Folk Club / Session Etiquette

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:15 AM

Sorry Will - a spoonerism - should have read regular singing session.
"I run a small session in my local pub on a monthly basis"
Don't think we have any serious disagreement; we call what you describe here, 'singing circles' - usually anything goes repertoire with basement-level standards.
Have been to a few (usually only once) and found them sometimes fun but musically unsatisfying.
My objection is to 'folk clubs' who allow, even encourage audiences to join in unasked.
My "party line" is that the folk music I know and love, and have devoted the best part of my life to, is beautiful, complex, extremely enjoyable and satisfying and important (and demanding) enough to be performed well enough for the listener and performer to go home with enough fuel to encourage him/her to come back the following week to do it all over again, and maybe even to take it further (some of our finest researchers sttarted off as singers).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:17 AM

If you don't like joiners in go to an open mike night ( with or without mikes). Ive had some of the best and worst experieces of joiners in, but the best outweigh the worst by far.
FloraG

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:18 AM

Totally with you, Will and Marje.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:23 AM

Taking this a little further, whilst most folk enthusiasts in England have a clear idea of the differences and etiquette between the words 'singaround' and 'session', it occurs to me that there are people in different areas and newcomers who are not fully aware of these differences.

Having read the whole thread it would appear that some of the problems here stem from the two words having different meanings to different people. Perhaps it is time we started thinking about a new set of words to cover the several different types of occasions when people meet together to sing and play.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:51 AM

The events I most like are somewhere in between a session and a singaround, where there can be solo spots as well everybody-join-in sets. They are perhaps not quite as common as they used to be but they still happen.

But what absolutely does NOT work is people treating solo melody instruments as if they were solo ballad singers, and sitting on their hands when they could be trying some sort of accompaniment for tunes that absolutely require it. It doesn't feel like respect for the music, it feels like being shunned.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:01 AM

Jim, I think the main area where I have regularly taken friendly issue with you is that your love and enthusiasm appears to be mainly for folk music as enshrined in songs. For me, folk music is essentially enshrined in tunes - and the music is obviously somewhere in between those two viewpoints!

I have very few folk songs in my repertoire, and am rarely enthused by songs in folk clubs because - although I love folk tales of murders, ghosts, love and death, etc. (and have a very good attention span) - I prefer my entertainment from such things to be got from books of prose and poetry, curled up in an armchair or reclining "on a mossy bank". Tunes, on the other hand - English, Irish, Scottish, French, Cape Breton, Cajun, etc. - I have unbounded enthusiasm and an insatiable appetite for. (I've banged on about this on Mudcat before and will leave it at that).

So, to draw a conclusion about the state of any folk music purely from its songs and its singers is wrong, in my view. There is actually a good, vibrant scene for singing down here in my neck of Sussex - in folk clubs where I venture on occasion - and an equally vibrant scene for tunes and mixed sessions - which I attend as often as I can. It seems to me - and correct me if I'm wrong - that your passions are really for the tradition as carried in words. My passions are for the tunes and the variations in those tunes which have come down the years. I see a thriving folk scene with a huge number of wonderful tunes to be played regularly - and I was playing many of 'em at a wedding only last night! There are innumerable ceilidh bands where I live, all working regularly and all playing a solid selection of traditional tunes for dancing.

Valmai is running a ballad workshop in Lewes next month with Scottish singers Gordeanna McCulloch & Anne Neilson. I won't be there as it's not my thing, but I raise a glass to it in recognition of the efforts of my dedicated friends down here in keeping the music going and the standards high. The state of folk music here - in song and tunes - is a far cry from what you're constantly describing.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: banjoman
Date: 20 May 12 - 10:47 AM

I agree that there is some confusion between a session and a singaround. However, it really P***s me off when I have gone to the trouble to learn a song or piece of music and find that someone who knows a slightly different version insists on joining in and then persists with their version. My favourite trick, especially in a room full of melodeons, is to put a capo on the banjo and play a well known tune in B flat. Watching their faces is worth the effort. I would add that I have been threatened on one occasion by a melodeon player when I did this. He is now dead( dont read too much into that)

