What is regarded as the ‘best’ or ‘most useful’ as a session instrument?

I did a search on ‘best session instrument’, but didn’t find anything that addressed my question. A recent discussion here asked about what instruments people play - it would be interesting to survey that thread to discover the ranking of instruments played by thesession dot org participants.

It would also be interesting to know which instruments are thought by these participants to work best in a session. One ITM workshop teacher that I spoke with said that the piano accordion was best because it could play all the melodies as well as providing chordal accompaniment.

If it wasn’t for the lack of volume, I would say the mandolin is the best session instrument.

I know ‘best’ might not be the most specific, or best, word to use here, maybe appealing, versatile, loud, fast, and other terms could be used. Think of an average score of valid criteria for a given instrument. What do you think?

Apologies if this topic has been here before - I did do a search to try to avoid duplication, but maybe my search technique wasn’t adequate.

Whatever instrument happens to be in my hands at any given moment.

Depends on what you mean by “most useful”. My concertina is worthless as a soldering gun no matter which way I rotate it.

If I want to use my whistles as a blow dart gun, I have to take the head off and cover all the holes with tape. It’s very inconvenient.

I’d can see the case for piano accordion. Lots of mass, can be used to both to make music or to throw through a car window to rescue a pet from a hot car.

I’ve got to go with Uilleann pipes as my vote. I can make music, get my upper body workout, and impress the ladies with my open and closed techniques, all at the same time.

It’s teamwork isn’t it?

I like ’em all! But I especially loved it when the button box or concertina would show up at our local session…. just a very appealing sound to my ear for this music.

These are dangerous waters, and as you might suspect it’s been discussed before. I recommend reading this huge thread from 15 years ago started by a former curmudgeon no longer with us, as a starting point: https://thesession.org/discussions/6109#comment130446

My personal take is that there is no “best” but there are certainly more favored instruments by those artists who have preserved the tradition and moved it into the present day, and it’s not hard to figure out what those instruments are.

For me personally, I love my mandolin and I’m not giving it up, but there’s a reason I decided a few years ago to see if I could learn the “Irish” flute as a different perspective on the music.

Any instrument played well and tastefully. It’s all relative.

Now, for a mental experiment. Consider yourself sitting between two fiddles, one played well and the other badly. Does it make fiddle the best or worst instrument? Replace the well played fiddle with well played cello (in a session, right). Does it make cello a preferable session instrument? What about a bunch of banjos played at various levels and a really tasteful double bass suppoting ’em (again, in a session)?

In the easiest to take to the session the whistle comes out on top, although if there are players of the mouth organ/ocarina etc they may dispute that.

What a ‘former curmudgeon no longer with us’ suggested was:
top three (in no particular order):
pipes, fiddle and flute

second tier (in no particular order):
Tenor banjo, mandolin, button box (B/C), whistle, concertina.

next:
Piano accordian, harp, anything strummy, piano

next:
bodhran

The instrument that combines rarity with my liking it when well played is the cello.

If I had to choose an instrument for me to play other than those that I do, then it would be the fiddle.

A truly well played Guitar is a joy to play with. Sadly rarer than I like.

I am usually only ever conscious of a good bodhran player when they stop and I notice something is missing.

Joy is to be had playing along with any of the main session instruments played well. …Assuming I can keep up…

Mars makes a good point.

What’s most interesting is that this former curmudgeon used his gob as the primary instrument in any and all hierarchies 🙂

Obviously a melody instrument of some sort. You would need at least two players for a session, I’d suggest?

The best/most useful intrument is the one that is not played already too much in the session.
I like when there is no more than 3 fiddles, 2 whistles/flutes, 1 strummy, 1 percussion, …

Talking of our “former curmudgeon”, this is the thread in question.

https://thesession.org/discussions/6109

Of course, punters may have a different view on the matter as I suggested in a follow up thread.

https://thesession.org/discussions/10373

Apologies also to the much missed(She’s very alive though) Zina Lee for taking over her previous job as “Keeper of The Threads” . 🙂

Thinking about it from the standpoint of the capabilities of various instruments, there are instruments that have a wide dynamic range and instruments that are “go/no-go”.

