Changes coming to The Session

I’ve been working on a revamp/redesign/relaunch/re-whatever of The Session. Here’s a run-down of some of the (long-overdue) changes that are coming…

TUNES

There’s always been a “first come, first served” problem with tune submissions. Whichever setting gets submitted for a tune gets converted into sheet music. Well, that’s going to change. Tunes will have multiple settings. If you have already submitted alternate settings in the comments to tunes, don’t worry; those will automatically be converted into alternate settings when the site relaunches.

Sheet music will be generated automatically. If you edit a tune setting, the sheet music will update straightaway. (for the web geeks amongst you: the sheet music will be generated as SVG using JavaScript)

I’m ditching the midi files. Does anyone actually listen to them?

The front page of the tunes section will place less emphasis on newly-added tunes and more emphasis on where activity is taking place. For example, it’ll be much easier to find and browse through popular tunes.

SESSIONS

It will be possible to find sessions near you (if your browser supports the Geolocation feature). This should be particularly handy on mobile devices.

EVENTS

Just like sessions, you’ll be able to find events near you. Also, that change that was introduced recently that allows anyone to edit the details of a session will also apply to events.

RECORDINGS

Likewise, anyone will be able to edit the track listings of recordings, not just the person who originally submitted the recording.

COMMENTS

If there’s a link to a YouTube video in a comment, you’ll have the option to watch the video right there without leaving the page you’re on.

You’ll be able to preview comments before you post them. This should help catch any typos. Also, you’ll have a window of opportunity for a while after you’ve posted a comment during which you’ll be able to edit it.

MEMBERS

You’ll be able to list your location. That way, you can get informed automatically when sessions or events are added near you (this information will appear on the front page when you’re logged in).

One feature I definitely want to introduce (but it might not happen in the initial relaunch) is the idea of “trips”. Say you’re going somewhere for a few days and you’d like to know about sessions or events in that place; once you’ve entered the details of the trip, you’ll get a list of what’s going on in the area, and other members who live in that area can be notified of your trip.

Messages between members will be accessible through the website so if emails from The Session have been getting trapped in your spam filters, that won’t be a problem any more (you’ll only be able to read messages sent to you, of course).

Another feature that probably won’t be ready by the time of the relaunch is the ability to sort tunes in your tunebook into sets.

OVERALL

The design of the site will be much more mobile-friendly. There’s the localised searching I mentioned already, but I’ll also be making the design work on screens of all sizes.

I’ve been posting some snapshots of the design as it develops:

http://dribbble.com/adactio/buckets/74404-The-Session

I wish I had a definite launch date for the redesign but I have to snatch time to work on it when and where I can. I hope it will happen sometime in the next two months.

Thank you all for your perseverance with the current clunky old site — it really is very out of date. I hope you’re going to like the changes that are coming. But rest assured that some things won’t be changing: The Session will remain quite simple, straightforward, and fast to load.

“The Session will remain quite simple, straightforward, and fast to load.”

The AK47 of the trad world eh?

I’m very, very excited :D

Thank YOU Jeremy!

"RECORDINGS

Likewise, anyone will be able to edit the track listings of recordings, not just the person who originally submitted the recording."

This I like.

I have listened to the midis from time to time, but there is such a long jump from them to what the tune really sounds like, they are not terribly useful.
Changes sound good, Jeremy--keep up the good work!

Sounds great. Thanks for all your hard work. The Session trully is a treasure.

Jeremy, I’m amazed you are still doing this, the novelty must have worn off long, long ago. And I am exceedingly grateful that you are. This is a wonderful site and has been an agreeable and informative part of my life for some time now.

I look forward to the new set-up - not least because I can go and correct some of the tunes I botched up while submitting them.

I’ve made attempts to donate online, but haven’t succeeded in getting money through…if a cheque in sterling is any use to you, sent to a postal address in Ireland or anywhere else, I’d be happy to send one. Failing that, I suppose I’ll have to do more homework regarding donating online.

But once again, Jeremy, many thanks!🙂.

I’ll miss the midis :( but the rest sounds great!

Sounds great, the ability to edit comments for a short time would be useful in terms of correcting obvious typos and a change of mind.

How will you stop people corrupting tune listings in Recordings just for the hell of it?

