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[Grape Ape]

As an American who has not been to England since childhood, I was wondering if this group could help me to visualize what goes on at sessions and other melodeon related English events.  I live in a free reed VOID for the most part and play only alone or occasionally with other non free reed musicians.  While this makes German ebay way more fun (who cares what key the damn thing is in), I would really like to better understand the English take on the melodeon and what it means to you all.  After 3-4 years on this site, I am still confused as to the difference between Morris and Ceilidh, and still clueless to what goes on at these "sessions " I am always hearing about, which sound fantastic, by the way.  I am thinking the best way to help me understand is through words and more importantly videos of such things taking place.  Someday I would like to get over there and see for myself, but that day probably won't be soon....

Many thanks in advance for sharing

[Jack Campin]

Scottish version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNz0135kOis

The Shand Morino player is Norman Mackay and that's his tune "The Montreal Fiddler" at about 2:40.  (I can sort of play that, I don't recognize the others).

[Thrupenny Bit]

Morris is a ritual dance performed by people for an occasion.
As a gross generalisation - There are 3 basic types:
Cotswold - often performed in sets of 6 ( can be more or less ) or as a solo dance called a jig. Use wavers ( not hankies! ) or sticks. The music, depending on the 'tradition' ( which Cotswold village it was originally collected ) can vary and be intricate to allow the dancers to dance the steps correctly. YouTube Great Western, Hammersmith, Windsor, Berkshire Bedlam and others.
North West - from the NW of England, often in long processions with a more regimented style, sometimes wearing clogs. The music tends to be more uniform and not as styalised as some Cotswold dances. YouTube  Chiltern Hundreds, Earlsdon
Border - a relative new comer, brought into the limelight by Shropshire Bedlams, conceived and brought into the modern era by John Kirkpatrick around 1974. The music  is almost a mix of the two other styles. YouTube Shropshire Bedlams.
There are many other morris sides in England tons in fact, and a lot on YouTube.

Ceilidh in English terms is possibly more helpfully called a Barn Dance. It generally starts with the caller of the dance asking for  couples to the floor, the caller then walks the dancers through the dance. The music starts and the caller continues to call the dance throughout. To my mind, the classic English dance is a step-hop. The form tends to be shapes and movements as opposed to concentrating on steps.
I have attended ceilidhs in Dublin ages ago. In contrast, the caller announced the dance, checked the sets of dancers were complete and the band started. No calling through or during the dance as simply, all the dancers knew the dance so didn't require it! My impression was that in many ways there was a greater concentration on stepping as opposed to shapes.
Both are my personal opinions here.
Check out bands such as All Blacked Up, now known as The Iron Masters, Diatonics, Old Swan Band are classics having been around at the beginning as were a now sadly defunct Flowers and Frolics -  and many more that have slipped my mind!

Just shooting from the hip here, early in the morning. All the morris and bands are people I know hence they come to mind easily, there are a lot of others and people from other regions will have other favourites.
Check out YouTube.
Also being a cousin from across the pond, google 'Marlboro Ale' for your local morris sides. A great event, went and danced there last year!
Hope this is of some help. I'll let others fill in about sessions.
cheers
Q

[Lester]

You missed out Molly as a form of morris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuaTOy5blY0

[Thrupenny Bit]

Yes Lester, I realised that after posting, but also thought I'd rambled on long enough! Thanks for the correction.
Your link takes you to Ouse Washes who I've only seen a couple of times but enjoyed. At the time both Ollie and Owen of this parish played for them.
Another YouTube search for Seven Champions would be good.
I first met them in '78/9 dancing in Canterbury when they were first establishing themselves and I have a feeling they were the first of the 'new wave' of Molly?
They have certainly ploughed a path for molly in general over the years......though I know Champs would be horrified to be called morris!!!!
cheers
Q

[TomB]

I just started looking for English melodeon sessions on youtube and they are not too evident. Lots of sessions with fiddlers, concertinas and PA boxes but it took a while to get youtube to yield its store of English sessions. Melodeon players don't often seem to video their sessions, lots if Irish and Scottish and even one of an english player in an Irish pub, lots of single melodeons and duets, but where are the melodeon sessions? I started to strike paydirt when I looked for Sidmouth Sessions, and there they were. try this one for starters..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6fv_oX4TOE