On flute and fiddle you can play whisper-soft and still play at pitch. On uilleann pipes when you open a hole the note sounds at the volume it sounds at. You can’t play at half-volume.

On some instruments you can shift seamlessly between playing chords and playing distinct melody notes.

This all struck me years ago when at a session there was a fiddler who was incredibly good, and fast, at picking up tunes new to her. At first she was bowing the rhythm and fingering chords, very quietly. It was bang-on, she had those aspects nailed from the beginning. Next it was a matter of choosing which note of a chord to emphasise, and the tune soon emerged from the harmonic matrix. As chordal rhythm became melody she also increased her volume, and by the second time through few would imagine that the tune was new to her.

At no point did she “noodle” or sound like somebody searching for the tune. Never did I hear a false step. From the beginning her playing blended and sounded musical.

And there I sat with an uilleann chanter in my hands! Where you either know a tune or you don’t.

So “best” is mere opinion, but “most flexible” or “most capable” I think is fact.

Not entirely answering the question, but it could be the one that’s not there? So that might vary from session to session, depending on who turns up..
Like “it would be really useful to have just one accompanying instrument” (provided it’s played well and sympathetically) when everyone else is melody only.
Or you’ve got 12 fiddles but no mandolins or boxes or whistles.
It’s nice to have what a friend calls “a balanced band”.

You can also use a fiddle as an accompanying instrument though. 🙂

I know, but it doesn’t have the same “depth” as something in the lower register. However, one of our cellists went absolutely ballistic at our class tutor when the cellos were described as “rhythm section”!!

I don’t play the fiddle but I must say it is by far the most versatile instument in Irish music.

You can play loud or not, fast or slow, chords or melody, chop rythms, huge pitch range, glissando, vibrato. You can also sing at the same time and it is small enough to be carried everywhere.

Guitar struggles to play fast melodies, Flute can’t play chords, Box, harp and piano can’t do vibrato/glissando, …

I’m wondering what instruments will become mainstream in 22th century sessions …

Maybe the Chapman Stick =)? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CteD0kzpYeM

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It’s a lovely sound, the Chapman stick: a guy in a local band, Skirlie, plays one.

“Box, harp and piano can’t do vibrato/glissando..”

They can all gliss - I think you might mean portamento, or “slide,” “slur,” etc.

Boxes are often tuned, using multiple reed banks, to produce “vibrato” or “tremolo.”

“I’m wondering what instruments will become mainstream in 22th century sessions …” (Damien Rogeau) don’t know about 22nd, but for 21st - in the time of Covid - this might make wind players more acceptable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cezpVcPoKDs

play video

For those people who are interested in all this Zoom and other virtual session nonsense, the choice of instruments might be different.
It will no longer matter if you have a quiet instrument anymore and GHPs, accordions etc will no longer need to dominate. The mandolin will be King. 🙂

Also, it doesn’t matter where you sit either and you don’t have to worry about being next to a bodhran or the left side of a PA. 🙂

I think all of the “typical” instruments have a place in the right hands. I don’t think there is a best or most useful as a session instrument per se. That’s more down to the musician.

That said, it’s hard for me to not go with fiddle if we’re talking about the most versatile. Usually the sessions I go to around here have more fiddles than anything. They stack well since they aren’t incredibly loud. The have a broad tonal range. They are chromatic so they can play in any key. They have a lot of dynamic range for playing slow airs. They can be used to accompany to an extent. They allow you to sing or speak (or smoke back in the day hahah!) while playing. They don’t require your air like flute or whistle, so you don’t have to “break” the melody for breath. It has a long tradition and history as an instrument in Irish dance/folk music and many of the techniques and idioms of Irish music seem to have originated from fiddle or pipes. It has a good regional presence almost anywhere the music is played and unique developed regional styles in Ireland. As an added bonus, it is also well represented in many other kinds of music besides just Irish Trad and Folk. From the folk music of other nations, to classical music and even modern pop music.

