00:00 Introduction and Podcast Milestone
01:55 The Importance of Irish Music Sessions
04:39 Personal Growth Through Music
07:09 Cultural Differences in Music Sessions
09:51 The Role of Etiquette in Sessions
12:39 Navigating Social Dynamics in Music
15:34 The Challenges of Joining a Session
18:21 The Impact of Instrumentation on Sessions
21:10 The Dynamics of Session Quality
23:40 The Balance of Volume in Sessions
26:46 The Joy of Smaller Sessions
29:14 The Role of Experience in Music Sessions
32:11 Concluding Thoughts on Music and Community
Conversational Transcript
*[This is an edited conversational transcript, lightly shaped for readability while keeping the spirit of the original conversation]
What does an Irish music session mean?
Tara:
I love to start by asking people: what does an Irish music session mean to you?
Enda:
These days, it means social fun and craic.
It means two things for me, essentially.
One is practice. It is an opportunity to play live.
When I was touring over the last twenty years, particularly the last ten with We Banjo 3, we were doing around 120 gigs a year. I was playing all the time and at a very high level.
When I came home from tour, I had a young son, so I put the banjo away. I did not play at home.
Now I am at home more, and I spend most of my time making video lessons on my own. But that is a totally different speed. I am not making video lessons for Gerry O’Connor. I am making video lessons for John in Ohio who has just bought a banjo.
So when I go to a session now, I go with two things in mind. One is the opportunity to physically play, to play well and to play at speed.
But the most important part is probably the social aspect.
I live in Galway City. There are eighty sessions a week. Eight zero.
Every time I go to play, I have great fun. That is the best part: meeting people, having a laugh and getting to play music.
How sessions change with age
Tara:
Do you think a session meant something different to you at different ages or stages in your life?
Enda:
Yes. There are various stages.
One prime stage for me was my late teens. I would willingly play for fourteen hours a day.
You would go to Miltown Malbay and not think twice about going into a pub at noon and coming out at four in the morning, playing nonstop.
At that time, I was very experimental as a musician. It was as much about pushing the boundaries of the music as it was about playing tunes.
I did not really care about the social part. It was really about hammering out as many tunes as possible.
Tune after tune.
I hated the pauses. I hated songs. I would think, “Oh my God, do I have to sit here for a song?”
Whereas now, I love listening to people singing.
At that stage, it was, “Can I get a million tunes into every session? How fast can we play? How many different ways can I experiment with the tune?”
That was probably really annoying to some people.
But that is part of being a teenager.
Then in my twenties, I did loads of sessions in Galway. It was still about the music, experimenting with different types of tunes and broadening my canon of music.
I used to play a lot with Ronan O’Flaherty, a great fiddle player, and we did loads of barndances.
It was always about finding different ways of approaching Irish music, unusual tunes, lots of ornamentation and lots of variation.
I could never play the same tune three times in a row the same way. I still cannot.
Tara:
I think it is against the law of nature once you get to a certain level. You are not able to repeat it the same way.
Enda:
I would be bored by the second round. That is why I could never play in céilí bands. You had to play the thing the same way every time, and it drove me mad.
So yes, it has changed, and I have changed.
I remember talking to Jesse Smith once. He was not giving out, but he was giving out about speed. All these young lads playing mad fast.
I said, it is like a child who learns to crawl, then walk, then run. Once they can run, they run everywhere really fast. They are full of energy.
Then as they mature, they realise walking is nice too because you can look around and see things.
Music is the same.
Somebody asked me recently if I was going down to Miltown Malbay, and I said, “They all play too fast.”
When did I turn into an old man?
Growing up without a local music lineage
Tara:
You have travelled around the world playing music. Did you play sessions on tour?
Enda:
Rarely.
Where I grew up, there was no Irish music. There was a guy called Jack Rabbit who played harmonica, but there were no sessions and no history of music in the area.
You hear people talk about growing up in hallowed places like Sliabh Luachra, where there are generations of musicians. People say they learned from this lineage.
Where we grew up, there was nothing. We were the first family, the first generation of musicians in our village.