[Thrupenny Bit]

The Radway session is a renown  session taking place during Sidmouth Folk Week.
With a week long festival and people coming and going, it can change in a blink of an eye from a really good honking session to one where there might be only a few people playing. I've done it myself, sat down in a good packed session then sometime later realise I have a commitment elsewhere and go, returning a while later to see a different collection of people playing another set of tunes.
I am always amazed that there is such diversity of tunes from around our island. I tend to only play what we play in my local session and forget it's not the same elsewhere!
If a generally 'southern' lot are in then I'm ok, but if it changes to somewhere north then though I often love the tunes I don't know them so struggle to join in with gusto. I often come back with a tune set or more to learn for next year!

One point - unless it's a Melnet meet or a specialist 'Flat Session' for Bb/Eb boxes, I know of no 'melodeon only' sessions. Most are mixed - fiddles, concertinas, melodeons sometimes some woodwind and brass. I've often had the pleasure of playing with an excellent cello player in the Radway putting a beautiful low bass adding to the tunes, along with a bank of top English style fiddles and several good players from this parish. All quite exhilarating and refreshingly different to my local session.
Q

[Jack Campin]

You should find some melodeon among the many YouTube videos of the Blaxhall Ship in Suffolk.  Probably all in C...

[Theo]

Sessions are very varied, as varied as the people who go to them.  Festival sessions are very different from regular local sessions.  Sometimes they get too big and all the players can't hear each other. Sometimes a session with a handful of people can be great fun, but there needs to be a core of players who can keep a good rhythm. 

If you do find your way to some sessions then talk to the people there, introduce yourself to your neighbours,  ask how that session works, and keep listening!

[pbsalt]

As Theo has said music sessions in England  ( as opposed to a specifically  English music session") are very varied and could be of predominantly Irish,  Scandinavian or French tunes besides English tunes, or could be a mix of anything depending on the taste of the regulars.   Sometimes there's singing involved as well. 
Whilst most of the ones I have been to have a high component of free-reed instruments ( usually mainly melodeon)  one of my favourite sessions is a mix of bagpipes, mandolins. hurdy gurdy with hardly any melodeons ( and does play a high proportion of English tunes). 
Without some local knowledge or contact it can be hard for a non local English person to find a session which would suit them  whilst visiting an unfamiliar part of the country.   

[sticky fingers]

Gosh (polite term!), that Radway clip certainly stirs the blood, Its just about the only pub in England that can get away with (during festival time!) a full on Racist comment posted in the window!,  No Irish need Apply.      sf.

[Gromit]

The woman having a kip in the middle about sums it up - do any young people go to these beginners sessions? - no Irish need apply eh, racist indeed but not much chance of it needing to be enforced 

[Theo]

And funnily enough two obviously Scottish tunes in the video.

[Thrupenny Bit]

Hmmmm.... the Age Question!
The age range at sessions varies enormously, as does the age range across the folk world.
There's a huge amount of people that got caught up in the '70's folk and morris revival that found it a life changing thing and also a journey for life. Going to Sidmouth I will meet people from all across the country and will only meet them once a year at that festival. A lot of our kids go along and the new generation are acting in a similar way, meeting/making friends and mirroring our experiences in life. Amongst these are some incredibly good young players of a variety of instruments.
It is also becoming an international thing amongst young folkies. Through the annual US Marlboro Ale and morris connections established over the years, we are now regularly getting a group of younger people either dancing as a booked side ( rapper, morris etc ) or simply over for the fun and to meet friends from that established  link.

