A full session confession

Not to long ago, a fellow Celtic musician asked why I don't go to sessions in Austin. Ye see, sessions seem to be a very communal experience for the Celtic community, so in some people's minds, I think people get upset with you if you don't join the fellowship.

Course, there are many reasons, but it doesn't detract from the fact that I love the music.

Then...
When the Brobdingnagian Bards started playing music five years ago, I started going to sessions, because I wanted to learn more about the music we were learning. Now there was at least one person in the community who kinda snubbed me, but for the most part the sessions were a lot of fun. The only problem was that I was playing an autoharp.

Interestingly, many autoharpists play fiddle tunes and whatnot, but as a new autoharpist, I really couldn't. This meant I was left playing chords. Well, quite honestly, strumming chord progressions that are mostly the same gets kinda old after a while. Add to that that I couldn't play some of the progressions, either from lack of understanding of the Irish music progressions or because my fifteen chord autoharp didn't have several prominent traditional chords like the E, Em, and A. That made it very difficult to play anything.

To top it off, Fado's Irish Pub was a very smokey place and at the time, I had a LOT of allergies, and I hated smelling like smoke at the end of the evening. Eventually, I just stopped going.

Now...
Things are a bit different now. The current Irish session is held at B.D. Riley's Irish Pub, which isn't too bad with the smoke stench though it's still there. My allergies aren't as bad thanks to allergy shots. And I'm a much better musician than when I started. But I still don't go much to the sessions.

Well, the reasons have largely changed. These days, I usually forget that I will come away smelling of smoke, since we play smokey pubs too often as it is. But when I do go, I don't even bother bringing my autoharp. I go to listen and enjoy some magical music. So what's new?

Well, nowadays, we spend half our weekends out of town with gigs. This has made me extremely anti-social when I am at home. I barely want to leave my apartment for any reason. My skill is better, but I'm still not that good at playing tunes, especially at the speeds they play. T'would be nice to have a good slow session around, but considering I don't know if I'd make the time to go to that, I'm sure not gonna start it.

My 21-chord autoharp is a wee bit better for sessions. I still don't have a decent sounding E chord, but the others are okay. Still pretty weak-sounding chords for my autoharp, and I have yet to setup an autoharp for playing tunes. That's been on my mind for a couple years, just hasn't been a huge priority. And still the speed of the tunes and my own inadequacies as a musician make it difficult for me to keep up with much more than basic strums and that gets old after a while.

So when I do have time to go, it's pretty just for listening. Yeah, I'd love to be able jump into a session and play those tunes with the best of them. I even started learning the penny whistle to give me a melody instrument to play. (Though I haven't done much since I found out how out of tune it was. Anyone know where to get a decent penny whistle?).

And ashamedly, there's still a LOT about traditional Irish music that I don't know. I think a lot of it is stuff you don't really learn from books, though it'd be nice to have someone step forward and educate the newbies once a month or something. What can I say, I've spent most of my time learning folk songs since my partner plays the melody instrument and hasn't actively sought out tunes. Course, our music is still a lot of fun, but I admit, I sure would love to be able to play some rousing dance tunes.

Something, I'm working on, but it'll be a while yet. For now, you can catch me at this week's session tonight.