Kari Veblen (University of Western Ontario), Patrick Potter (University of Western Ontario), Janice Waldron (University of Windsor), Robert Kubica (University of Western Ontario), Mary Ashton, Bruce Harmer, Paul Gribbon, Rob Hoffman, Beth
Beech
Abstract
This study follows members of a Celtic-Canadian music session building on previous research. These musicians came to their instrument(s) and/or this genre as adult learners with this session as an important stage and meeting place for their musical growth. Over the past decade, players have moved into expanded roles leading, teaching, and facilitating musical events. Their journey suggests that sessions are one pathway by which musicians are pressed into service as community music workers.
Keywords: Adult learners, community music, Celtic-Canadian, session
The London Ontario Fast Session began in 2004 (Veblen & Waldron, 2008; Waldron
& Veblen, 2009). Its physical location has moved from pub to pub, and some players have come and gone. However, the repertoire, style, and core players remain constant.
Session regulars regard the sessions as essential to their growth as musicians. As this Celtic-Canadian music session has matured over the past decade, the original musicians have gained in proficiency, expanding their responsibilities teaching and facilitating the music. The learning and transmission in a collective occurs through a progression of novice to intermediate to expert player.
In addition to this weekly event, individuals may play at other sessions, form bands, participate in music of other genres, have regular paying gigs, and teach music to others formally. The musical communities and pathways each individual player has forged may be traced through the flow of personnel, tunes, and conventions throughout one Canadian province. Although the sessions are geographically based, they also connect to a wider international community of Irish/Celtic/Canadian musicians via Facebook, Listserves, and web pages as well as visits to parts of Canada, Ireland, and diasporic Celtic communities.
Methodology and relevant literature
Writing on this genre of participatory music making most often centers on the session’s philosophical underpinnings (Aiken, 2008; McCann, 2001; Rapuano, 2001; Smith, 2006), historical development (e.g., Fleming, 2004; Hilhouse, 2005), tunes (Grasso, 2011; Kearney, 2008), local characteristics (e.g., Flynn, 2011; Stock, 2004), session dynamics (Breslin, 2011, O’Shea, 2006), and ethnicity/identity (e.g., O’Flynn, 2009, Basegmez, 2005; Leonard, 2005). Some research has focused on sessions as sites for learning (i.e., Cawley, 2013). However, this paper proceeds down the path of the individual player with the premise that each musician comes to the music at a neophyte level. As the individual develops greater proficiency, he or she also moves into an expanded role in leading, teaching, and facilitating this and other musical events.
This study came into focus in early fall 2013 with informal session recordings beginning in January 2014. Documentation of participant involvement in other musical settings began in March 2014 with interviews conducted through June 2014. Because this paper is a collective narrative, the first author transcribed and interpreted all data, then distributed it to collaborators for corrections, interpretations, elaborations, and analyses. Thus the text here is a polyphonic expansion on the original documents.
Deciphering the Wednesday night session
A traditional music session is a very human negotiation between reality and an ideal.
This Wednesday night session, for example, is welcoming and positive, yet interactions are complex, subject to habit, structure, personal preferences, and unspoken hierarchy.
This is a fast tune session, not a song circle, so although almost everyone enjoys singing, singing is not encouraged. Moreover, this session is traditional – saxophone, maracas, and string bass players have not found their niche. As well, this is a fast session. Beginning and intermediate players can come and play but with the hope that they will begin to keep up with the pace. Facilitation is responsive, although some players find themselves pressed into service as leaders more often, simply because they remember tunes and are more proficient.
An Irish traditional music session (from the Irish seisiún) neatly conflates event, traditional culture, and transmission of that culture into one experience.
Characteristically, a session is an informal occasion where people play traditional music; sometimes there is singing, dancing, and storytelling. As Kaul (2007) writes: “It is called 'traditional' music because it is considered a 'public resource' handed down from previous generations of musicians even though certain authors of tunes might be known.” (p. 704). The focus is to share music-making; listeners are welcome but not necessary as this is not a performance for an audience.
While there is a vast body of tunes both old and new, constantly being reshaped and brought in or out of circulation, a musician might encounter some tunes in Japan, Australia, or South Africa, just as easily as in Ireland or in this case, Canada. At almost any geographic location, the uninitiated can find this event mysterious. People are playing from memory (mostly), at a fast clip, and usually without overt leadership.
