Meself (formerly known as memyself), were you once part of the well known group Memyself and I, before 'I' walked out of session?

Back to the thread (I've been engaging in pre-yuletide madness for the last few days), the best that can be said that it is almost impossible to generalise on these things. What constitues as session tends to vary from pub to pub, let alone from country to country.

Shaneo chose not to stay in a session where it was clear that the staff working in the bar were not showing respect for the music. He was perfectly enitled to do that. If he was getting paid to play music in the session, that would have been a different matter. You might think that it would be odd for a pub to book and pay musicians to play on a given night and then have a telly blaring so the music can't be heard, but I've seen it happen many times.

Publican's are free to allow singing or music in their pubs if they wish or not if they don't. If they choose not to, then the musicians can find another pub to play in.

Most socialising in Ireland is done in pubs, although this is beginning to change ("Staying in is the new going out") so it is not unusual that a group of musicians who want to get together for a tune would go to a pub to do so. They are not there to entertain the other customers in the pub, unless they have been employed to do so. It is often the case that some if not all of the others will be entertained by what the musicians are doing, and its great when that happens.

If the customers want to ask for a particular song and join in with it thats fine by me, if they ask in a resonable way. (Getting pestered by drunks is an occupational hazard of pub musicians, and I try my best not to encourage that sort of behaviour). But in a situation where the level of requests substantially alters the nature of the session, like turning a tunes session into a sing-song, the musicians have a right to call a halt to this, if they are unhappy about it.

As for musicians repeating tunes, this too depends on the situation. I've heard great musicians repeat the same tune ten times, never playing the same way twice and found it fascinating, I've heard tunes in sessions where twice is too often. Hogging the limelight in a session is bad behaviour, unless you are paid to keep the session going (as is often the case) or everyone else in the session is quite happy to have one or two musicians dominate the session and join in with the bits they know.