Back from Ireland by way of Italy

Interesting night of music tonight. The session was at somebody's house in Mountain View, and it sort of sprawled across her large back porch. It was the sort of thing where you could see how the circle started with just a few people, and then more and more just sort of glommed on, without expanding the original circle. So it wasn't a very good setup for things like communication between musicians, or being sociable, and there were just a few too many people for my idea of a good session. Makes me appreciate Patrick's session a lot more. But it was still pretty fun, and I played banjo for a while so I could hear myself over everybody. The really nice parts of the evening were later on, though. The session had started fairly early, so people were drifting away by around 10:00 or so. Eventually it got down to just me and Art playing, with various people still around just hanging out. I got out my mandolin since I could be quieter then, and we had a number of fun tunes together. I really like just doing some one-on-one playing, in contrast to a large session. After a bit of that I was going to head home but found Gary, Jenna and Peter playing waltzes inside. I love hearing Gary play neat Italian tunes on his accordian. It makes me want to start playing that again. He even learned that beautiful, chromatic waltz from Bread and Tulips that I sent him (I had to re-learn it on the spot, though). So we did some more waltzes and a couple O'Carolan tunes before I finally went home for real. Very nice way to end the evening.