Yes of course it's Samhain / Halloween /Mischief Night / All Hallows / All Souls / Souling / Guy Fawkes. If you look closely it's the same festival underneath.
Anyway, despite the dark nights, attendance at sessions has been good and we have even seen new faces - or in some cases, old faces but with an instrument. Maybe there are closet sessioneers. The Irish Session is going strong and we still have our Slovakian Fiddler for a while. If anybody wants to give her a job .......
The English / Mixed is also going great guns and has acquired two new Melodeons and a harmonica. We continue to attract itinerant sessioneers who drop in for a tune when they're passing through and it's always nice to see them.
I was musing the other day on the international aspect of our sessioneers. We've had American, Dutch, Belgian, French, Slovakian, Irish, Scottish and German to my certain knowledge. It adds a certain something but it's hard to get them to play their own traditional material.
Some of our favourites seem to be Scandinavian - Swedish in particular with wonderful names that mean such ordinary things - ganglat- 'Walking Dance' for example or even more exotic - ganglat fran Applebo - ' Walking Dance from Applebo' (second apology for lack of accents. I must find out where this editor keeps them. There's probably a heap of mis-shapen and rusting diacritics in a box waiting to be picked out and inserted into the text after a quick polish)
The debate about 'What is a session?' continues to rumble as it always will. Just accept that it may be a:
- Band Practice
- Rehearsal
- Practice
- *SESSION*
- Concert
- Sing-around
- Open Mic
Not long now to the second most confused celebration of Yule / Christmas /Natalis Solis Invicta /Visa/ etc ............
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