PJ's myeloma martinet session

 

The Irish session is a wonderful institution, but as Mae West allegedly said of marriage, "I ain't ready for no institution yet!". Well I have some conditions to lay down. 

Now I don't actually lay down any rules in real life (well not many) because in fact the session is a collaborative enterprise and depends really on social rules and normal observation of how everyone is behaving. And it is definitely social as well as musical, which is a huge part of its joy.

But if I were to lay down rules in my Martinet session (because I thought I could parlay my diagnosis in a shameless way), these would be them:

-------- the rules --------

As I have an incurable blood cancer that will probably give me three more years of good sessions, The balance between my enjoyment of those tunes and caring about people's feelings has shifted s bit. I am not a cruel man, but here are the rules for my Myeloma Martinet session.

It's all Irish music. Nothing else.

Please join in if you know the tune properly but not if you don't. No fiddle drones, no nurdling

Listen to the pace and rhythm of whoever started the tune and don't speed it up . Irish rhythm is tricky because it's swung and has a real lilt to it. Listen as intently as you can

Only one rhythm stringed instrument at a time and only if you are sure you know what you are doing. Take turns with anyone else who is also sure they know what they are doing. Actually, we could have two stringed rhythm if we have a bouzouki and a guitar.

Rule 3 applies in full to bodhrans, and no tippy tappy  stuff, mind..

Don't start any tunes without one of us anchor players asks you to. There will always be at least 2 minutes of chat between tunes (unless we get a bit pissed)

We may ask you to do a song if you have a voice like a nightingale (or like Luke Kelly for that matter)

Read these rules carefully, because if you break them I'm off to play somewhere else.

If you dont like the rules you are free to join or start a session somewhere else. It's a free world, isn't it.

--------here endeth the rules_---------

And this should be considered like the angry emails that you write late at night but never send because you ate sensible enough to want to read it sober in the morning.

I might never post the rules up behind me, but you know what I'm thinking. I won't say anything about the instrument that I would condemn to the pits of hell, because I like the people who play it. But there is one.