There's something I've been thinking about for the past couple of months. It's not something that I've ever really been able to articulate, until tonight, during the ride home from the art trail.
The first time I ever went to a session - with the intent to play along, and not just listen - was over the summer in Dallas. It was a house session with people I had never met before, and it was kind of awkward at first, since the person I had been in contact with about it didn't show up until halfway through. That was the first thing that struck me. Here I was, some total stranger, just showing up at a random house with a guitar. And, even though I didn't know most of the tunes, and I sure didn't know chords to any of the ones I recognized, they were very tolerant of me by letting me pick out the one or two I did know, which was really nice.
You see, there's a dynamic in sessions which I didn't really understand very well. The way sessions work (at least as much as I understand it - I have very limited experience) is that somebody starts a tune, and you play the tune down, and then if you've got another tune, it's up to you to keep it going to make a set, and so on. It's very give and take, and there's a really cool unspoken conversation that happens in the span of a couple of seconds whenever the next tune is up for grabs.
I had heard stories about sessions where "the guy" is there. "The guy" could mean a lot of different things, but there's a general agreement that he probably has little or no business playing at the session, for any number of reasons. The particular scenario I'm referring to is one in which "the guy," for whatever reason, doesn't know too many tunes. So he ends up laying out most of the time, and then anytime there's a break between sets, he starts playing his one tune over and over again, looking at the session leader expectantly to see if it's finally his turn. Those first few sessions, that was pretty much what I would do. I would just start into some tune in between and hope people would join in, because I really wanted to play. Aside from the weird looks I got for playing melody on a guitar, people seemed mostly okay with it and I didn't really feel like I was stepping on anybody's toes.
Sometime in September, the local (but incredibly exceptional and largely famous) group of trad musicians sent out an open invitation to a house session. I was really excited about it, and stressed out about it for probably a week and a half leading up to it: did I know enough tunes? Would I be able to keep up? I knew I probably wouldn't be able to, but the quality of music there was sure to make up for it.
I tried to play at this session like I had played in the Dallas sessions, basically just laying out or attempting to improvise chords behind tunes I didn't know (a practice which still makes me wince when I think about it). I think I probably got one or two tunes in, but mostly, I was just glad to be there.
The time when it finally began to dawn on me that this wasn't the way I should be playing at sessions was at the O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat in October. It was nearing the end of the session (for me anyway: roughly 1AM) and I still hadn't started a set. I was baffled; this had worked before, maybe the session leader just couldn't hear me? Dr. Coyote turned to me and asked if I was ready to head out. Well, I guess, but I still haven't had a set.
"Well, okay, but that's not up to me," he said, nodding toward the session leader.
I went to bed that night kind of disappointed, wondering if I had somehow broken an unspoken rule. Hard to say this now, but in all honesty, I thought the session leader maybe just didn't like me or something.
A couple of weeks later, it just dawned on me. Just like that. It wasn't about me. None of it was! The session is not about what I want to make it. Neither is this music. It's about the music itself.
And what I've realized - and what the whole point of this post was supposed to be - is that that attitude has vastly changed the way I do most everything these days. I'm noticing it in conversation, now, for myself, where I'll keep wanting to change the topic back to something I want to talk about. I've started just letting it go, just allowing the conversation to drift where it may, and not trying to always be so comfortable with it.
I could say a lot more about it, but I won't. Instead, I think I'll go sit with some friends while they eat dinner.
Posted On 04 December 2009 at
at
20:19
by gforcing
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Good insight. As one becomes more experienced in the music, one discovers that there is *time* to get in all the tunes there are--if not in this session, then in the next one, or the next one after that. Sessions have every different kind of dynamic, because every session is a different combination of people and circumstances. The unpredictability--even uncontrollability--of that dynamic can be unsettling if it's unfamiliar. But over time, as it becomes more familiar, the unpredictability is actually part of the appeal, because you never know when some unexpected person or tune might come through the door, some unexpected turn of events occur. In these settings, there is always the possibility of magic.
It'll come. But, as you say, it'll come when you don't expect it or can't predict it.
You don't post much...but when you do...wow