Agree re midis, I find them useful sometimes just to get a quick sense of what’s notated to see if it matches the tune I’m thinking of. But it’s easy to find another utility to paste the ABC in and do that - just a bit fiddly.

I hope the new site will still have the donation button and it gets used a lot to recognize your commitment and dedication.

Sounds great….thanks for continuing to support this brilliant resource….

I think it would be a good idea to keep the midi files so you can download tunes straight in to your preferred notation software. Shame if they go.

Thank you so much for discontinuing the midis!

So, there still won’t be a way to ask all members about sessions in a given area? No ability to post questions in the existing sessions category. I’m glad you’re planning the concept of trips, Jeremy, as it’s very much needed on thesession.org

Great updates Jezza!!

Yes I have really appreciated the midi files as they download straight into my MOZART music writing notation software. I will really miss them. Mike

Will miss the midi files -- as I don’t read either notes or ABC, I found them very handy…

I actually liked having the midi files :( Oh well, least I still have tunepal. Or will that be affected too?

No change to discussions? I would have thought the disscussions feature here to be lacking in functionality in comparison with that of phpBB or vBulletin.
Have you thought of working with Tunepal to allow the app to link to a session.org account?

You can go to folkinfo.org and copy and paste the ABC into the abc converter on there, and voila! It can play the midi file for you, if necessary.

I sometimes listen to the midi files, but the most important to me is the ABC (I am using ABCExplorer).

The trip feature sounds great! Very good idea !

I thought the Midi Files were a great way of getting the gist of the tune in a short time. I used them a lot especially if you were discussing a particular named tune that you were unsure of. Not everybody can read dots or even words for that matter. Some time back I was in the company of a partially sighted musician who had his sibling bring up the midi files of a tune so he could learn it.

I certainly didn’t notice anything objectionable in Gertie’s question.

The planned changes all look good to me. Thank you for the hard work and for running this site Jeremy.

As for the midi concerns - just use ABC Explorer. It’s a free software that lets you convert any abc tune into midi or a couple of other formats. You can then use the midis whichever way you like.

I too will miss the midi files. As I don´t read notes or abc, they were a useful way of getting the skeleton of a tune. Surely nobody was daft enough to think it was the definitive version of the tune.
You get the basic tune, then add your own ornamentation and phrasing. Sometimes you had to unravel the OP´s ornaments to get to the basic tune.

Being a complete IT dummie, I marvel at what goes into maintaining a resource like this and all the work involved in ‘upgrading’ - many thanks, Jeremy.

I have just one question …. when it’s all supercharged and brought bang up to date … does it still have to be mustard? …
it’s not really what you’d call a 21st Century colour 😏

PS…. There doesn’t seem to be any ‘Log Out’ option on the site. I have to close down the entire internet to do so. I don’t know whether it’s my computer set up, (as I said I’m a dummie) but if not, are there plans to change that?

Perhaps the new footage of the Martian surface would make a more modish background…🙂.

Most of what’s proposed sounds like great news to me. (None of it sounds bad.) I think it will be fascinating to see how the tunes database pans out in the new version. And I like the idea of the edit feature. It might - just might - save me from getting into trouble … unintentionally, that is. 😉

I don’t think the midis should be felt as any great loss by anyone. If anyone really wants them, they can always download one of the many free ABC programmes out there, such as ABC WinNavigator or the like, and they’ll get a better sounding midi in any case. Many programmes have midi features that you can control, so that you get the tune sounding (supposedly) as if it’s played on fiddle, or accordion, or flute or what-have-you.

mmmm, love the midis, love the mustard.
I use the midis for tune ID, saves me wondering “How does that one go?”

I’m going to miss the MIDIs too. I burned some of them to CD so I could take them wherever I go. One day, someone will ask “How does Drowsy Maggie sound at 137bpm on a MIDI piano” and I’ll say “Aha!”…

Once again, thank you Jeremy!

If we’re going cosmic, Nicholas (but a little closer to home) I think a background based on the Aurora Borealis could look pretty stunning - and isn’t this site all about the wonderful Northern Lights of music? 🙂

the midis were good for reminding me of a tune if i knew i wanted it but another tune was in the way, in my ears. they were a pain though, clunky indeed.

thank you for all your great work.