Out of that came Comhaltas and generations of musicians. Now it is dying off again because these things go in cycles.
So I can speak a little bit to not growing up with that heritage.
But I did grow up in Ireland. When I went into sessions as a child, I was still inside the culture.
If you go to a session in St. Louis, Missouri, where there are lots of musicians who have not grown up in that culture, it is a slightly different language being spoken.
The unspoken part of the session is slightly different.
Learning the rules without knowing they are rules
Tara:
Do you think those unspoken rules come from idiosyncrasies within Irish families or things handed down over generations?
Children watch everything. They are sponges. So when did we ever become aware that we knew these rules?
Enda:
We did not know there were rules.
If you grow up in Galway, Donegal or Kerry, you will talk with that accent because that is what you hear.
If you go into sessions from the age of eight, nine or ten, you are not thinking about etiquette. You are not running a list of rules in your head.
You are going in and soaking up the atmosphere.
You are probably also dealing with the normal anxiety of being in a group of adults. Adults set the tone. They set the rules.
So children are entering this other world in an observational setting. They are learning all the time.
Kids learn best when they are playing or having fun.
When you are that age and going into a session full of adults where there is drink involved, hilarity and freedom, it can feel like entering a secret world that other people do not get to experience.
Musicians are generally witty. There is humour running through Irish music, as there is in many inner circles.
My first memory of a session with adults was in Kerry. We walked into a pub and there was a guy called Leo playing flute. His flute case had two animal horns attached to the top of it and sheep’s wool.
I thought, “This is magic. What is this?”
It was like something from a Celtic movie.
We went in and played. Someone said, “Play a tune there.”
I played the reel one time and stopped.
I distinctly remember him saying, “Ara come on, ladeen, play it three times and we hear you.”
That was me learning a rule. You do not just play the tune once and stop.
How would you know that if you had not experienced it?
That was a very welcoming and affirming experience. These men with pints, laughter and character saying, “Come on in and sit down. Let us hear you.”
Tara:
That is a lovely phrase: “Let us hear you.”
They meant it as a welcome. They did not mean, “Let us judge you now.”
Enda:
Exactly. It was an invitation into the community.
Come on in now. You are part of this inner circle that does not have spoken rules.
Adult learners and the terror of walking in
Tara:
Do you think it is harder if you are an adult learner? It is one adult telling another adult, “Play it another time so we can hear you.”
Enda:
When I am teaching, one of the things I am always trying to get people to do is stop thinking.
As adults, that is really hard. The more time we spend in the world, the more we live in our heads. We analyse. We look out for danger.
As an adult walking into a session, I have experienced something similar as a competent musician going into a bluegrass session.
It is a bunch of musicians playing, but it is a different language. The dynamics are different. Everything works differently.
The banjo player Ron Block, who plays with Alison Krauss, spent a lot of time in Ireland and is fond of Irish musicians. I remember going into a bluegrass session and he was there explaining what was happening.
They play one tune twenty-five times and pass it around.
Understanding the language is important.
I have experienced being an adult going into somewhere where I am not comfortable, where I do not know the tunes well and the language is different.
Having someone there as a guide is important. It is like a safe hand on your back saying, “All good, man. Jump in here and have a go.”
I can imagine that as an adult walking into an Irish session for the first time, it must be terrifying.
Galway sessions and visitors
Tara:
It would be lovely if there was someone to guide you and say, “This is Tom. We are bringing him into his first session.”
Enda:
Sessions are made up of humans. Each session has its own characteristics based on the people there.
Galway is very used to tourists. Almost all sessions in Galway have an expectation that people will randomly turn up and try to sit in.
Anyone playing a session in Galway is primed for visitors. They are ready to accept people and give everyone a go.
If someone walks in with a fiddle, often someone will say, “Are you going to sit in and play a tune?”
I would be watching out for the nervous person who comes in with an instrument. Hopefully not seven bodhráns.
That is part of Galway’s culture. There are so many visitors. They come for the sessions.
There are exclusionary sessions, but very few. Most people are really welcoming.
How to recognise a closed session
Tara:
How would you describe an exclusionary session to someone who does not know what that is?