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 10:58 AM

banjoman,
You need to be at a singaround or indeed a 'playaround'. The whole idea of a session is participation. You seem to have missed this.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:40 AM

This reads like every reason to stay away from folk clubs and sessions. Thank goodness anything worth listening to at a folkclub is recorded and uploaded to the internet, for listening in the comfort of my own home.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:46 AM

Well, if you've never attended a good session, then you really don't know what you've missed. Listening to music in a chair is, for me, no substitute for playing it in the company of friends and having a great time while doing so.

How can you possibly criticise what you've never experienced?

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:46 AM

Whoever has started a song or tune sets the way it is performed - ANYONE joining in should realise this , and either shut up or just play along and NOT try to move the arrangemrnt their way.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:48 AM

Bonzo can criticise anything he likes , wether he knows anything about it or (USUALLY) not

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 May 12 - 12:01 PM

Thank goodness anything worth listening to at a folkclub is recorded and uploaded to the internet, for listening in the comfort of my own home.

This is, to use vaguely modern parlance, just so not true. It's like saying watching porn is better than having sex.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Musket
Date: 20 May 12 - 12:15 PM

Anybody would think the spectacle was for the performer rather than those listening...

That said, if you must join in, you become part of said performance, so yeah, best if invited and follow the leader rather than your own interpretation.

I have a relaxed attitude, but there are some songs which I perform in concerts but never in folk clubs, as my versions may, (and tend to..) string out the end of a stanza with a flourish, so whilst I am taking my breath waiting, others are playing or singing into the next verse or chorus. The upshot? "Mather got his song wrong..."

Whilst we are having a good bloody whinge, the next person who says I "sing it wrong" will be first up against the wall when I come to power.

Oh, there's a debate... Is porn better than sex? Can we take age, description of partner and our ability to perform into account????

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 20 May 12 - 01:25 PM

Will's absolutely right in his comments about the vibrancy of the scene down here in the South East of England. It's not just Sussex (East or West) but Kent, Surrey and Hampshire where the singaround/session/folk club scene is alive, vibrant and healthy.

I could go to 2 or 3 different events in the above categories almost any night of the week here, within a 20-30 minute (max) drive of home. Tuesdays are a bit thin for some reason, but almost any other night I'm spoilt for choice....FIVE options this coming Monday, 4 of which I'd really like to go to. Some are traddy, some are quiet, more like 7 or 8 friends gathered in someone's sitting room than a pub session, and some are lively. They're all good fun. Like Will, the odd one I found to be too serious or too exclusive, I stopped going to. lenty more to choose from.

The Bull session at Ditchling is the only one I travel a fair way for ( an hour each way) because it's just so damned GOOD. Anyone who thinks it's "better" to listen to a recording at home should get along to this session! It's lively, yes, but when the occasional unaccompanied song's performed, or someone nervous like me tries to play/sing, the people are very sensitive to the moment.

As to "singing it wrong"...no-one's ever *told* me that, it's just been the odd occasion when a "joiner-in" (at singarounds, not sessions) has tried to browbeat me during the song into doing it their way (or are just so used to doing it that way that they're not even aware that I'm deviatig from the "norm"). It's not so bad with "standards" like John Barleycorn as there are a gazillion different versions of that one so no-one is mentally "hearing" a definitive version.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 01:28 PM

Going back to the OP 2 items are mentioned.

Folk Club etiquette is set by the folk club organisers and has been discussed at great length on other threads. Each club has its own rules and as long as these are clear and obvious to newcomers no problem.

To avoid the arguments should we split sessions into 2 or more types, freestyle and controlled? Those with a lot of singing, those with a little singing, those with no singing?

At a freestyle which is what I mostly attend there is the occasional song and, unless the singer makes it very clear otherwise, it is accepted that joining in is the norm, with chorus, harmony, instruments.

