive manner or with a touch of humour that they are disrupting the tune or singer has the best results and preserves a positive session atmosphere. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,MC Fat (at work) Date: 12 Oct 10 - 07:16 AM there unfortunately some people who that doesnt work. One in particular is a 'boyfriend' of one woman who frequents some of our sessions in Whitby during Folk Week. He has all the sensitivity of a Rhino and insists on playing along even when people are singing an unaccompanied song so the the direct approach with a liberal use of anglo saxon expletives is the only option |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Midchuck Date: 12 Oct 10 - 07:28 AM Why pick on guitar players in particular, when a bad banjo player can make as much of a nuisance as ten guitars? Or is it just this feeling in Celtic sessions that guitars are somehow interlopers, especially if they do anything more than play straight chords, bang-bang-bang? (Not that I'm denying that such guitar players exist, mind you. I've encountered enough of them. It's just that the original post was limited to guitars, and the problem isn't limited to guitars.) P. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Will Fly Date: 12 Oct 10 - 07:41 AM I think the original poster was referring to a particular incident with a particular guitar player - probably not all guitarists in general. I've attended sessions where one of the most intrusive instruments has been, on occasions, a piano accordion - and, believe me, when a piano accordion is intrusive, it really is intrusive! There's very little you can do in the session itself. Words need to be said outside the session - and my view, for what it's worth, is that if something needs to be said, it should be the session organiser who says them. So - a word to the organiser outside the session might be in order. Take an opinion from him/her. It may be, for example, that the annoying instrumentalist is really only annoying you - or it may be that everyone else feels the same. I run a session myself and, if there was someone who was as disruptive as you say, then I would undertake to sort it - outside the session. It hasn't happened yet, I have to say. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Zen Date: 12 Oct 10 - 07:42 AM Fortunately never had that problem in over 30 years of sessioneering MC! |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Zen Date: 12 Oct 10 - 07:44 AM P.S. I currently lead several sessions and was the organiser of a big one in London for many years. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Acorn4 Date: 12 Oct 10 - 08:15 AM Accompanying tunes with guitar actually has to be learned. People think strumming an acoustic guitar is easy, but control of volume is a skill which a lot of players undervalue. Many good vocalists spoil their own performances by playing too loud or too little variation in volume. Th dynamic range of an acoustic guitar is one of its finest attributes but control is essential. I actually mastered fingerpicking before learning to strum anywhere near effectively. The art of accompanying tunes is to underpin them rather than drowning them. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST Date: 12 Oct 10 - 08:18 AM Would an aside (to the guitarist) before you start the next one on the lines of 'I'm just learning this one so I'd rather people don't join in' work? |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Will Fly Date: 12 Oct 10 - 08:22 AM Yes - I think it's perfectly accepatable at an open session to declare that you'd like just to do one number without anyone else's accompaniment. It's not a common occurrence and I can't see any objection to that, personally. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST Date: 12 Oct 10 - 08:26 AM A little sign with 'Shut the fuck up!' works for me. Keep it in your guitar case.