Enda:
You will know pretty quickly from the body language.
We all know when we walk into a group whether people are open or closed. It is unconscious.
If you walk into a closed session where they are not welcoming visitors, you will pick up on it. They will not be open. Their eyes will be down. They will just talk to each other.
Tara:
“Do not disturb us” is almost written on the back of their heads.
Enda:
Yes.
I am relaying other people’s experiences here. I am not suggesting I would be welcome in every session.
I tend not to walk into random sessions. I would be terrified, mostly because I would be afraid I would not know the tunes.
Tara:
That is good for adult learners to hear. People of your calibre would still be nervous walking into a random session.
Enda:
Yes, I would be nervous.
Part of it is being on the road so long. My tune library is scattered.
There are newer tunes that I would not know at all. If I walked into what I would consider a modern session, where people are cranking out newly composed tunes, I would be in serious trouble.
I would not be massively confident just sitting in anywhere.
Being a loud banjo player
Tara:
Have you ever experienced the look when people see a banjo case? Certain instruments get that look: banjo, bodhrán, didgeridoo, guitar.
Enda:
In my younger years, yes.
Now, after doing it for a long time, I probably do not encounter it as much. I am largely recognised if I turn up somewhere, and that is a hallowed position.
When I was younger, I do not think I cared.
I was just barrelling in, pulling out the banjo and going for it.
I had ridiculous confidence when I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Maybe there was brazenness in that and possibly a lack of understanding about the loudness of the banjo.
I am way more conscious of that now.
It can be quite a dominant instrument.
Tara:
I have been in a session where a beginner banjo was very loud. The person was unaware of how loud it was, and it almost derailed the session.
Are there mutes for banjos?
Enda:
There is no midway mute. There is a mute that makes it essentially silent, which people might use to practise in a quiet house.
But yes, volume is absolutely a thing.
When I teach and talk to people about going into sessions, I constantly say: be mindful of the volume of the banjo.
When you sit behind the instrument, you do not know how loud it is.
I have been in long-standing talks with Clareen Banjos about having a monitoring hole put in the back of the resonator. I am convinced that if you got twenty or thirty percent of the volume projected back at your head, you would not play as loudly.
The physicality of playing banjo in sessions matters. People play louder on instruments that project outwards because they do not hear them.
I have been in loud sessions in Galway, where I could not hear the piper sitting beside me. I asked the two people opposite me, “Can you hear the banjo? Because I can hear absolutely nothing.”
They said yes.
That makes me paranoid. Am I really loud?
The banjo cuts through because of the nature of the sound. It is a difficult dance.
Why smaller sessions work better
Tara:
The fiddle is right at your ear, so we hear it all the time.
I was at a session recently where the table was so big that we could not hear each other, even though the pub was quiet. Sometimes you need to be close to each other.
Enda:
The best sessions are usually smaller.
I must be getting old, but if I am in the corner of a pub where the acoustics bounce the instruments back, that is much better.
With something like the banjo, in some sessions you hit a note and it travels off into the pub and never comes back.
If I am facing a wall or facing into other instruments, the sound is contained in the corner. That is always better than a big open situation where the music bounces all over the place and you cannot hear all the instruments.
Tara:
A lot of people I am chatting with prefer the smaller session. Sometimes at a festival, the giddiness allows for a bigger session.
Enda:
You always want to be in the inner circle, even in a big session.
In Miltown in the nineties, there might be an inner circle of six, then another circle, then another. By the time you get to circle number ten, you are on the outside.
When you are younger, you do not mind being on the outside because you are still learning.
Tara:
If I walk into a session and it is already established, I ask myself: am I going to benefit the session?
If it is already happening and I cannot get into the inner circle, I am probably not going to affect anything at the back. The time delay is just not going to work.
Enda:
My favourite thing is to play and interact with the musicians I am playing with.
I do not love big homogenised sessions where it becomes a morass of the tune being played. I get bored if I feel like I am being swept along in a big wave of music.
It is not that I want to be the influence on where the tune goes. But I want to react and interact with the other musicians.
If it is a small session of four or five, and the accordion player or piper does something interesting chordally, I can match that or interact with it.