While I'm on, what p****s me off most is those who try to change the tempo once somebody has started a tune, particularly those show-offs who like to play tunes at breakneck speed regardless of fitting the notes in. I have been known to tell them in mid tune, especially if there are some beginners in.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:11 PM

"....appears to be mainly for folk music as enshrined in songs."
Sorry Will; not the case.
I can, (and still would if I had the energy) go out five nights out of seven and hear music ranging from not bad to to world class, all within a twenty minute walk from here, much of it being played by the youngsters still in their teens and early twenties who are still emerging onto the scene.
We sat in a pub in the next village last Wednesday and enjoyed a magic night of fiddle playing from Kevin Burke and Tim O'Brien, with a handful of excellently performed American traditional songs thrown in for good measure.
We were a little late leaving, so we couldn't get into the Jackie Daly session in our local pub, but we can see him any two nights of the week.
I shudder to think what would have happened if somebody had pulled out a fiddle (or even worse, a bodhran) and joined in with Kevin and Tim - there aren't enough trees around here for an impromptu lynching so I suppose the Atlantic would have had to suffice.
How can anybody justify joining in with any performer, singer or musician, without being invited to do so - or does a 'class system' operate which allows it with some and not with others?
I know of several performers who visit the UK regularly as performers and are appalled at the practice, but are too polite to mention it.
By the way Steve, you can't complain about "those who try to change the tempo once somebody has started a tune" if you are going to allow joining in when the audience feels like it unless you issue a rule book of dos and don'ts.
I've said it before, but Walter Pardon felt it necessary to drop two of his favourite songs from his club performance repertoire because of audiences tendencies to harmonise and to slow down the choruses -"made them sound like bloomin' funeral hymns".
He would never in a thousand years have brought himself round to asking them not to.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:18 PM

If irish musicians are so appalled by UK behaviour why not stop at home.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:53 PM

There is absolutely no point to this bickering. We are talking about different places where different norms are accepted. I used to go accross to Ireland regularly and would never have dreamt of attempting to accompany a stranger or a recognised singer without being invited. I wouldn't even have attempted to join in with most sessions unless I knew the tune well and had been invited. However, there are lots of different sessions over here and most are very welcoming of all levels, and most people get their enjoyment from simply participating. These sessions are often in a bar-room of a pub and the other occupants of the pub are only too glad of some live/lively music. It simply doesn't matter if everybody can't play every note of every tune. Occasionally somebody will lead off on a difficult tune or one nobody else knows and we are happy to sit and listen as long as they don't try to take over the session with this.

I've also gone into sessions in Ireland where the same group of half a dozen musicians rattle through the same repertoire of reels at breakneck speed and are unaware of anyone else in the room. Each to their own. Just not my cup of tea.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: michaelr
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:13 PM

Jim Carroll: I can, (and still would if I had the energy) go out five nights out of seven and hear music ranging from not bad to to world class, all within a twenty minute walk from here...We sat in a pub in the next village last Wednesday and enjoyed a magic night of fiddle playing from Kevin Burke and Tim O'Brien... we couldn't get into the Jackie Daly session in our local pub, but we can see him any two nights of the week.

Please, please tell me where you live!!!

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: JohnH
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:17 PM

And they "join in" with a different tune or timing!

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Eh?
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:19 PM

'If irish musicians are so appalled by UK behaviour why not stop at home.'

Because some us poor fuckers actually live in the UK to begin with, dimwit! Belfast, now where would that be?

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:15 PM

Belfast, now where would that be?

In the UK.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Harry Doig
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:29 PM

I once went to a session and sang "The Old Furrier", halfway through the first chorus an old man started singing along, but it was a different lyric - he rhymed Potato with Impetago - which totally ruined the whole point of the song. I stopped singing and told him off. I said "hey, please don't mess with the song" and he stopped. After my song, I went to the lavatory. I wasn't asked to sing another song and when I got home I discovered someone had emptied an ashtray in my pocket.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:32 PM

I think Marje nailed it. And Terry when he said that if someone is leading something, others follow. I'll often put my mandolin down if there is another mandolin player accompanying a song, because I feel that what I would do would not fall to hand quite well with other mandolin players who just may happen to feel an accompaniment differently from me.

