Saturday, December 09, 2006

Ehh...I'm Not Sure I'm Interested Now

Being interested in playing with others, I checked out the folkjam website and saw a few things in the Boston area, including an Irish "Slow session" Seisiun.

Not being that knowledgeable about Irish music, I did a web search and found this site which had info and etiquette. In reading it, I started to feel a little unwelcome, particularly as a guitar player. It starts out friendly enough:
Seisiúns are usually open to anyone that wants to join in provided they already know how to play Irish traditional music.

but then goes on:
...you might want to observe it first

...if you don't know the tunes that are being played you wouldn't want to try to play them…

...Trying to learn the tunes at the same time others are trying to play them can be very annoying…

...be careful when joining a session not to start tunes without being asked

…not disturb the way that the music flows.


I'm sure that it's annoying to have people turn up that have no idea what they are doing and bang away, but at the same time, it seemed a little rough. Or maybe I'm too insecure and sensitive.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

I'm Sure That I Need One

Gibson's HD.6X-Pro Guitar System (or Ethernet Guitar) is finally out, and it's only going to cost $5,000. Along with a Cat5 cable you get the ability to transfer string data from all six strings, and it's only going to cost $5,000. The Breakout Box, known as “BoB,” routes any combination of the six Hex signals to any assigned destination automatically detecting outputs and designations for ease of use and playability, and it's only going to cost $5,000.

Actually, the Eric Clapton "Blackie" copy makes this look like a bargain.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Looking to Jam?

www.folkjam.org is a growing list of user contributed jam sessions. Anybody can post the details of jam sessions, though they do review every post to make sure it is appropriate for the site and not spam. Just enter your zip code and see what you get!

Note: I've had various problems with different browsers when I use this site. Some don't load it at all, and on others I hade to refresh the browser to get it to load. So if you go to the site and see nothing, don't assume that the site is down.