From an interest point of view, that is far more exciting to me than playing in something big and homogenised.
Tara:
That is the real gem of a session, when you can bounce off each other.
What might affect that?
Enda:
The bouncing is about the quality of the musicians you are playing with.
That is not to be dismissive of anyone at any level. I am a firm believer that if you are playing in a session, it is a social gathering and everyone is allowed once they are respectful and not crazy loud or unconscious of how dominant their instrument might be.
But the ability to really interact with other musicians is about the quality of musicianship.
If you are playing with really great musicians, you play better. The overall quality of the sound is better.
If you are playing with more mediocre players or learners, it is not going to be as much fun. I am hesitant about putting levels on people, but so much of it is about rhythm and what is happening musically.
If you are playing with really great musicians, you can interact better with them.
When one player changes the whole dynamic
Tara:
Say you have four, five or six musicians and you are all bouncing off each other. What external things might change that dynamic?
Enda:
Another musician coming in can be a factor.
If you have a really great session and there is great rhythm happening, then a guitar player or bodhrán player comes in and is not attuned to the swing or rhythm of the session, and they are loud, they can cause problems.
I have played sessions where an accordion player was not physically up to speed. They were playing half a beat behind everybody else.
Then it feels like you are dragging an anchor while trying to keep the session up to speed.
Those are hard conversations to have, because as soon as you talk like that, you sound like the session police.
I always try to be welcoming to other people who want to come in and play.
But if you play for two hours with someone who is half a step behind on a loud instrument, it goes from being an enjoyable session to being hard work.
You can slow down, but often they slow down another half step too.
There are people who can ruin a session.
Tara:
And they do not know. They are not intentionally trying to ruin a session.
That is one of the reasons I am doing this podcast. Awareness.
I would love to have had something like this when I was learning, where I could hear people talking and think, “Maybe I am that person. What have I done?”
Even having that awareness gives an extra respect. You go into a session and respect what is already there more.
Enda:
Yes, 100 percent.
It is a hard conversation because I do not know many musicians who would speak up.
I played a session recently where there was a particular instrument. I will not say what it was, but it was not an Irish instrument.
Initially it was, “Come on in. It will be great.”
But as it went on, the instrument got louder and louder, more out of time, playing the wrong chords. The person was drinking pints and getting more egotistically involved in dominating the session.
At the end of it, I wondered whether I should have said something an hour in.
But then I thought: who put me in charge?
Am I the person who gets to say, “Hey buddy, why don’t you sit out for the next couple of sets?”
I have heard from people who were devastated when someone tried to police a session. Maybe they were out of time or still learning, but they were devastated.
That makes me uncomfortable.
I do not really have an answer.
I know people I teach who have been excluded from sessions, told they are not good enough and told to sit out. They are devastated.
And I think, it is only music at the end of the day. How important is this?
The cost of saying something
Tara:
It is not personal. It may not be that they do not want you. It may be that you are not at the level yet for that session.
But it is hard.
Most people I have interviewed who have ever said something, who have been the bearer of bad news, felt terrible afterwards.
That contributes to why this podcast exists. I was the bearer of bad news for a couple of people and I felt horrible afterwards.
Enda:
I have never done it.
I have gone home after sessions and wished I had said something.
But my wife Gillian would say, “How important is this? Maybe they were having a great time. Maybe they were having the best time of their lives. They did not ruin a wedding. Nobody died. It is just a session.”
If it happened every week in the one session, and somebody only got to go out once a week and was really looking forward to it, and this one instrument was wrecking it every week, then maybe there is a conversation.
But I do not have an answer.
I have wanted to call someone out, but I always knew how bad I would feel afterwards.
I would go home and think, “Who am I to do that?”
I know I was a pain in the arse when I was a teenager with five million triplets and crazy tunes. If there was a breath in the session, I was off to the races with some crazy tune nobody knew.
I have been that idiot.
Tara:
Maybe the times you do not say anything are easier to forget than the times you do.
Enda:
The times I did not say anything, I can laugh about them now. I am glad I did not.
