Oak: Irish Karaoke

The prevailing wisdom is that, in order to improve one's playing, one ought to play with musicians better than oneself. Sometimes it's possible to do that in sessions, and sometimes it's not. But here's a staggering revelation: Through the miracle technology of home audio equipment, it is always possible to play with the finest professional musicians in the world. And through the miracle of reissues, it's possible to play with many of the finest Irish musicians of the past eighty years.

I say this because I forget, sometimes, that learning tunes off albums is not the only reason to play along with them. Pure joy is an even better reason. I pulled out The Bothy Band's first album, which vies with the Clancy Brothers for credit as the spark that fired the modern bloom of traditional music here and in Ireland. I pulled it out because a guy I play with frequently these days plays a lot of tunes off it, and because I realized that not knowing every tune on that album is akin to a science-fiction writer not having a working familiarity with the seminal texts of her genre. I learned the first tunes I'd intended to, which was great and everything, but what really got me was playing the absolute most basic session jig (the Kesh) along with the band. My ghod, what a feeling. Those guys rocked. And I can sit in with them! In my own living room! Wheee!