It all sounds good to me. I’m very glad we are going to get an edit facility, but I’d really like to be able to edit other people’s posts too; so that when somebody says something that is wrong, I could just change it instead of having to argue with them.

Nice one, Jeremy! Allowing for different settings of tunes - and being able to correct the sheet music once it has been posted - will be major improvements. The member location feature will be a good addition, especially since so many members don’t volunteer any information about themselves in their profiles.

Since there have been so many comments in this thread from people that say they will miss the midi feature, perhaps you’ll consider keeping it in after all. I’ve never used it myself, but it seems a lot of people do.

That’s the problem with addiction, withdrawl symptoms begin even when one thinks about not getting their fix.

I am very sorry that the midi files will not be available.
I find them invaluable and they are what I mostly download.

noooooo!!! All the other changes sound GREAT, but I implore you to keep the midi files! They are an invaluable tool when I’m am checking out obscure or new tunes on here… I can pop open the midi file and get the jist of the tune in a minute or less. Not to mention it’s of great help when I’m trying to find a particular tune are there a half-dozen on here with the same name - it’s a great way to pinpoint exactly which one it is.

“I’m am” …geez. And that should be “and there are” not “are there a” . I guess I was so excited I couldn’t type straight.

“You’ll be able to preview comments before you post them. This should help catch typos. Also, you’ll have a window of opportunity during which you’ll be able to edit…”
😉

The sheet music for multiple settings is a wonderful step forward, especially for those of us who never got the hang of reading ABC format.

Looks great! You could keep the midis, but add an animated leperchaun that shakes his head disapprovingly while they play

You’re a sporting character with a unique panache, and fair play to you….

i use the midi files as well, when I’m looking to see if a tune is the one I’m thinking of---my reading skills aren’t good enough to look at the sheet music and hear how it goes from that. Please keep them if you can.

Other than that, all the changes sound great. Thank you for keeping up this site---it’s such a fantastic resource!

Thank you, Jeremy, for a great site.

Changes sound fantastic, Jeremy. Thank you for all your hard work with this site - - it is truly a gift you’ve given those of us in this world!

For those missing the midi things add this to your browser:

https://thesession.org/discussions/26527#comment561367

and you’ll get the midis. Or, if you use Firefox (Greasemonkey) or Chrome (Userscript) this might work for you automagically

http://code.google.com/p/abcjs/downloads/detail?name=abcjs_plugin_1.3.user.js

Thanks Jeremy What your are doing is ugly hard work but we will all appreciate your efforts.

Sounds cool. I’m working on an interactive tune database design for my own use so I know the amount of work that must go into it. the abcjs renderer is a great sheet music generation script if you haven’t gotten to that stage yet.

Thank you Jeremy -- this is all greatly appreciated.

Thank you for all your work - love the site. The Trips addition is a great idea. Never use the midis so won’t miss that. And the mustard board really can’t be any other colour!

I would not drop the midi stuff. People with sight difficulties relay on them and some musicians are.
On the other hand, it would be, at least for me, a good idea to add also a chord section, sometimes the chords applied by musicians, groups are not the ones I would use and a quick comparison would be very handy.

Good stuff, Jeremy. It’ll all be much more “wiki” by the sounds of it…

Sounds amazing! I won’t miss the midi at all.

Will editing the track listings of recordings allow us to fix the duplicate tune name problem? I mostly use the site for looking up recordings from tune names, but because tunes can share a name, many recordings point to a tune with the right name but wrong melody. For example, Paddy Fahey’s tunes are hopelessly tangled. If you find the right Tunes page for a Fahey tune (difficult), it will point to many recordings with a different melody.

It would also be wonderful if we could fix the keys. Tunes are sometimes assigned the wrong key/mode by beginners and they become hard to find in the search.

That all sound really good. Thanks Jeremy.

People being able to update the tracks lists on Recordings will sort many missing and incorrect links to the Tunes database. Will there be a tidying up of incorrect ‘other names’ for the tunes ?

I don’t use the current MIDI much, but I usually compare the different versions given as ABC in the comments by using MIDI rather than sheet music. I prefer that for the reasons given by several people above. It would be handy as part of the mobile functionality - can hardly whip out a whistle on the train or dentist waiting room.

