Times tables

I've been thinking about how many times to play a tune. The session standard hereabouts seems to be three times. I think the point is that it gives fellow sessioneers one time to listen, once to try, and the third time to play along. Then you move on to the next tune in the set.

I suppose different tunes in a set is to do with the link between music and dance. Trad music tunes are short, even played three times round they might be all done and dusted  in 3 minutes, which isn't much of a dance. Presumably playing different tunes rather than the same one over and over keeps things interesting for the musicians, and listeners. I suppose, not being much of a dancer, that the dancers' main interest is the tempo remaining the same.

In Highland pipe band piping the tradition is a little different. There is MSR and medleys, but each tune is played only once or twice through. I guess much here is to do with the fact that it's a performance, and you need to be playing with great accuracy, so the fewer times you play something the less chance there is of making a mistake. Pipes are also very physical, and if you're marching as well...you don't want half the band passed out on the floor before you reach the end of the set.

And what is the tradition for small pipers playing folk music? I've still yet to attend our local Scottish session, but I do know that even in Scotland most of the sessions are Irish, and that most of the pipes will be Irish, too. Perhaps small pipers need to fall in with whatever happens at local sessions, or perhaps, because our repertoire is strange and people don't seem inclined to join in much, we just need to chose our own methods, create our own traditions.

Not going too badly today. Still working on the Captain and the Trail. Home kept morphing into Locahanside and I ended up getting the dots out. Still not feeling totally comfortable with A, with bag and bellows, but getting there.