Gosh things move fast on the Internet! i just saw this for the firsttime last night as a forward from a friend and now it has reached Mudcat. I think this was mainly meant for teh old time world where out of kindness for the banjo player one DOES play a number of tunes in a row in the same key. If for instance you are in D then the banjo player, without a capo, has tuned a D A D F# (the "double C" tuning, raised a whole tone, the fiddler has probably tuned the G string up to A, and if I am the guitar player, then I have dropped the lowest string to D. Each key has its own set of open notes. I remember a very good Galax band doing one 40 minute set entirely in the key of D, and doing their second set entirely in A. When Otter Chaos does a gig the banjo player generally takes two banjos so she does not need to retune EVERY string to switch keys. I agree that for Irish seisuns, different rules apply. . . YMMV I also think that there needs to be a balance between playing old favorites all the time 7 never learning anything new, and playing one new tune after another that nobody else knows, led by a demonically (sp?) possessed fiddle player, as has happened to me more than once. (One sometimes wonder if they ever repent of the bargain they made after it is Too Late)