There are definitely times in my life where I said things I should not have said, and I will never forget them.
Tara:
How do we get around this?
Enda:
Ask yourself: how important is it?
That is a great question.
We are not doing brain surgery here.
The bodhrán player may be a little bit behind everybody else, but it is not brain surgery, and it will be over in two hours.
Unless it is every week.
Relaxing in a session and knowing your role
Tara:
I have a questionnaire on SessionEtiquette.com. I will pick out a random question.
This person says their challenge in a session is:
“Knowing exactly what my role is in the session. Managing to stay relaxed and present in the session and not overthinking. Whether I am doing the right thing, behaving the right way, or sitting in the right seat. In my normal social interactions, I tend to be a one-on-one person. So making sure in that group setting that I do not lose confidence in my social skills.”
Enda:
That is a huge challenge.
That sounds like every time I leave the house.
There is a lot in that: where to sit, how to socialise in a group setting. There are books written on how to socialise in a group if you are more of a one-on-one person.
The music creates a great buffer. It takes out some of the social stuff because you can close your eyes and play.
It gives the group a common language.
Put ten random people in a room and say, “Spend two hours talking,” and that would be terrifying for some people.
But put ten people in a room and say, “We are going to play music,” and suddenly there is a common cause.
That common cause is probably very helpful.
If you are wondering where to sit, just ask: “Is it okay to sit here?” or “Is this seat taken?”
Most people will say, “Yes, of course,” or, “There are a few stools hidden away. Go grab a chair.”
Names, welcome and social connection
Tara:
Do you think it is a good idea to know the names of people who join a session, so nobody is sitting there without being known?
Enda:
One hundred percent.
I would always do that.
If someone sits in and says, “Can I play?” I would say, “I am Enda. Where are you from?”
It is like any social setting. They have just walked into your sitting room.
As musicians, you have created this little enclave. Someone comes in to join it. Ask their name.
If the core centre of the session does not welcome people in by saying hello and asking their name, that can be very intimidating and very off-putting.
Buying a round to be invited in
Tara:
The last guest always leaves a question for the next guest.
Their question was: would you consider buying a round of drinks in order to be invited into the session? A round of drinks for the musicians as a way to buy yourself in.
Enda:
No.
I have never seen anyone doing that.
That would feel icky if somebody came in and said, “Can I buy everybody a drink?” and then pulled out a bodhrán, fiddle or anything else.
Even a really great player.
No. I have never seen that happen.
Tara:
They said this used to happen a long time ago.
Thank you very much, Enda.
Enda:
Thanks, Tara. It is a great topic, and well done for doing it.
I think people are going to derive a huge amount of value from this. It is probably the number one question I get asked all the time: the unwritten rules of sessions.
Tara:
That is it. It is good to chat about it so people can hear others talking openly.
Hopefully it helps people. That is the main thing.
This conversation with Enda Scahill brings a sharp and honest perspective to session etiquette.
He does not pretend the questions are easy.
A session is social. It is practice. It is fun. It is also a place where one loud, unaware or badly timed player can change the whole dynamic.
Enda’s honesty about the banjo matters here. Some instruments carry more force in a room. Some players hear themselves differently from how everyone else hears them. That means self-awareness is not optional. Volume, timing, rhythm and placement all matter.
But the most useful part of this conversation may be Enda’s reluctance to police other people.
He knows that people can ruin a session. He also knows that being called out can devastate someone. He remembers being young, confident, fast, full of triplets and probably annoying. That memory gives him humility.
The question he keeps coming back to is simple:
How important is it?
That does not mean everything should be tolerated forever. If the same problem is damaging the same session every week, a conversation may be needed.
But not every awkward session moment needs a public correction. Not every bad musical fit needs to become a personal wound.
Enda’s advice is practical: ask where to sit, learn people’s names, be aware of your instrument, notice the room, and remember that the music gives everyone a common language.
And perhaps most importantly, remember that most of us have been the idiot at some stage.
That should make us more careful, not less honest.
https://endascahill.com/
https://irishbanjolessons.com/
https://www.patreon.com/cw/EndaScahillBanjo
Session Etiquette Questionnaire
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