Personally, I play the flute and whistle. I’m also obsessed with the sound of the pipes. I have no bias towards fiddle other than that I think it an extremely versatile and wonderful instrument.

David50 - WARBL! All the sound of a whistle with 75% less COVID-19! 🙂

Thanks for sharing my video!

Whistles -

Deal with it

This question has been laboriously studied and answered definitively by experts.
https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/top-5-irish-instruments-to-learn-to-make-a-trad-band/

All instruments can do glissando but all glisses aren’t created equal.

Glissando “sliding”
1) on the piano the fingernail is drawn rapidly over the keys…
2) on the harp the finger slides rapidly across the strings…
3) on instruments of the violin family the finger slides rapidly up or down the string…
4) on the trombone the glissando is played with the slide…
(New College Encyclopedia of Music)

As you see #1 and 2 are a rapid run up the scale, while #3 and 4 are a smooth bending of the note.

It’s got to be the guitar, surely? Most useful because you can pick one up fairly cheap, and if you have a few chords around D and G you can back whatever is being played, and you don’t even have to know the tunes. Also, they can be played quite loud so you can always hear yourself, whereas something like a mandolin might get lost if there are a lot of players. And with that volume, you can set the speed and rhythm of the session, which other players will appreciate as it helps them keep in time. The other thing is that there are sometimes a few guys drinking at the bar who want to join in with some real Irish songs like Dirty Old Town or Seven Drunken Nights, and with a guitar you can probably play along with them and that can help get the atmosphere in the pub going, where an instrument that only plays tunes, like pipes or something, wouldn’t be much use. And of course, nothing says ‘Cool Travelling Musician’ (er, like ‘Troubadour’) like walking into a pub with a well-gigged guitar case, especially if it’s got plenty of festival stickers on it.

Winner!

Bazza, I hope you’re being ironic. “you don’t even have to know the tunes” does not go down well with other musicians as there are few things worse than sitting within earshot of somebody who dosn’t know the tunes strumming along “quite loud” in oblivion. I’m sure that this approach will see your popularity reach a level you never believed possible.
PS a guitar case covered in festival stickers usually sets off an “idiot” alert in most people.

Pure class, Bazza.

Bazza - ironic, surely not??? By the way you forgot the Em chord , you only need 2 fingers so its p--s easy.

Three fingers if you want to do a Barré chord.

Of course, I was once advised early on that these have no place in Irish music.
🙂

"Three fingers if you want to do a Barré chord.

Of course, I was once advised early on that these have no place in Irish music."

Of course not, that’s what capos are for. 🙂

It’s got to be the guitar, surely? It has a full and distinctive sound for melody playing, and fits a place in the audio spectrum which doesn’t fight with other instruments. For tune playing, it has sustain that lends itself to slower pieces, and a percussive edge that works well at speed. As an accompanying instrument it’s probably more varied and flexible than the alternatives you sometimes see (bouzouki / piano / accordion). It can be strummed to add power to the rhythm, or picked to subtly fill the space behind the tune, or simply stroked to suggest a harmonic framework. That framework can be varied by the choice of tuning (DADGAD and EADGBE offer different possibilities, and there are many more besides) and by the approach to creating a constantly changing supportive structure to a tune by the way chords are chosen and varied as to inversion, or by introduction of upper partials. It can take the lead, or it can satisfactorily accompany pretty well any instrument that sets the tune off, be it fiddle, whistle, flute, pipes . . .

Of course, someone’s bound to suggest that to identify a particular instrument as ‘the best’ for sessions is simply to express a preference, and that in every case it’s the skill, sensitivity, and experience of the player(s) that makes the difference between enjoyable music and an oafish noise. But what do they know?