And speaking of listening - - -

There is one person who has posted on this thread who I have seen join in on an instrument with an unaccompanied singer and force a key change as a result.   

I've seen another poster here talk right over someone trying (7 times) to start a song - and then criticise the singer because the talker was "performing" a joke.

I've seen a banjo player (not represented on this thread) play right over everyone (yes, everyone) who tried to start a song - when he was a visitor to the singers' session (and not I add a booked guest).

No names, no pack drill.

Incidentally, I think of "noodling" as something quite different - a tendency of some guitarists or instrument players to play something, anything, when there is a silence - and it may or may not be an attempt to start a song or tune, or a bit of private practice, or just a compulsion to finger the strings, and one does not know which. I don't call a purposeful (even if mistaken) attempt to accompany "noodling".

I did have one embarrassing experience arising from this - a person somewhat given to proclaiming their instant expertise on any instrument they happened to buy was - I thought - "noodling aimlessly" - so I carried on talking, only to find later that I had talked right through a set piece they were playing to demonstrate their expertise on their new instrument!

On the other hand there are some songs where surely everyone expects silly versions to be sung or silly sound effects to be inserted - perhaps the greatest example being "Pleasant and delightful" - even down to the added verse to the words of "Pinball Wizard" (or the added verse to "A sailor ain't a sailor any more".

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Tootler
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:41 PM

It's very easy to compile a list of your favourite horror stories and to give the impression that things are much worse than they really are.

I don't find that the kind of things described above in this thread are common, in fact, I've not come across many of them at all and for the most part, I find people respect the conventions.

Joining in is part of the folk song culture in England but there are conventions that are mostly adhered to. Choruses and refrains definitely. The other common ones I have noticed is where the last line of every verse ends in a similar phrase. The Gallant Frigate Amphitrite is a good example where most verses end in some variant of "around cape horn". The melodeon playing sharks in Pleasant and Delightful seem to have moved away from here (Teesside), but people mostly join in on the last line or two of each verse. Also people mostly will join in if the first verse is reprised. I don't see instrumentalists trying to accompany singers singing unaccompanied, or even with singers accompanying themselves unless explicitly invited.

I don't have any problem with these conventions. You expect them and taking part is part of what a singaround is about, at least for me. My only real niggle are the subvocalisers. You can be singing a song and someone will be singing along with you half under their breath, but just loud enough to be heard. It's particularly annoying when you are singing a song out for the first time and are concentrating hard on the words as it can so easily break your concentration. I think often the people concerned are not always aware they are doing it. I know I was guilty at one time and at the end of the song, the MC had a go much to my embarrassment, so I now make a conscious effort to try and avoid it. After all it was fair comment by the MC and it's not fair on the singers.

I must also admit to being a somewhat compulsive noodler. It can cause embarrassment in sessions when you try something out quietly (you think) and someone says "go on" and you're not sure of what comes next. Woops!

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:43 PM

...On the other hand there are some songs where surely everyone expects silly versions to be sung or silly sound effects to be inserted ...

That's OK, if you are singing that particular version, but if you've worked at performing a song it can be quite annoying to find somebody adding stupid hand claps that you had intended to omit because they are a modern idiosyncrasy which is not appropriate to a traditional rendering.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:48 PM

My cookie went missing. It was Jim carroll who referred to the UK and irish players to which I was responding. Sorry to any players north of the border who are as Bert notes British.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:13 PM

Belfast, now where would that be?
In the UK.

And also in Ireland, as "GUEST,Eh? " was hinting.

Here is a fiddler as good as or better than Kevin Burke playing in a session in Scotland. Note: there are people accompanying him. And he shows every sign of welcoming it.