Thanks. -Joe Offer- |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies) Date: 12 Oct 10 - 08:31 AM Or you could lightheartedly apologise for being a spoilsport but say unfortunately it tends to throw you off when people join in? Or, you haven't mastered the art of jamming yet and need to play solo so you can keep your concentration. Or something.. I can't imagine anyone taking umbridge if you tactfully own the fault as your own, so to speak. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,Silas Date: 12 Oct 10 - 08:33 AM imho it's no use pussyfooting about, you have to be straight with people - tell him! |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,tatterfoal Date: 12 Oct 10 - 09:40 AM Tis difficult as the ethos of sessions/singarounds is that people are welcome to join in indeed with a chorus song you actively want participation, I don't know the solution, I myself have trouble keeping in the key with someone "harmonising" in my lughole. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Midchuck Date: 12 Oct 10 - 09:55 AM It appears that the general accepted procedure in most "singaround" song sessions that I've been to is: You don't sing along on the verses unless expressly asked to, but if the song has a repeating chorus, you assume that it's accepted and normal to sing along on the chorus unless expressly asked not to, but not so loudly that you take over from the singer. (That's what "chorus" means!) If the singer starts singing unaccompanied, you don't play your instrument unless the singer has asked for accompaniment. If the singer starts out playing, it's acceptable to play along unless the singer asks that others not play. In either case, anyone playing along should be very careful with his/her volume, not to overpower the singer. Especially b*nj* players and fiddlers. Are the accepted rules different elsewhere? P. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,mayomick Date: 12 Oct 10 - 09:58 AM Just leave him to it with a sigh while raising your eyebrows. Then ,as patronisingly as possible and pretending that you are trying to smile indulgently, go to the bar and stay there until you embarrass him into going away away That's what they always do to shut me up. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Joe Nicholson Date: 12 Oct 10 - 11:35 AM Midchuck said it all |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: terrier Date: 12 Oct 10 - 12:02 PM If it's a too loud string instrument, wire cutters come in handy, if it's an offending drum, craft knives are quick and efficient, if someone is putting you off with their awfull singing or playing a windy instrument, then pepper spray will do the job ;) alternatively, you could just stop singing or playing until the offending noise stops then resume, that usually works for me. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,mauvepink Date: 12 Oct 10 - 12:37 PM I sometimes attend a session on a Monday night that is lead by a semi-professional group pf folk singers. There are four in the group and sometimes two extras ( a bass and mandolin player). There is a young woman who sometimes joins us who does a percussion side to things and there is me, often with my Tak 12. If they, as a group, wishes to do a song or a tune, as a group, then they usually ask whoever they do not wish to join in not to join in. It's that simple. Within the larger group of us we all know we can say on any given song who we want in and who we don't. No-one takes offence if they are excluded on some songs. Sometimes less is more with a song and sometimes more can make less. As musicians we all know this. All that said. I have been to some places - and not returned - where you get the guy on guitar or something else who drowns out what you are doing and you cannot follow yourself. On two occasions I have stopped and asked that they refrain as I cannot concentrate. In one case it was an accordian player who not only was out of tune but also had no subtlety. In another club it was two mandolins, a violin and someone who twiddles up and down single strings at a tune he has no knowledge of. On one occasion I even stopped playing myself as they set up their own (all different) rythmns and tunes. Not good! It's difficult. If you are with other musicians who know that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses then they will understand if you introduce that you only want so-and-so in or no-one. One cannot always get up and move somewhere else and sometimes, for the sake of peace, you say nothing. in short. If you are at a free for all I guess there is little you can do. If you are at a genuine club with mostly genuine musicians no-one should take offence. It's yout turn, your tune and your song. mp |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: SteveMansfield Date: 12 Oct 10 - 12:38 PM I'm perfectly happy with competent accompaniment, and some glorious music has resulted down the years. I was, however, once moved by a hampered dulcimer player (well, owner, player suggests some basic understanding of the mechanics and techniques of that fine instrument) to stop mid-tune and say in a very loud voice 'Sorry, I was playing *tune name*; you obviously know a different version to me!' |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Will Fly Date: 12 Oct 10 - 12:40 PM Midchuck's advice on singaround etiquette is sensible - but we're talking sessions here, which are not quite the same thing as a singarounds. Good advice all the same. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Richard Bridge Date: 12 Oct 10 - 01:10 PM I wish people would not refer to guitar chordwork as "strumming" which I think is a very belittling term. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,Silas Date: 12 Oct 10 - 01:14 PM Well, I back a lot of session tunes on guitar and don't mind the term - what would you prefer to call it? |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Will Fly Date: 12 Oct 10 - 01:20 PM I suppose there's a slightly pejorative sense to "strumming" - implying it's just full chord bashing. When I play guitar in sessions of traditional tunes, it's often mainly single, bass string runs with interspersed chords - and sometimes, yes, it's a good old strum. Horses for courses... |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,Silas Date: 12 Oct 10 - 01:23 PM Same here Will, but I think sometimes people do get a bit precious about the terminology. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Richard Bridge Date: 12 Oct 10 - 02:17 PM I think it implies mechanistic playing on each beat of the bar (if you're lucky) and only on each beat in the bar of full 6 string chords with no light or shade and no use of internal variations of notes or variation of inversions. It's even more common in some styles other than folk. For example while I'm no fan of modern Irish session tune playing, the guitarists often use interspersed double or treble time interventions leading in to the chord that is on the beat, and I wouldn't call that "strumming" at all. One so often hears the question "Do you play the guitar or just strum"? It's rude and it's ignorant. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,Silas Date: 12 Oct 10 - 02:44 PM Hmmm... Yes, i see what you mean. It is quite astonishing just how many apparntly competent guitarists who can easily accompany songs are all at sea when it comes to tunes.... |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Richard in Manchester Date: 12 Oct 10 - 04:32 PM On the other hand, many a tune is ruined by a guitarist unable to resist dreary descending bass lines, superfluous ornamentation and ugly counter-rhythms, when nothing would lift the tune better than a gentle on-the-beat strum. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Chris Partington Date: 12 Oct 10 - 05:13 PM "On the other hand, many a tune is ruined by a guitarist unable to resist dreary descending bass lines, superfluous ornamentation and ugly counter-rhythms, when nothing would lift the tune better than a gentle on-the-beat strum." I agree. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Richard Bridge Date: 12 Oct 10 - 06:31 PM Ah well, horses, etc. If that is so, how has the modern Irish guitar style found a place? I don't like Irish tunes but they have produced some very able guitar contributions. I think what RiM and CP are really trying to say is that they don't want the guitar musically to contribute. Who is to say that a counter rhythm is ugly? I was once singing a shanty in Maidstone (it was in B major, I recall) and the whole thing was given a marvellous lift by an essentially blues based guitar riff/chug that just came in from nowhere. I can only think of one banjo player I have ever heard who can fit in like that - but he is very fine. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Howard Jones Date: 13 Oct 10 - 03:08 AM On the contrary, I think they are saying they want the guitar to contribute in a way which is appropriate to the tune - which equally applies to other instruments, of course. One of the joys of sessions is the opportunities they offer for improvisational experimentation, and when a skilful player tries something off the wall which works (such as that blues chug), the results can be magic. Unfortunately, the guitar is one of those instruments which is easy to play but difficult to master. There are plenty of unskilled or inexperienced guitarists who are unable to identify the rhythm or the key. The negative impact they can have is often greater than that of someone on a melody instrument who is unsure of the tune. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine Date: 13 Oct 10 - 07:23 AM A session I used to go to was plagued by a guy who sat and strummed G, C and D all night with no relation to what anyone else was playing. Eventually the landlord, who suffered no fools, asked the entire pub to be quiet so we could hear "a solo from our resident guitar genius". Cruel, but... |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,ruairiobroin Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:24 AM Try headbutting the offender. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Banjo-Flower Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:54 AM Just do'nt complain in a year or so's time when you're leading a solo session after sorting out the wheat from the chaff Gerry or are you sessions only for the elite |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: jacqui.c Date: 13 Oct 10 - 10:27 AM When I first started singing in pub sessions I was very glad of the gentle accompaniment from a mandolin player, which helped keep me in tune. At a later date and different session we were 'blessed' with a guitar player who was unable to carry a tune in a bucket, but who insisted on noodling along to just about everything being sung, quite often overpowering the voice with his rendition. Very irritating to the rest of the group. One of our number, who has a powerful voice and sings a lot of songs that sound good acapella, actually told him to stop the accompaniment as it was not suited for the songs he was singing. Now, I'm all for encouraging folk to play and sing, whatever level they are at. If I hadn't had the encouragement when my voice was, basically, very weak and thready I would not have progressed at all. What I don't like is this type who thinks that, because they have been around for a long time, they have carte blanch to intrude in this way on everyone else's performance. That can lead to a less experienced singer or player having real problems getting through their piece. I do think that people who behave in that way need to be told, in no uncertain terms, that it is not acceptable to intrude like that, otherwise it is likely that, over time, the session may, indeed, become a solo one, as all the other participants decide to go elsewhere. