Re: Sit-Ins (sessions)/MORE

[G.Jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi all,
	I have another open question, leading on from the subect
header.

	I am intrigued by the frequent use of the term "open mic night".
Do I take it that *all* your sessions take place over mics?

This leads me to surmise that you all play with (up against :-) )
electric instruments is this true?

What about acoustic blues (no amps.) Do such sessions happen apart
from in peoples cellars/bedrooms?

At many of the sessions I have been to one may find 40 (or more) players
with all sorts of instruments.

At a one Whitby two weeks ago we had a *huge* rage of instruments playing:

Fiddles, accordions, melodions, Anglo and English concertinas, guitars,
bohdrans, tin whistles, flutes, bones, jaws harps, a range of harmoncia
types, mandolins, four and five string banjos, and a few  unusual ones:
an acuostic bass Gr. A Serpent (a very old  "S" shaped type of
instrument) a recorder, and a clarinet. 
Often we get one or more Northumbrian and Irish pipe players too.
	 
Sessions this big hardly need amps! 

Also, it means that anywhere that folk wish to play, as the mood takes
them, they can. No worry about setting up amps and sound checks, that's
for the gigs and concerts.

I took care to stop playing a few times just to *listen* to the music.
(Well, you have to get a beer or three, and a sandwich now and again) :-)

The wonderful thing was (to me), that many of us did not know each other,
and the music was *always* played bang in time when ever I listened.
All this without conductors, sheet music or rehersals.

For me it is ALWAYS a moving experience, and a memory I treasure afterwards.

So what about non miked bluse?
Gordon