There are many ways to get involved in the community that surrounds you. Many people choose volunteering for organizations or political parties, but there is a way to get involved that can have a much more meaningful impact on an individual. Getting involved in community music sessions is a great way to grow as a single person, and help shape your community. As an individual you can learn new music, and with that you can learn discipline and confidence building. While improving yourself, you help build strong communities by getting involved at the grassroots level.
At the Runcible Spoon, an Irish-like pub in Bloomington, Indiana, every Tuesday a group of people meet to play Irish folk music. The people who attend vary in age from young twenties up to middle aged and older. They’re musical abilities fluctuate from person to person. The instruments that can be found there include whistles, flutes, drums, guitars, accordions, Irish bag pipes, and fiddles. Each of these instruments makes the music interesting to listeners. In this set up someone who is just learning an instrument would be welcomed with open arms by the patrons. It is very much a participatory environment, with little to no hierarchy.
While observing the musicians, I noticed that the behavior trait they all possess is one of respect. There are no boundaries between a professional level musician, and someone just learning how to play. The environment is very calm, and so are the musicians. Everyone listens to each other and no one person has say over another person. If someone did not know the tune they could ask to be taught, figure it out on their own, or just sit the song out. There is very little pressure on the musicians.
The songs that were being played were of Irish decent. The music that I heard was all instrumental with no vocal part, although a woman did sing a solo that she had learned while doing out of the country. The music is very simple. Simple melodies and simple structures are what make the pieces so easy for everyone to join in and play. I heard multiple songs while there. There was no real structure to the performance it seemed, but upon asking the musicians one can see that there is a structure even though it is light. One person leads the group, and that is usually the person who starts the first melody. In this case it was Grey Larsen, a very famous Irish flute player. The person who starts the first melody is then in charge of the next few melodies. He or she signals the coming of a new tune with eye contact or physical gestures.
I believe this type of community involvement is the best. People are so passionate about their music, so that when you join your music with others, the connection you feel with others goes much deeper than other types of community activities. I think that people who are involved in musical sessions are the people who are most likely to have an impact on our local communities and how they are run, and eventually how our nation is run. The reason being, since people are so deeply rooted to their music that the morals of the music are applicable to the morals they practice in their life. I think the participants in these sessions are greatly impacted every time they meet up to play music because each and every time a bond is built, or made stronger. If every person had this kind of connection to music and community then the community could become more relationship friendly.
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