“The front page of the tunes section will place less emphasis on newly-added tunes and more emphasis on where activity is taking place” (Jeremy)

Is the Discussion section to be given the same upgrade? ie

“The front page of the Discussions section will place less emphasis on newly-added discussions and more emphasis on where activity is taking place”

Midi files - literally, a waste of space (at best)

Please keep the midis if you can.

Personally, I don’t care that much about the midis, I like the mustard (part of my life for so long now…) and other changes are brilliant. Bravo Jeremy.

Hmmm …sounds like more people use the midi files than I thought.

I’ll see if there’s some way of keeping midi files, but they would have to be generated automatically. Right now, I make every midi file so I’m the bottleneck. I’ll look into this.

boxershort asked about an explicit “log out” button: yes, this will be included in the new version.

Dr. Dow said “It’ll all be much more ”wiki“ by the sounds of it…” Very much so. As others have pointed out, that may bring with it an increased risk of vandalism but I’m trusting that most people want to do the right thing.

domhnall asked “Is the Discussion section to be given the same upgrade?” regarding less emphasis on “what’s new” and more emphasis on “what’s active”. In short, yes. The front page of discussions will show the most recent discussions but it will also show the most currently active discussions.

Will the ABC accept the header information such as C:, S: etc ? Especially if it is already present in the ABC given in the comments.

Looking forward to it, many thanks

Very exciting!

Personally, I don’t listen to the midi files; instead I download the abc files and use ABCexplorer, which is good.

I have one small question: will it be more intuitive to navigate around our tunebooks?

But good work; I love this site, and your developments sound great.

This site is an object lesson to others when it comes to speed of loading. Long may it remain so.

‘Midi files - literally, a waste of space (at best)’

Given the number of people that have spoken in support of them, they’re obviously not.

Incidentally, one of the better points about the midi function on this site is that it is set up to ignore ornamentation. I tried using the midi file generator at concertina.net recently to double-check a tune I had transcribed; it tries to play all the rolls, but without any sense of rhythm or timing, making the tune sound completely nonsensical. With the folkinfo.org midi player, some attempt has clearly been made to get the rolls sounding like rolls, but they’re still a long way off; there’s little point in that, really.

Many ABC programmes have their own facilty for converting ABCs into midi files and there are several other means.

You can even choose your instrument if you feel so inclined.

I never bother with such things and I’m more inclined to seek out a recording/perfromance of a tune on CD, Youtube etc rather than listen to a midi if I want to get an idea of how it ought to sound.

Great News Jeremy, look forward to it.
PS I have never listened to the midis

You are sitting in a session and the subject of a specific tune comes up, title sounds vaguely familiar so you turn to the person next to you and say “How does that one go?”
And they go diddly dee deido iddly etc.
The Session.org equivalent is the midi files.
(In my humble opinion)

Jeremy, thanks for all the time and energy you put into this. All the changes sound great. Having the ability to play a YouTube link is a good idea. I tried using the midis once or twice, but they sounded very little like the tune, so I stopped, and asked someone, or found some audio or looked at a YouTube link instead.

“Many ABC programmes have their own facility for converting ABCs into midi files and there are several other means.” One could equally say that many ABC programs have their own facility for converting ABCs into sheet music and then go on to say that a recording/performance was preferable.

I can’t help wondering if the people are who are so anti the MIDIs but accepting of the Sheet music are actually learning the tunes from the sheet music, rather than simply taking the encoding available here as something like mcknowall’s “diddly dee deido iddly”

I’m looking forward to the ‘trip’ function - could be useful.
Thanks, Jeremy.

I have never used the midi files either, but I can read music. The first thing I do is click on the score to check that it’s the right tune, or to see how it goes, then download or copy and paste the ABC. People who don’t read music obviously find the midis helpful, so it might be better not to disparage them.

@ skreetch 🙂
Ive never used the midi but I recognise their value for many who cant read. cheers Jeremy, great site.

“accepting of the Sheet music are actually learning the tunes from the sheet music, rather than simply taking the encoding available here as something like mcknowall’s ”diddly dee deido iddly"

Well, I’ve never mastered the art of playing a tune directly from an “ABC” and have always converted it to sheet music first. If I can read the latter, I don’t see much point in playing off “ABC” or tablature for that matter.
Having said that, “ABC” is a handy tool for transporting/e-mailing etc music and it is also a useful and cheap means for compiling actual sheet music if you have a programme to convert it… I find it much easier to write than read though.