Paul Anderson

The kind of gathering Jim describes Kevin Burke presiding over isn't a musical event, it's some kind of fundamentalist religious ritual. If I'm ever in Aberdeenshire I'll try to find the pub Paul is playing in there: I have no intention of going anywhere near a centre of the sort of hero-cultic obsession Jim describes.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 12 - 03:38 AM

"The kind of gathering Jim describes Kevin Burke presiding over isn't a musical event"
No it isn't - it's listening to an evening of music from the best of what we've got - and it happens in every other performing and creative art I know of.
I can remember having the same experience in the UK with Bert LLloyd, MacColl, Killen, Seamus Ennis, Paddy Tunney, The Stewart Family, Lizzie Higgins, Kevin Michell, Harry Cox, Walter Pardon, Joe Heaney.... all showcased regularly in the clubs I attended or helped run - and every single one of them enjoyably memorable experiences - thankfully free from audiences who joined in to prove they did, or didn't know the tunes or the words.
How can excellece possibly be described as "hero-cultic obsession", it is no more than enjoying an evening of the best of what your music has to offer
We ran clubs in the UK and booked guests who we believed performed well - HCO?
We helped run workshops so that singers could improve their performances - HCO?
Utter crap.
"If irish musicians are so appalled by UK behaviour why not stop at home."
Ask the club and festival organisers who persist in booking them.
What all this boils down to is that if you are going to run singing or musical events and invite people to sing or play, it should be entirely up to the singers and musicians who turn up whether their songs and tunes should be turned into choral or orchestral pieces. It should not be the visitors' job to ask that this should not happen, but the other way round - if they have no objection they can say so, otherwise they have a right to be listened to in silence.
If you do otherwise your club should come with a health warning THIS CLUB DOES NOT ENCOURAGE SOLO PERFORMANCES.
This choral thing is a recent introduction; many (most) I have spoken to find it highly offensive and if it becomes the norm, people like Steve can forget their objections to someone speeding up the tunes, and the OP needn't bother working on his musical skills because his efforts are going to be swallowed up (and more likely as not, naused up) by ego tippping joiners-inners drowning his efforts out.
Noodling seems to be a good word for it - the act of noodles (dict def. - a fool, a simpleton)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 May 12 - 04:23 AM

You're not getting it, Jim.

Like the caterpillar in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", a word means exactly what I want it to mean. By "session" I mean a gathering of singers and musicians who play communally together for each other - which is the raison d'etre of the gathering - not a showcase for the better musicians to entertain while the lesser ones gather round in hushed awe. That's what might happen in a folk club or a singaround in my book. Once again, you're talking in "club" terms - but we're not discussing clubs here.

It seems petty to argue about semantics, but it's important here because you're basing your inevitable acid criticisms of this and that on an event which, from your description, is the antithesis of what I mean by a session. To extrapolate your inevitable criticism of the British folk scene - clubs, sessions, singarounds - from that extrapolation is inevitably flawed.

Enough said, I think.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Marje
Date: 21 May 12 - 04:31 AM

I don't see the point in continuing to bicker about the way things are done in different areas/countries. These may or may not always have been as they are now, but anyone attending a club or session has to look at what is happening there now, and accept the unwritten rules that are now applied.

Good manners (which apply wherever you are) would suggest that you watch what others do and take your cue from them; you can also pick up clues from whoever is leading a song or tune (or acting as MC if there is one) as to what's expected or encouraged. Good manners should also take care of the one-off problems such as private noodling between tunes, or correcting or shouting down a singer who comes up with a different version of a song.

I do remember one time when I was singing, a bass player who'd never been to our session before played a quiet accompaniment to my song. I didn't mind a bit, but one of our regulars told him off afterwards, in front of everyone else, saying that this was not done. I was really cross, and apologised to the guy at the bar, but he never came back to that session. The bad manners, in this case, was the public criticism of this guy's attemps to join in. If anyone had a problem with it, a private word afterwards would have been enough.

It's all about respecting the musicians/singers and the music they're putting across. In some areas it's evidently considered disrepectful to join in; in others, participation is welcomed and seen as a sign of your appreciation and engagement with the music.

You can enjoy one system more than the other, but that doesn't make either of them wrong or offensive. What is wrong is trying to impose or insist on a uniform etiquette across country and cultural boundaries, or sneer at the way some people choose to enjoy their music.

