Monday, July 03, 2006
Leadership Lessons from Irish Traditional Music Sessions
Just came across this vignette on an Irish trad musician's bulletin board:
When you've played in sessions for 20 years the past self can sometimes haunt your present self. When I was a hack beginner I remember one of the advanced players that seemed bothered by my presence. Being totally clueless at that stage I was violating subtle session etiquette left and right and no doubt deserved the notoriety. I remember someone telling me at some stage that said advanced musician had given him copies of the famous Gort ‘91 tape and the Brid Harper/Dermot Byrne tape with specific instructions not to make copies for me. It appeared the said advanced player was protecting his repertoire from the corruption of a hack like me joining in. My friend, God bless him, made copies for me anyway.
Fast forward to a recent session where a beginner flute player is in attendance and he's tweaking my pet peeve by noodling on tunes he doesn't know. (he doesn't know many tunes) I am trying to contain myself when he says, "Jack, I recorded this tune you were playing last week and I learned it...” (he struggled to play a snippet and I recognized it as a favorite a Richie Dwyer tune) “will you play it please so I can play along?" Now mind you, even if he learned it -- playing one of my favorite tunes with him would be not unlike passing a very large kidney stone. I wanted a way out and was trying desperately to think of one when the very fellow who made the renegade copies from the censored tapes says to me, ”Come on Jack – play the tune.” I looked over at the beginner flute player and saw the ghost of my former self… I was being haunted… I played the tune.
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