Session etiquette solutions please

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 01:34 PM

Let's talk about accordionists who only play on the white keys no matter what everybody else is doing and whistle players who have no idea what the relationship is between the key of the tune and the key of the whistles they've got.

Do they belong in the same circle of Hell as guitarists who play jazz chords in samba rhythms behind Burns songs? If not, should they end up higher or lower?

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 01:49 PM

It's accordionists with no sense of rhythm but who insist of making random stabs at the LH buttons that are more of a problem.

I've heard more than one story of someone with a very large PA joining a session and playing it with about as much subtlety as a herd of stampeding elephants and ruining a session. So far, I've been lucky not to encounter such a person, though I have come across one or two box players who can't leave the LH alone, even though it would have been better to have done so.

There was the guy at Saltburn this year who joined a session with a guitar and a Moothy on a rack and proceeded to play the Moothy by alternately sucking and blowing (literally - suck, blow, suck, blow...) with no sense of either tune or rhythm. I was told later by someone else in the session that he nearly ruined a singaround later in the day. Now there's an achievement for you.

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 07:45 PM

As a piano accordion player, I sympathize with you poor buggers who have been tortured by those who have the instrument but no musical talent or experience....

Sadly, the only way to stop being howled down and kicked out by you guys when I turn up with mine, is have you let me play a couple of my 'party pieces' first, to show you I have some music 'talent'.... but then I'm often accused of 'showing off'....

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 08:19 PM

The piano accordion is a fine instrument which is all too often badly played, but when played well is capable of amazing things. I know some excellent accordion players, btw.

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 08:51 PM

My keys are all white: no black notes: but I do know where the sharps and flats are - well, roughly, but my instrument is a sook-blaw type an a'.
So to paraphrase Eric Morecambe "I do know all the right notes, and I'm probably on the right button, but didn't necessarily got the sook and blaw in the right order".

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 09:07 PM

The hardest thing to do is to criticize a budding musican or musican wantabee... Must be done with tact...

Take said offensive player aside and say, "Hey, when I first started jammin' with folks someone was kind enough to tell me that blending was waht jamming is all about... You seemed a little loud out there... Hey, I understand... Been there myself on occasion..."

That is all that needs to be said... The offending party will get it and think he or she was playing fine, just too loud, and tone it down so that the offensive notes aren't a distraction...

B~

Subject: RE: Session etiquette solutions please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Oct 10 - 09:21 PM

"The piano accordion is a fine instrument which is all too often badly played, but when played well is capable of amazing things"

Sadly it is quite easy to play - even more sadly, many instruments are difficult to play well.... I've also been decried for doing things with it that many have never seen or thought of before - no, wait, that didn't sound quite right at all ....