Marje

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Keith Price
Date: 21 May 12 - 04:44 AM

" but we're not discussing clubs here" I should look at the thread title Will.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 May 12 - 04:51 AM

I'm perfectly aware of the thread title - I'm commenting on Jim's continued use of the word sessions while really referring to clubs.

It may be a niggle - and it may, as Marje says - be bickering. If there wasn't always an implied or, more usually, a direct criticism of the British folk scene on Jim's part, then I wouldn't be so pernickety.

It appears to be any excuse to give the scene a good knocking, even though the direct experience of many of us is the opposite of what Jim bangs on about.

But as before - 'nuff said.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:11 AM

The title of the thread contains both club and session, the two are not synonymous. Our club runs fortnightly slow sessions for the first hour.Everyone is welcome to join in. The second half of the evening is the club where individuals take turns to sing/play, joining in is usually restricted to singing choruses unless the singer suggests otherwise.
Barnsley folk club

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:22 AM

p.s. we have had several paid guests recently who have arrived during the slow session and it was a real pleasure to see them get their instruments out and join in.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:34 AM

It should not be the visitors' job to ask that this should not happen, but the other way round - if they have no objection they can say so, otherwise they have a right to be listened to in silence.

It is pretty obvious which kind of tunes work best as an accompanied solo (or with a tightly thought-out accompaniment by only one player) - if Paul Anderson started up "Gight Castle" in a Scottish session it is not likely anyone would play along. He wouldn't NEED to say when silence was a good idea, the tune and the performer's attitude will convey it in the first bar. Nor should I need to say when silence is a bad idea to the point of being downright insulting, but I guess people who sing Neil Young are just thick.

You might need an explicit sign on the wall to say what to do, but the non-autistic majority of us are well able to read the social and musical interactions in a session situation.

I can go to a ballad performance of the type you describe every week in Edinburgh (though I haven't, Fridays are not convenient for me) - Kevin Mitchell (note spelling) has sung at it, I think. Nobody would go along to that with the idea of accompanying anybody, but I doubt they've ever bothered making a rule about it. There's a session upstairs in the same pub at the same time which operates under something more like the usual session conventions. The people who go to that don't need to be told what to do, either.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:39 AM

The title of the thread contains both club and session, the two are not synonymous.

As the OP, I must say that in this context Folk Club and Session are pretty much synonymous. Our Folk Club is a music & song Session; there is no emcee, no floor spots, no formality, no order, no performances as such where anyone is free to sing when they want, or as much or as little as they want. It is convivial anarchy. It is a Folk Club where people meet to play (mostly) traditional tunes & sing traditional songs, where joining in actively & heartily encouraged.

The point is that even in this context, why is it that people feel the need to join in when they obviously don't have the first clue what the music is about? And why, having placed me in the awkward situation of having to advise them mid-song that their contribition is not required, do they take offense and start demanding what The Rules of contruibition are? Surely the rules of contribution are obvious: only join in if you know what you're doing. If you don't, shut the feck up and LISTEN. I do a lot of LISTENING at our Folk Club, I am like a pig in shit doing so, enjoying the seasoned experise and virtuosity of muscians whose boots I am not fit to lick*. But even here, certain indivuals feel the need to play along when they haven't got the first clue.

Whilst I am no fan of people who persist in singing along with my shit (or anyone's shit for that matter) to show their appreciation or that they know the song too, I have no problems with those who 'air sing'. Ever seen that? I know two people - both of them great performers in their own right, both of them very dear to me as people too - who sing along with every word in studied concentration, but (get this) they don't utter a sound.

* Not just seasoned virtuousi I might add. I love listening to other singers in Folk Clubs, it is one of life's true joys; even the most nervous & inexperienced of singers can touch my heart, and very often do.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:46 AM

"the non-autistic majority of us are well able to read the social and musical interactions in a session situation."