Bazza, the guitar is of course a fine melody instrument - John Doyle, early Paul Brady, Dick Gaughan, the late Arty McGlynn as well as countless bluegrass flatpickers [ ok, outside the scope of this website] but unfortunately it lacks the ‘cut’ required to play single string melodies in a session environment. It would be fine if all the
banjos, accordians, fiddles etc halved their volume but realistically thats not going to happen is it? I know, I’ve tried it, realized I was fighting a losing battle and just went back to tenor banjo and melodeon!

Although I am just a piano player, the other musicians at the local Irish Sessions seem to think I am useful.
The local old time folk music group says I am useful and needed but I play my acoustic string bass with them.

Laurence

If a session consists of players playing single line/single voice melodies, more or less in unison, without fixed chords then I would say each player chooses their *best instrument* based on their own abilities and experience with the instrument(s) they bring to the session.

I guess my last essay extolling guitar as a session instrument, was meant to express the view that AB sets out more concisely. That is, that the original question simply invites a discussion about personal preferences: clearly, the idea of a single, objectively-determined ‘best’ session instrument would be absurd. My last piece about guitars was really an attempt to balance an earlier rather cynical posting echoing the widely-held aversion to the inept guitar backing that is, regrettably, not unknown among sessioneers. I’d not want to cast any aspersions about the welcome session contributions made by the many very good guitar players that are around.

FWIW, my own preferences for session tools are fiddle and flute, BTW. (Tho’ the nyckelharpa has much to recommend it!). So much depends on the instrumental make-up of the company: If there are a dozen fiddlers - however expert - a banjo or box might be exactly the thing you would want in the mix. One session player I’ve come across brings a bassoon: possibly the ideal instrument to complement the melody players.

Bazza, interesting that you find the n-harpa an effective session instrument. I would think it would be a bit cumbersome. My favorite instrument to play is hardanger fdl, but I find it’s not a particularly good session instrument: while it just as easily plays the tunes, as any fiddle, its particular assets (complex resonant overtones, etc) are best illuminated in sparse settings - where one can hear its subtleties. (Similarly why wire harp is not the “best” ensemble tool.) Hdgfl works well on airs and such, but I don’t bring it sessions. Could you elaborate more on your deployment of nyckelharpa for sessions? I don’t believe I’ve heard it in this context.

My fiddle, then pipes

It’s really a subjective question, and one that allows for bias against and bias for a given instrument, as well as the ear of the listeners and the players, and the tune being played. Take the Chieftains for an example. Paddy Maloney is a very skilled Piper, and has equal skill upon the Whistle. Paddy chooses the instrument the song needs rather than just playing his pipes. I’ve no doubt he can play any tune in their catalog on either instrument, but he chooses what the song needs rather than focusing on one instrument to the exclusion of the other. Sometime, even switching between sections and medleys.

In response to catty’s Q about the nyckelharpa as a session instrument (above) . . . I guess the first thing to say is that almost all the sessions I go to (er . . went to) focus mainly on English & other U.K. music: I’ve heard Irish tunes played on it very nicely, but a lot of Irish music would be beyond my playing - apart from your Carolan and suchlike - although in the right hands it’s amenable to the fast stuff. But a lot of English, Shetland, Geordie, etc. tunes, are perfectly playable on a harpa: it has a full sound (inc. the famous resonance), fits in nicely with fiddles & boxes, and lends itself to some very nice harmony lines. And when there’s space for a party piece, it does have the presence and texture to hold its own on a tune. Having said that, I don’t try and use it all the time at a session - for variety’s sake, but mainly because I also enjoy playing other things. Yes, it is a bit cumbersome compared to a whistle or something, but then some people strap themselves into a set of pipes. I wouldn’t use a sousaphone, though.

Ah, thank you. I mean cumbersome more in a sonic sense. No doubt n-harpa is a lovely tool on which to give Carolan a go.