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 13 Oct 10 - 12:48 PM Okay, so you're trying to sing and the guitarist next to you is too loud, too inaccurate. 1. Don't say anything that makes him look bad and you look good. Make it seem like you are the weak one. Say, "Brad, my voice is strained today, and your playing is a bit too loud for it. Would you please play softer?" or 2. Stand up and walk further away, still singing. This will embarass the guy, but it's not as bad as humiliating him publicly. =========== We would have fewer of these unharmonious guitarists if so-called experts would stop telling them that most songs can be accompanied by only 3 chords, the I IV and V. PS Forgive me if that's not how you spell 'embarass.' However I type it, it looks wrong. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Howard Jones Date: 13 Oct 10 - 01:07 PM Gerry, sessions are not only for the elite. And by definition people are generally expected to join in. But some people are so cloth-eared, or just insensitive, that their playing can seriously detract from the music. If nobody mentions it to them, firstly the music will suffer and secondly they'll never learn any better. Novices are usually too lacking in confidence to push themselves forward in this way. In my experience, the problems usually arise with someone who has been playing for quite some time but simply hasn't grasped some of the fundamentals of the music. I know of one player (OK, he's a guitarist, but this isn't a dig at guitarists) who only has two rhythms - one in 3/4, and the other an up-and-down strum which he applies to pretty much everything else, whether it's a reel, a hornpipe, a polka or a jig. He's playing a rhythm instrument but doesn't understand the rhythms. He also has problems recognising whether a tune is in a major or minor key, and gets totally baffled when this changes mid-tune. He is not inexperienced, simply lacking in awareness and understanding. If nobody mentions it to him, how will he learn? |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Bonzo3legs Date: 13 Oct 10 - 01:35 PM If you must go to sessions????????? |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: jacqui.c Date: 13 Oct 10 - 01:44 PM If you must go to sessions????????? This happens at song circles where instruments are accepted. For some that is the only place to listen to and perform the music that we love. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:03 PM Many years ago I was at a session in O'Riordan's in Brentford when the guitarist who was there before me obviously, from the expression on his face, didn't realize that tunes could be in any key other than A till I strated playing. One problem I've had is people who thing "Oh good, a blues in E", so nowadays I always announce that I only play thirteen and a half bar blues, though rewcently I had to ask people not to play chords when I was playing slide, as, although I was following the standard 12 bar progression, because of the slide I was playing lost of notes that didn't. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Tattie Bogle Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:24 PM "I'm warning you, I do this one in VERY free time" - sometimes works, but not always. If I'm hosting a session, I'll usually start by saying "Please say if you're happy for folk to join in, or if you'd rather be unaccompanied" - but even that doesn't allow for late-comers. And a hand across the fret/finger-board of any stringed instrument has been seen to happen - and work! And surely it's part of etiquette to LISTEN to the lead player/singer and follow them if you are permitted to join in, and not go off on your own tangential trajectory?! |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 13 Oct 10 - 08:35 PM MOVE TO AN OPEN SEAT - AND CONTINUE
OR
Come to the USA ...
where non-such behavior occurs ....one an a daily but with... with the host dumping a hump of ice-ladden punch on the non-invites head.
And the host subsequently sued and "bying the foreclosed farm" because they (the host of session) forgot to pay the insurance premium....losing the deed and all indentured servants...for six generations forward.
Sincerely, Here, kitty, kitty, .... if an any mouse of a guest can post...why can't Aye, Eye, I.... captain?
While you sit, sat, sought, to play misqueed chords...totaly oblivious to the confusion, constrantation, constananobles you created. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 13 Oct 10 - 11:56 PM Gargoyle, you mean as in 'Ya can't go back to Constananoble'? That was a great tune. |
Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please From: Richard in Manchester Date: 14 Oct 10 - 12:52 PM Mr Bridge, in all the years I've been following this forum, I do believe this is the first time I have ever found myself disagreeing with you! "...I think what RiM and CP are really trying to say is that they don't want the guitar musically to contribute" Mmmm. Guess what I play? "...Who is to say that a counter rhythm is ugly?" I didn't say all counter-rhythms are ugly. The suggestion was that there are too many guitarists who don't understand when fancy syncopation does not lift the tune but shunts it around like a drunk dragging a sack of spuds down the street. Irish tunes are particularly vulnerable to this because so much of the rhythmic beauty of the music is in the tune itself. I can well imagine the blues-based riff suiting a shanty, and I bet it was played by a guitarist with a sensitive ear for harmony and who thought carefully about whether it would work before joining in. Now would you mind reverting to opinions I agree with, please? (BTW, if the banjo player you refer to is not Tony Sullivan, well that means there must be at least two very fine banjo players in existence. Two!) |
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