RE: [Harp-L] "gussing" in an Irish Trad Session

[Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

Well, Aongus, I got to play, invited, in three Dublin pubs (including Hughes' and The Cobblestone) in four nights, not by gussing but by taking an interest in the session and letting it be known very diffidently (to some people around the bar who the musicians seemed to know) that I had harps about my person and could play some tunes. For my last night, one of the musicians at The Cobblestone had told me about her session the following night and I sat in for the whole evening. I wouldn't dream of joining in uninvited in a session. Anyone thinking of doing that in our session gets short shrift, especially if they're sporting one of those bodhran jobbies! Toujours la politesse, as they say in Outer Mongolia...  
> Irish Trad sessions in Pubs and the like are fairly informal with maybe up
> to ten guys on a variety of instruments banging away. Nonetheless joining in
> without being invited can meet with a hostile reception. It is not unknown
> for a bunch of players who play regularly together to tune their fiddles up
> to a key that will mystify and discourage any would be "gussers"
> 
> As for knowing whether you are playing in the right key, you can't hear
> yourself in a live session against fiddles and button boxes unless you put a
> finger in one ear. I am sometimes nervous about doing this in case the most
> adjacent musician may take it as an insult and hit me a clatter.
> 
> Beannachtai
> 
> Aongus Mac Cana
>