Barry Foy: A Field Guide to the Irish Music Session

This review first ran on Green Man Review.

This new book by Barry Foy could have been titled “Everything you ever wanted to know about Irish session music but didn’t know you needed to ask.” This amusing little book is full of information about what happens when Irish session musicians get together to play. And it’s one of the cutest, most intelligent books on Irish music I’ve ever had the privilege as a fiddler to encounter. Every musician who plays Irish music should read this book, along with Ciaran Carson’s Last Night’s Fun: In and Out of Time with Irish Music.

What are the musicians’ preferred instruments for playing Irish reels? (Foy claims that reels are the forte of most sessions, but he also notes that any good musician must be prepared to play jigs, polkas, and even strephshays when need be.) Why is an Irish music session not a jam session? If you’re a musician, what is the proper session etiquette? Can you spit on the floor? And when should you not expect to be part of a session? And why is listening to even the finest recordings of Irish music often no substitute for the bona fide thing? (Live music is always better than recorded if only because you don’t know what to expect.) Foy answers these questions and more in a humorous, breezy style that provides many a clue to the character of an Irish music session.

Reading Field Guide to the Irish Music Session may or may not assist you in keeping your neighbourhood sessions on track, but it will give fans of Irish sessions a much better understanding of a session’s ever and again Byzantine workings. The glossary introduces readers with little knowledge of Irish music to the basic instruments used, as well as key terms. Foy has a wicked sense of humor, as demonstrated by his definition of a fiddle: “Identical to a violin, except when it’s played by a violinist, in which case it’s a violin,” or of a bodhran: “Ireland’s contribution to the world of percussion. A large, single-headed hand drum that no one wants to hear but everyone wants to play.”

One of my favourite lines is this on why a poor performance might be greeted by praise: “a desire to stay on the player’s good side because, despite his/her second-rate musicianship, you still find him/her very sexy and attractive and are hoping for a chance to slip your hand down his/her Levi’s before the night is through.” Have I mentioned that this is a short (95 page) book with lots of charming illustrations? I think you could easily read it in an hour or so while drinking a Guinness at your favourite pub.

For those who consider themselves aficionados, the latter part of Field Guide to the Irish Music Session ferrets out the technical matters of a session. In Irish traditional music — as with any folk music that involves music made by multiple players in an informal setting — there is always much more going on — musically and in a community sense — then at first meets the eye and ear. This jocular guide will help you get the most out of this form of folk music. And please don’t ask the vocalist to sing “Danny Boy!”

(Robert Rinehart Publishers, 1999)