As one might expect, cultural events are subject to varying interpretations and the session is no exception, being a very human negotiation between reality and an ideal.
Many ethnographersi describe the circle of players in a session in terms of fellowship and democratic participation or, in Slobin’s (1993) terms “affinity groups” which he defines as “charmed circles of like-minded music-makers drawn magnetically to a certain genre that creates strong expressive bonding” (p. 11). There are different kinds of sessions ranging from competitive and high-powered fast sessions to open slower sessions where everyone is invited to contribute their piece. The places of negotiation usually involve confusion over the ground rules or indeed of exactly what kind of session is supposed to happen, as well as personality or ego clashes, matters of perceived authenticity, and breeches of etiquette. Irish session etiquette is a world all its own, inspiring books and websites.
Just as the leadership in this session is very fluid, so too is the music, reflecting the collective of musicians in attendance on any given night. As Cawley (2013) writes:
“With thousands of tunes in the Irish repertory, sessions act like a collective memory
bank. Tunes are learned, forgotten, and then remembered again through interacting with other musicians in the session” (p. 131). Typically the tunes (reels, jigs, slides, polkas, with occasional waltzes, marches, and hornpipes) “adhere to a normative assumption of three renditions of each tune” (Stock, 2004, p. 58) with two, three or more tunes played in a set.
Williams characterizes Irish music sessions in Canada to those in the US, describing US sessions: “The rigidity is replaced by a distinctly local interpretation of Irish music. Waltzes are common, solo airs are rare, and a single tune set can draw easily from American, Irish, Scottish, French, and Canadian sources” (p. 125). Flynn (2011) interviewed Williams and found that her experiences indicate that because U.S.
musicians try to remain true to their concept of what sessions in Ireland are or should be, so they become more strict and unyielding. In Canada, where Irish music is adapted to the local scene, sessions are much more flexible (Williams is cited in Flynn 2011, p. 22).
Although Wednesday night players favor Irish music, they also enjoy and play Celtic tunes from out east such as Jerry Holland’s “Brenda Stubbert’s,” French Canadian such as “Hop of the Rabbit”, Scots “High Road to Linton” or Appalachian selections
“Red Haired Boy” as well as the occasional Breton, Shetland or Scandinavian tune.
The combination of tunes known at this session is a collage of music from settlers in this part of the world (Irish, English, French, Scots, North American, East Coast Canada), which form a uniquely Canadian repertoire.
Musicians in the Wednesday night group have their favorite tunes. For example, Rob Hoffman (accordion) might lead off with something that he and Mary Ashton (fiddle) have just learned, but will follow it favorite such as “Kesh Jig” or “Ms. McLeod’s Reel” that everyone knows. Paul Gribbon (all instruments but especially pipe) favors pipe tunes such as “Frieze Breeches.” When Pat Potter (bodhrán and whistles) is present, it is certain that at least three Kerry polkas will be played. Bruce Harmer leaves his guitar accompaniment for a tin whistle to play “Battle of Waterloo.” If Janice Waldron (whistle or flute or pipes) comes on a Wednesday, “Moving Cloud” or
“Big John McNeil” may happen. Mary Ashton and Paul Gribbon can recall
“Maudabawn Chapel” on a good night while Bob Kubica (guitar) starts a set of reels entitled “Dinny O’Brien’s” and “Farewell to Eireann” because although Kari Veblen (tin whistle) initially brought in these reels, Bob is the only one who predictably can start them.
The last thing to know to understand this session is that it is a shared musical expedition. Although Stock (2004) documents an English session, his description holds:
Like a journey, or rather a tour, there is an expectation that we will not visit the same places more than once on any one occasion: tunes and sets are generally not repeated . . . [V]ariety is built into the experience, in that the exact mix of players and tunes is not pre-known, and there remains some flexibility as to how each tune might be played. Sets form and reform over time as tunes are uncovered or composed, learnt or forgotten, and associated with particular individuals whose pattern of attendance and style of performance then shapes how these tunes are played, at least for a time. If the core participants have remained quite stable . . .
other musicians have joined the group for the period (from a single visit to two or three years) and then left again, and others come and go occasionally. This migration of musicians brings new tunes and personalities to the session, and calls on incomers to discover the conventions of a pre-existing event. In some cases, it also transmits some of the repertory to other sessions elsewhere. (p. 64)