House session

We recently, and rather belatedly as he is about to move on, discovered that there is a Scottish fiddle player in the next village. That's Scottish as in he comes from Scotland and Scottish as in it's Scottish tunes he plays. He plays very nicely indeed and knows lots of lovely tunes that remind me how good Scottish music is, and how much more there is to Scottish music than pipes.

We invited him over at the weekend and had a bit of a house session. He kindly played along with a couple of my efforts. I managed to lose the plot during the King and later lost my head entirely and had a couple of unsuccessful goes at Troy. I was obviously not at my best as the fan felt obliged to explain that I've only been playing for three and half years. More like three and three quarters, I think...

Still, I enjoyed it. It felt very different from a pub session - there was tea and cake and scones, for a start. But there was also lots of opportunity to chat about music, to try out tunes, to talk about tunes, to swap the names of good tunes, to get out dots and try something less familiar.

And those tunes: those beautiful Scottish tunes.