To Scotland, I was driving all through the night as usual, after gigs, arriving at 6 or 7 am to sleep the next morning, knocking back hot whiskies to stave off a cold.
The Shetland festival was full of sleepless fun, I was booked as a compere for many shows, only getting to sing 6 of my songs officially on stage. I found myself playing some harmonica on the microphone, as a compere, playing for time, while the stage was being cleared. It felt as if the stage had become my living room and I was tidying it up getting it ready and making the performers comfortable, all that was missing was a sofa and armchairs for the musicians to sit and relax in. Working Up all hours playing sessions to see the sunrise three times in a row, ending up at the Thula Harbour pub for whisky and ginger to soothe my sore throat. Playing there with fiddlers, piper, box player etc till eleven am! Then eating breakfast at the fisherman's cafe. I hardly saw my lodging hosts, except once when I was coming back in the morning for a shower and they were leaving for work.
After the Shetlands and during Aberdeen's Arts Festival, on a farm at Cairnwell 30 minutes South of Aberdeen, a party was thrown by friends, Jonathan and Annie who are expecting a baby, big fire, music sessions all night, dancing, tunes, songs. It was fun but exhausting. Catching up with old mates from the Shiftwork theatre group.
Shetland dialect. Learned from friend Mo Burkes' children in her family's house in Shetland.
Whaurs du fae = Where are you from?
Filskit = Excitable
Spricklin wi blydeness = Frolicking happily
Hoorn aa fine = Very good.
Moorit = brown
Lipperous Pushon = Nasty person.
Blyde tae see de = Happy to see you.
Klaa de pilly boy = Scratch your penis boy.
Peerie pishic = Small shit
Humin = half light
Stowin dunt = bad mood
To describe any session you have to describe the instruments that are being played, the characters playing them, the characters listening, barman, lockout, and lock-in. Where it is happening. The Craic. The time of day or night or morning. Who is the Host? It might be a pub owner, house owner, wedding, or Christening, there could be little kids running around, dancing. Wanting to try blowing my Trombone. The resident drunk might have a funny song to sing off their chest.
Whether drinks are still being served or not might not seem to matter, but if a musician is blowing all night till the sun rises, lubricant is necessary for both the dry throat and thirst and for the brain, like breathing. How Smoky are the bars, how much daylight is streaming through the window, or if it is dark and cavernous, I feel that most sessions are better un- amplified, this way it is more equal, and egalitarian, so anyone can join in and be heard, not need a microphone (Though I have often been passed a spare mike for my harp to be heard over bass and drums at a more formal electric jam). This is why, I believe, Trombone works, I can wander and be heard. I might arrive with my harps or trombone, not a traditional instrument, but one that can add bass or body to a set of tunes where there is not normally any bass instrument. I like to add the body or bottom earth to a tune, or perhaps a drone, then I might start pumping some kind of rhythm, swinging and syncopating with the melody, pushing and pulling the accents. Trombone seems to work with the pipes and accordion well, as these have a full sound already. I have learned to play quietly behind singers and fiddles, when something is played so delicately, I prefer to listen than play, as I will feel clumsy and not airy enough to accompany a quiet soloist.
Some quiet instruments can be drowned out. It is often up to the sensitivity of the other players to listen to each other and try to play at the level of the quietest instrument. Of course, this is often difficult when we get carried away by a steaming set of tunes, or many musicians are playing, there could be a whole other party and dancing going on around that session, folks socializing and partying, not here just for "our" session.