I've actually wondered about that, as a number of characters I've witnessed behaving in a distinctly self-focused / blinkered fashion definitely appeared to belong to some kind of spectrum of personality disorder, however mildly.

I've also encountered a higher quanity of that type of character at singarounds than almost anywhere, bar perhaps when volunteering for some charity drop-in morning, or on the bus (lots of kooky folks use the bus).

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:46 AM

Long, long ago, in a session or singaround (might even have been a concert), the usual foot-stampers,hand-clappers, spoons-players, bones players and bodhran wannabes playing their beer mugs were all present. Then someone made the following announcement," The next song/tune is in 7/4 (or something equally odd)- don't try to accompany it 'cos you'll end up spastic!".....talk about rhythmic frustration.....
What irritates me in sessions? Guitarists (yes,I know I'm one). Those of an irish/celtic music persuasion all seem to be frustrated heavy metal guitarists. This is fine when confined to their groups, but two or more often don't quite gel together. On top of this they haven't mastered the art of playing quietly when necessary and actually listening to tunes they don't know. There is also the clique status of many sessions, again mostly irish, where the current irish 'top ten' will be fiddled,banjoed and bodhraned at breakneck speed and where all attempts to play anything other than the 'hits' are mercilessly and arrogantly ignored and steamrollered into silence.

Don

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 May 12 - 05:51 AM

It seems unavoidable that those doing the telling off think they are better than those being told off.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:33 AM

"It seems unavoidable that those doing the telling off think they are better than those being told off. "
You've said this before Richard - are you really claiming that solo singing is an indication that solo singers do so because they consider themselves "superior"?
"....on an event which, from your description, is the antithesis of what I mean by a session."
You are assuming that I am basing it on one event - I am not, nor are people arguing the case on a single event (or that it should specifically apply to sessions - it happens at guest paying clubs regularly), but a principle that if you come along to their club you will have to go cap-in-hand to ask permission to sing solo - and be faced with attitudes such as Richard's, that it is arrogance on your part to want to do so - the death knell of all solo performances, taken to its logical conclusion.
Our song tradition (unlike others) is not a choral one and the songs, with all their musical and textual complexities and subtlties lend themselves to individual interpretation, in most cases, demand it.
Surely the musical variations or uses of textual phrasing that singers use within the space of one single song make it this blindingly obvious.
By encouraging joining in, you are bulldozing all of these flat , making any individual interpretation a singer might choose to make utterly superfluous.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: banjoman
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:38 AM

I dont join in unless asked to do so, but agree with a lot of the views expressed here. Its about understanding the "Rules"of the session/singaround that you are in and if necessary asking if its ok to join in.

Hi Keith - long time no see/hear -hope you are still sessioning
Pete

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:49 AM

(lots of kooky folks use the bus).

But not many kookie folkies, eh, CS?

This is a fair point actually but if that was truly the case in the present mutterance I wouldn't have said anything, either here or on the night in question. I know that folk has more than its fair share of genuine nutters, and the more the merrier really; eccentricity is built into the DNA of the thing, which brings to Richard's comment...

It seems unavoidable that those doing the telling off think they are better than those being told off

...because very often it seems to me it's the other way round actually, with the accompaniments being offered by way of learned instruction and/or correction by individuals who feel they are inherently superior in some way. Personally, I don't feel 'better' than anyone, I just don't like it when people feel the need to 'improve' on what I'm doing by adding something utterly unnecessary then have the neck to look all wounded when I tell them so. If it only happened the once then fair enough, but it seems to be a frequent issue. It's not just the one club I've been in where 'the guitar guy' feels the need to join in with everything whilst making a consistent hash of it. One time I was visiting a club and noting his tendancy to do just that I asked him if he wouldn't try and accompany me and got into a pre-song situation that was so ugly that I just went home without singing.