I’m not sure about “accepting” sheet music as such. I don’t necessarily accept any written version especially those which might appear here.

“The front page of discussions will show the most recent discussions but it will also show the most currently active discussions” (Jeremy)

Good to hear - thanks.

Sorry Johnny, that wasn’t really aimed at you, I was just taking your post as a starting point.

Last week I was at a session and a whole string of polkas were played. Some I could play, some I didn’t know and a couple were really familiar, but part way through each I realized I was uncertain about what came next with potential for horrid top of second octave clash if I got it wrong. So I stopped. But I knew the names and next day dropped the ABC from here into a MIDI player, ran it through a couple if times singing along and then managed to play it getting the same notes. Then, using the links to Recordings here, I found a some recordings and got my fingers round the tune so that I could play along with them. Next time those tunes come up I should be able to play along. *I did not use the Sheet music from this site or from my ABC program*.

Fantastic -- thank you for this great site.

Keep the mustard, please, keep the mustard.

“I’d really like to be able to edit other people’s posts too; so that when somebody says something that is wrong, I could just change it instead of having to argue with them.” …Skreech

What a RIOT! :D

Oh, dear! Look like I’ve upset the mustard aficionados out there (😏 … my apologies!

Glad to know there will be an explicit log out button, Jeremy. However, as of today, whenever I click on the website, there I am - already logged in! Is this a glitch? I don’t remember it happening before …. and I would much prefer to have to sign in.

Might be a good idea to keep a history of the changes to tunes, sessions, etc, so if the crowd sourcing does get a little out of hand, you have an easy way to revert. (Or, more likely, if some angered member goes off and intentionally starts destroying content because of a personal battle with another member, or even yourself, Jeremy).

Love this site and use it daily. Being a technological dummy I hope the new changes will be as easy as they apparently will be. And hurray for the YouTube and trip/session near you features! Nan

Jeremy

Thanks for all the time you put in here. Like the sheet music changes as well as the preview of posts (I think alot faster than I can type and have crummy spelling)

I only use the midi once every blue moon though. But that’s because I like to find a smattering of arrangements on YouTube and other places to find out how things are expressed and have sound editing software to do that.

I will defer to the majority on midi (as if I have choice LOL) Sounds like a nice thing to have for a number of people.

Again- Thanks for the great effort.

Zip

The MIDI fix may be relatively simple Jeremy if you consider cboody’s suggestions < https://thesession.org/discussions/30604#comment656570 > or perhaps collaborate directly w/Reverend or Paul Rosen.

All sounds great, Jeremy - accept for the loss of those midi files.

Sure, quite a few folks can play from the dots using their chosen instrument - but a much less number would be able to hum the tune just by looking at sheet music - and you don’t always have an instrument to hand. e.g. maybe you are travelling, and viewing session.org on your mobile.

I had no idea that you were creating the midis manually, though. What a pain!

Almost all of the other traditional music sites that carry abcs carry midis as well, so surely there must be some way of auto-generating them.

Jeremy
Sound’s and ‘’ Look’s ‘’ Good to Me.
jim,,,

Will we be able to add apostrophes and commas to everything in honour of jim,,, ?

Thanks again for your work, Jeremy 🙂

Will Jeremy retain the sole right to bar (and unbar) members?
What about giving the rest of us a vote so that when a member notches up 10 (or whatever) ‘black balls’, (s)he is barred. Likewise we could vote for a member to be unbarred?
😉

I think Jeremy should remain the only bloke that can get rid of people.
Running this isite by committee sound ridiculous.
You’ll be saying democracy is a good thing next.

I’m definitely with yhaalhouse on this. This site is what it is because of its structure, in all the meanings that that word has. The great trick will be to improve the functionality without changing the basic nature of the site.

Yeah, that gets my vote too 😉

Democracy? What’s that Yhaalhouse?
Seriously, though, the changes sound interesting and I am looking forward to them.

Laurence

The changes sound great. I look forward to seeing it up and running. As far as the midis go I have used them on occasion but not often. If there was a way to keep them (as you say, as long as they were generated automatically) then it would keep the site as flexible as possible.