Sometimes you can have two sessions in the same room, this might normally happen at a festival, and one might be more precious or more intimate than the other. One might have begun just by two people, maybe two mandolin players, showing each other a tune and then another and then....other players might timidly join in and it builds up, no one is an intruder, but some kind of courtesy, decorum or unspoken respect will be apparent. The secret, as I see it, is basically whoever plays with anyone must also be there to listen too, like you would a conversation. There is no competition to be louder or to play faster than anyone else. It should be a sharing of tunes between people. Perhaps someone will want to introduce a tune that no one else knows, and then everyone will listen to the way it progresses, chordally, harmonically or rhythmically they might search for their own instrument and find a way to play along with that "New" tune. The person who introduced the tune will invariably shout out the chords or the key changes as they are playing, this is their invitation to the others. I don't believe that there are such things as mistakes in a session. Of course, we are all intimidated by strange rhythms, but I see it as a meeting point, a learning situation, some of us are more reckless or confident than others so we "have a go" We aren't on some high stage spoiling someone's big concert. Old and young alike are welcomed. Strangers passing through will always bring a new tune to offer and share. I have seen people worried or curious when I have arrived at an acoustic session and started to take out my trombone and put it together. I have sat with it in my hands, listening, waiting for a moment, cautious and timid, because it is capable of being a loud instrument. Also, I never know how I will approach a tune each time. I might play a drone, or a harmony drone, and then play offbeat polka rhythms, or I might syncopate and push the swing tempo with riffs to give other accents that might make the tune swing more than it was. I don't know myself, as the trombone is new to me, I am still discovering these tunes with the trombone in mind and I never practice. My practice is in Public! When I first started bringing it to sessions, I was always very self-conscious, and still am, because I knew that I would be making many mistakes and everyone would hear them! I have learned to play quietly now! I remember in Cornwall at Perranporth Celtic Fest, I happened to be there, by chance, I was joining in on the Bone, searching and sometimes failing. Someone listening came up and asked me to stop playing, 'that it wasn't even a folk instrument'. This person was not playing themselves, did not play, I felt bad but defiant, I asked the musicians I was playing with if they minded me playing with them, and they all said they didn't mind and to ignore the rude snobby person's purist jibes and encouraged me to carry on. They enjoyed it.
(I remember in Dublin, with US banjo player Molly Mcnally Burke, going along early to Hughes Bar to initiate a session, we were the first musicians there, just the two of us at first, playing Trombone and banjo together harps etc. Then other musicians showed up and joined our space, which we had created in the corner of the bar, So, in effect, any musician who came along to play then, 'joined' us, we didn't join them, it was 'our' session in a way we were the host musicians. Rather than turning up to a session fully underway, fiddles, banjoes steaming away and them having to make room for me and my bone. I felt much more relaxed, of course. I also met each person as they showed up and said "Hi" to each individual. Because of this "claimers/squatters rights"/sociological/psychological" difference, I was not intimidated and so played the trombone better than I had done before on the Irish tunes that were played that long night.)
Sometimes, as I have witnessed, there might be a piano with guitar and harmonica or trombone or singer playing along as quietly as that piano. But then a bunch of people hitting African Djembe drums might join in playing loudly, till you can no longer hear the Piano or singer. Then other percussionists might then follow joining in, so it becomes even louder. Now, it is possible to leave that session and go and play somewhere else together. But it is difficult to walk away and find a quiet, more intimate place to play, with a piano! You have to tell the Drummers to play quieter, to listen more, or to "Fuck off and play somewhere else."!
In the Shetlands, people were very accommodating and open, we were all steaming with tunes driven by musicians staying awake, tired but generating adrenalin to keep going till the sun rose, quenching thirsts with beer, and stoking our sizzling brains with the smoking of 'laughing cabbage'. The playing becomes hypnotic, musicians with tunes to lift each other and carry, then, as each instrument joins in, the force becomes so driven that the tunes take on a life of their own and we stir each other to other heights. Flying together, Goosebumps, hair standing, hearts speeding with pulses drumming, feet tapping and we are transformed somehow, the room is transformed, filled, with some fires raging together as one, fanned and blown by the winds of excitement.
The craic, fully alive, this is life, and death is kept away, playing these tunes together somehow keeps our souls immortal, and it is this realization, that we are breathing life together and celebrating this moment, and also other moments, maybe this gives us a feeling of immortality and timelessness. That we are alive forever in that tune.
When we part the next morning at 6 am, those moments will still be alive inside us, sparks and flashes, love and inspiration for life will be taken and carried by each of us to wherever we will go, we refuel ourselves by playing and dancing till we drop! There is love here, love of life, pushing death and feelings of loneliness away for a moment, when you are completely lost and swept up by the tunes, taken on a journey by the songs, moved and carried by a slow air. A slow air... as slow as a feather falling.