I’ll look for some examples of diddley on the nharpa. It’s one of my favorite instruments to hear. I’ve not many qualms about given traditional instruments delving into other realms; I play a bunch of Swedish and other (non-Nor) scand on hdgfdl - I particularly like the northumbrian or shetland tunes I’ve heard on hdgfl, caoimhin o’raghallaigh’s stuff, etc..

Bazza, my friend Preston Howard brought a variety of instruments over the time he played our local session; one of which was a bassoon. I did not make a recording of him playing bassoon. He also plays uilleann though, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZyiKRMqFto

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;)

It’s the pipes, of course. : )

Well the pipes, the Highland pipes, are certainly the best session instrument if the main goal is Social Distancing.

I think the kazoo is the best or most useful session instrument (he suggested jokingly).

Laurence

Richard, yeah, nothing like flattening everyone up against the walls for 4-5 minutes of audio assault! LOL

I’d have to say fiddle, since they also work well in combination with other fiddles.

I like sessions led by accordions since my favourite pre-COVId sessions were led by accordionists.

PA players Charlie Abel and Euan Reid in Aberdeen and button players Paddy Fitzgerald and Billy Moran (long gone now) in Melbourne all ran (and first three hopefully will again) very inclusive but good quality sessions with broad repertoire and were able to lay down a driving beat with the accordions that was easy for other players to blend with.

Mandolin is my instrument and has advantages for a traveller or even a lockdown stay-at-homer: it’s quiet enough to practise at home or on the road, easy to carry on plane or train and I eventually learned how to make a loud enough sound in a session with good instrument, strings, pick, technique and acoustic positioning.

I would say fiddle, if only because they are so prevalent and so much of the repertoire is composed for it…to the point you really notice it a lot if you play a woodwind that lacks the lowest notes typically found on the G string of the fiddle, or if you find yourself on the same woodwind unable to play along on certain tunes owing to the key in which they were composed or the construction of the melody itself. You have to be creative and solve the problems, or sit it out.

this is why it is a huge relief to unload a barrage of piping reels in D with drones and regs, that no one knows sometimes at a session…dose of their own medicine LOL

No matter how you interpret “best” I don’t think you’ll be able to find a definitive answer for this one. In my experience, the best sessions have a variety of instruments. I’m a fiddler, so I certainly have a preference for my own instrument, but when I’m in a session with almost all other fiddlers, I often wish I played something less common. If there’s too many whistles or flutes in one session, or too many bodhrans, or guitars, etc. I think its the same. One instrument isn’t “best” on its own; it has to be in the context of the other instruments in a session (and hopefully in the hands of a good player as well 🙂 )

Concertina.

-It’s small. (as opposed to guitar, banjo, etc)
-It’s loud enough to hold it’s own against reed instruments and loud enough to play in a bar setting. (try playing a fiddle next to accordion and pipes in a loud crowded room)
-It’s chromatic and can play virtually anything. (unlike tin whistle, keyless flutes and pipes)
-It has the full range needed for Irish music and then some. (unlike tin whistle, flutes, pipes)
-It’s got a solid “continuous” sound (personal preference…unlike banjo, mandolin)
-It has the right register for melody playing. (unlike…cello)
-It is well suited for playing quick and sharp ornaments (unlike…cello)
-It has a wide dynamic range. (unlike pipes, tin whistle)
-It isn’t annoying. (like piano accordion)
-It’s THE best instrument for playing polkas and slides
-It’s low maintenance (unlike pipes, fiddle)
-Doesn’t require air from mouth (like wind instruments)
-It’s hexagonal (unlike every other instrument)

Boom

Linguist3, you forgot to mention that you don’t have to tune a concertina (unlike tin whistle, keyless flutes. pipes, banjos, mandolins, cellos, fiddles, guitars).

Linguist3 go to 8 mins 30 secs or there abouts. That’s the stylish way to ‘do’ concertina. https://youtu.be/x438BleiQsc

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