Also, as has already been said, there is a real risk of tune vandalising or even people changing things because they think they know better when, in fact, they don’t. I can see a row kicking off with a tune repeatedly having the key changed back and forward by two stubborn folk.

That certainly isn’t a reason not to make the changes but, as with Wikipedia there should be a way to review changes and limit abuse.

Either way it should be a great improvement. Thank you for all your hard work.

David, learning from a midi file is no different than learning from the very same file that generates the sheet music. If the file has a wrong note, the midi and the sheet music will both reflect that inaccuracy. Sheet music would have the advantage because you can pretend not to see a wrong note and read through it (using memory as your guide) whereas if you’re playing along with midi and it plays a wrong note it’s going to be difficult to just play through and use the right note, while midi is playing the wrong one.

Holy Mustard curry wig glue batman, the research continues. Thx for not kicking me out of your session!

“Stubborn folk”??? Around here??? Fie!!!

😀

Why learn from a file that has a wrong note ? Just change the note (in a local copy). There are many tunes in the database where knowledgeable people have put different takes in the comments. If those go into the ‘new’ database as separate entities then that is great. Even better if we (some of us anyway) can click a link for a MIDI for each to have a quick listen and hear the differences.

How does one “notch” up “black balls?”

Thanks Jeremy. Sounds great, thanks for all the hard work!

SmashTheWindows
<add apostrophes and commas to everything in honour of jim>

😛

jim,,,

Happy 100th comment!

Thanks for all your great work here, Jeremy. Hope you keep the mustard motif.

sounds very painful, black balls does.

Alright. The midi files stay in the picture.

All these years and I never did figure out the magic keystroke combination to transform the mustard board into twinkling shamrocks and leprechauns………………

…..maybe the mustard board IS the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow….?….?….?…..

Thanks Jeremy for creating and maintaining thesession.org!!!!!

And a humble request - Is it possible to make all links open up a new window, rather than leaving thesession.org when linking?

Will there be a separate section for the “What tune is this?” discussion that is so common, and a place to keep track of the answered videos?

How about a feature that provides helmets and flak jackets to folks who post a link and ask “What do you think of my playing?” 😉

Jeremy - Thanks for the midis - and thanks for everything else.

So, what did the gardner say this time?

… gardener …
The relaunch is going to be a helluva party.
;)

I know I speak for many when I say I’d be happy to help with the conversion issues any way I can.

Keep the midis!

Everything else sounds awesome though, especially the change to youtube videos in comments. Thanks heaps, I can’t wait for the relaunch!

Thanks for your work on the site, Jeremy. As a web programmer too, I know it’s not much fun doing work in your spare time!

One feature request from me, which doesn’t seem to have been mentioned, is the expansion of the key sig list in the tunes section, so that tunes in, for example, F#min and also other more unusual keys like Bb and whatnot, can actually be found. Currently finding an F#minor tune means searching through the Amajor list.

Cheers,
Dave

Dave makes a very good point indeed.

F#m would be a good addition. There are a fair few tunes in it and, with the new editing abilities the tunes already posted in F#m could have the key corrected.

Great stuff, Jeremy, and much appreciated.

I’d like to see a separate discussions category for instruments, covering, for instance:

1) those for sale;

2) technical questions regarding adjustments and the such like;

and,

3) contacting makers.

Carpe diem.

Thank you for your ongoing efforts Jeremy.

for someone with not a lot of ‘nous’ about computers I very much appreciate what you put in to maintain such awonderful resource and meeting place in ‘The Session’.

I agree with the earllier comment that only you should have the ultimate control. You have maintained a high degree of standard and approach over the years and it would be fitting to continue with such proper courtesies.

All the best

Brian x

One request: I’d like to see the “Advanced” tune search have the tune type and key menus like the basic search does. It would really help to reduce the number of irrelevant results.

I’ll just add my voice in support of the midi files. As someone who tends to depend too much on sheet music, I find the midi file handy for learning by ear….which, at the end of the day, is what it’s all about.

Somebody posted above that the real tunes don’t sound anything like the midi. Obviously a midi file is just an outline of a tune. Besides, the same goes for the sheet music.

Looking forward to it Jeremy - it all sounds good.

It is a wonderful resource you have set up and it has taught me loads, as well as putting me in touch with lots of session-contacts as well.
Being a session-animal, I have lost count of the number of new sessions I have visited.