We don't get out to Folk Clubs much these days as we don't live in a very Trad Friendly County - which is why our Friday night Sesh is dearly & rightly cherished. I don't go for Agro, I go for great music and great crack; and I hate being put in a situation of confrontation by 'guitar guys' who feel that just because they can strum the chords to the Fields of Athenry that somehow qualifies them as a musician. There are plenty of clubs where it will, especially round here, but precious few which appreciate the pure principle of The Modal Drone essential to a more spiritual communion with the heart and soul of Traditional Song, where the intonation of such sacred texts as The Crabfish, Butter and Cheese and All or Long Peggin Awl require a certain finesse to do them justice...

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Marje
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:03 AM

I'm not going back to the "my-club-is-better-than-your-club" argument, but to a point of fact: Jim, you say "Our tradition is not a choral one." Do you mean the Irish or the English tradition, or both? I'm having difficulty with this idea in relation to English song, at least.

Why on earth would so many old songs and ballads have choruses and refrain lines if it was not normal for people to join in? In fact, why would they be called "choruses" in the first place? Walter Pardon may not have liked the way people joined in his choruses (I know what he means - I blame the Church!), but surely he wasn't surprised or taken aback by this? Whether it's a rousing "And a hunting we will go.." or a quiet, hypnotic repeat line like "Oh, but her love was easily won", have these parts of songs not always been open to others to join in? Another churchy parallel here - they're almost like the call-and-answer responses or chants that have been a feature of church music for centuries. Ditto the harmonies, which are far from being a new-fangled 20th century fashion.

And I'm ready to accept that this tradition is not the same in Irish song, but the Dubliners and the Clancys and the "Irish pub bands" who are their successors across the world have done a lot to promote the idea of singalong folk music, in much the same way as the Spinners and others did in England. There is more to Irish (and English) music than that, but this genre is now an accepted part of the Irish (and ex-pat/emigrant)tradition, and has been handed on in this way for over half a century now.

Marje

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:13 AM

I like the idea of convivial anarchy where what I say goes. So if you see me singing just shut the feck up and listen, OK.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:38 AM

I like the idea of convivial anarchy where what I say goes. So if you see me singing just shut the feck up and listen, OK.

For sure, if you don't know what you're doing, then the best thing to do is to listen in respectful appreciation, as we all must. Respect is the key here; that and musical appropriateness. God knows life's too short for open confrontation in a social situation, but music is too precious to be blootered over by cack-handed guitar guys who think they know better than you on things they've never heard before and haven't the first clue about. In this sense it's like turning up at a recital of Bach cello suites and proving impromtu continuo by strumming along, which they probably do; on the evidence it wouldn't surprise me - but I'm sure they wouldn't get very far before being impaled on the cello spike. Anarchy is about engendering freedom in self by engendering & acknowleding it in others; if others openly oppress my freedom then I will, at the very least, say something.

Come all ye, but leave your own rules at home. For sure our rules may be unwritten & only proved by significant exception, but part of the fun of the music is figuring that out as part of the very convivial hand of welcome.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:39 AM

Why on earth would so many old songs and ballads have choruses and refrain lines if it was not normal for people to join in?

You can find a few hundred examples of songs where the refrain is an essential part of the performance if you go to

Kist o Riches

and put "waulking" in the search box.

The content of waulking songs is hugely varied, from epic laments to topical satires. I would bet that a lot of the songs that Jim only knows from Irish tradition as reverentially performed solo spots started out as work songs like that.

Waulking songs are sometimes performed solo in Scotland, but when they are it's a degradation of the tradition. At least here, everybody can tell when the singer has gone off on an ego trip in Mod-competition style.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:48 AM

Oh God, now I'm having visions of a bunch of seasoned Waulkers singing He Mandu* and the guitar guy feeling the need to strum along. Choral singing, be it Sacred Harp, Gaelic Psalms, Sea Shanties or Old Chestnut Bawling in Singarounds at least require a certain expertise and familiarity with the idiom & songs before participation should be attempted, no matter now informal the context.

* An obvious chioce, but my knowledge of the idiom isn't so very extensive.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 21 May 12 - 07:57 AM

Just listened to He Mandu (http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/23183/1)
Didn't feel any need to strum along, rather felt like losing the will to live. What a philistine I am sometimes.