Back to that session - It's just at that moment in time in that video those in the Radway playing were of the older generation. Click your fingers, the session changes and others possibly including younger players are just as likely to be sat playing. People of my generation remember the Radway from years back and will head that way. We will meet people in there we only see at the Radway during the folk festival.
People come from all over the country and beyond. A couple of years back some had come to play from Japan, brandishing lovely Van der Aa's as I remember. A couple of Scottish tunes surfacing merely reflects those leading at the time were further north than me!
Q

[Caroline]

A couple more comments on that video.
Firstly as I didn't watch it closely I didn't see the 'irish' comment on the board but I do remember variations of it being written up - looking back now it was a not very pc attempt to keep the music predominantly an English tunes session, the Anchor being the venue for Irish tunes.  The person mainly responsible for writing it, although still a Sidmouth regular doesn't frequent the Radway as much.
Although the clip is titled 2015 I seriously question the date as the 'Irish' thing was dropped several, if not many years ago.  Also I saw myself walk across at one point and I'm pretty sure I gave up wearing a particular item of clothing pre 2015
Finally the 'woman having a kip' is Alison ? Well known to Radway regulars and her kip is no reflection on the session, it happens spontaneously, sometimes md tune on melodeon or whistle.  Those who know her just accept it and would make sure she doesn't come to any harm from falling over, though I've never seen her come too close.
Oh and I don't believe the Radway session has ever been regarded as a beginners session.

Caroline

[Thrupenny Bit]

Caroline - we must recognise each other!
Yes, it's never been a beginner's session though as said the people playing will change frequently and therefore the level of player's ability will fluctuate as will repertoire.
Didn't make it last year for once, will be there next year as often as possible, depending on other festival commitments.
Q

[Anahata]

Thanks for putting the record straight on Alison MacFarlane - I think the term for her disorder is narcolepsy, which makes you fall asleep randomly during the day. She is a live wire in the St Albans folk scene and runs the annual "New Roots" competition for young folk musicians, which is a thoroughly excellent enterprise.
As for the 'no Irish' thing: you have to understand the history of the Radway session. Back in the 1970s nobody had heard of English music except for Playford and morris tunes. Ceilidh bands in England nearly all played Irish, American and Scottish tunes. English dance music was rediscovered by the people who founded bands like Flowers and Frolics, Umps and Dumps, The Old Swan and New Victory Bands, including such luminaries as John Kirkpatrick, Rod Stradling, Bob Cann and Pete Coe. There was relentless "Celtic" music going on in all the usual session pubs in the centre of Sidmouth and the English music specialists found a quiet place out of town (it seemed that way then) where they could get together and swap tunes. It was all the more frenetic at the time because the pubs only had limited opening hours. This and events like the English Country Music Weekend every June (which started soon afterwards, I believe) were the prototypes for what we call an "English Music Session" now.
Of course the whole thing has become diluted over time, and new players who come in to the Radway don't know the history. And its work is done, since England's own folk tradition is widely recognised now.
The Radway blackboard used to have other prohibitions as the week went on, like "No more Morpeth Rant/Iron Legs/Princess Royal" etc., listing tunes that had been done to death already that week.

[Thrupenny Bit]

I only started practicing morris  in '77 so wasn't around at the very beginning of the revival. I jumped onto the wave of English stuff soon after and was aware that we were having to learn how to play English music again. I hadn't witnessed the wall to wall Celtic music times.

Back to the OP:
You've said you are in the US, but not an approximation of where.
It occurs to me if you are anywhere near Boston, or NY, there are several active morris groups there and the Marlboro Ale is based in Marlbro Vermont. Contacting the Ale might well open a door for local morris and perhaps sessions that might be of help.
Though you might well be miles away!
Q

[Jack Campin]

The Radway session does like fun, but it displays the common problem with multi-melodeon sessions - no two free-reeds are tuned in quite the same way.  The more melodeons included, the grittier the overall sound gets (not so much wet tuning as a sonic jacuzzi).  For some music this is not a big problem, but it does limit the repertoire that will work listenably.

[Chris Brimley]

I'm slightly reluctant to post this, but I suspect 'the revival' was a rather melodeon-related term - I learned to play social dance music in England in the 70's and 80's following the guidance of an excellent and eclectic English violinist, who was playing for barn dances in the 50's and 60's, using violin and piano accordion mainly.  He found the melodeon-related resurgence of social dance in the 70's and 80's inspiring and wonderful, but the suggestion that nothing was happening before then is not actually the case.  OK, cocoas and campfires may have been greatly involved, but we do have a continuous tradition through this period, let's not forget it!