Don’t most abc editors play? I can’t really see the pressing need for midi files.

A suggestion for a change. Can you make it possible again to log out of The Session?

As I said earlier, an fidleir, there will be a button on every page for logging out.

I hope that one of the new features will be that anyone joining thesession.org will receive a welcome pack -- like you do when you go to an academic conference -- that includes a bottle of SyrupStik Wig Glue, a furry hot water bottle, and copies of “The P Word” and “The Unraveled Hank of Yarn,” as seen on http://joefago.com/SessionShoppe_StPatSale_CDs_%26_Books.html.

Exciting changes here! Thank you, Jeremy. I occasionally listen to the midis, but am also open to alternative ways to hear a tune. Nice of you to accommodate your members.

I have just made another visit to this magnificent site and downloaded yet another midi file which I find so useful.
Please don’t discontinue the option of downloading a midi files in your new configuration.

Should we blame the addict? Or the dealer?

we shouldn’t blame anyone, Michael. Love one another.

Love is wonderful! When someone is handing out ecstacy to minors*, or midis to newbies, love means taking responsibility for the consequences.

*granted, it’s a leap.

A leap? A bloody moon voyage more like.
We have midi files.
Jeremy is keeping them.
go back to sleep.

Mcknowall it’s clear you consider there is no potential for some to develop an overdependence on learning from midi files. I never said using midi files equals addiction.

The tunes section has 4 tabs, which is two more than most sections; the home page has a contact link.

- Are there future plans to improve the advanced search to fit with contemporary trends, i.e. Reverend’s ABC Tune Search or Skooter’s TunePal?

-w/ regard to the *Requests* tab … does anyone read &/or answer them on any sort of regular basis?

Midi files are a great help for a quick and dirty listen what those little dots actually mean to non reading ear musicians … pity if they’re ditched. -F

When searching the comments on the sessions tab, it would be handy to have the session name and location with the excerpt so that you know which session the comment comes from, save a bit of time searching…..

Billy, you must be referring to the searching the newest comments as they are posted & bumped with only the title provided by the poster. If you click to the post it’s actually at the bottom of the page & probably no reference to the session venue. The tunes category is better is this case. When you link to the newest comment, in the tunes section, you still won’t see the name of the tune in the post. What you will see is something like this, “You could talk about how much you like or dislike this reel, how you ornament the tune on your instrument, how you put the tune together with other tunes in sets or share any anecdotes you might have about ”Attaboy".

Note: Do you know the tune by another name?"

Tune Title Suggestion:
Hi Jeremy - it would be very handy if tunes could be saved into a tunebook by any of the names they are known by (from the “also known as” list). I have over 150 tunes in my book but many of the titles in the list don’t ring a bell for me. It would facilitate instant recollection when browsing through the list.
Thanks

I think getting to know how this site works might be useful. FAQs are a bit limited. Jeremy, perhaps you could try a ‘get to know’ the designer day. About every 4 months take a break from your busy schedule to post a discussion with updates. Mingle with board members ~ the new, the old, the lurkers, anyone who might be interested in asking a webmaster all those things about what’s happening behind the scenes.

The sheet music feature is great, I use it a lot: particularly on my mobile phone while trying to learn a tune.

However, it’s hard to read on small screens. Is there any chance that a) the sheet music could be resizable, and b) the bars could wrap to fit whatever display is in use?

But I appreciate this is probably too big a request, particularly as it appears not to have been raised by anyone else. This site is still brilliant. 🙂

Thanks for all your work Jeremy. I’m sure you realise how much the site is relied on and valued. Top man.

I’ll miss the midis too. Very useful when learning a tune from a mobile. Please keep them if you can. Otherwise it all sounds great. You’re a wonderful resource. Thanks so much for putting in all the efforts. MH Redfern NSW

Citizensheep, you do know you can print the sheet music?
MH, the MIDIs are definitely staying.

I didn’t realize this was the previous thread before the beta launch. I’m sure citizensheep is pleased with the outcome.

Thanks for all your work. Using an older Mac and Safari, I don’t seem to be able to view my whole tunebook as sheetmusic at once, as I love to do. Am I missing something?

Na éisc - Yes, I could print the sheet music (if I had a printer), but that’s a LOT of paper to carry around just in case I want to look up a tune 😉