The Scottish Session

The Wednesday Slow Session

The Wednesday Slow Session has been active for about three years now. It had its origins in an evening class started by Nigel Gatherer under the auspices of The ALP Scots Music Group (www.alpscotsmusic.org). Nigel, who had played in Edinburgh sessions for a while, was concerned that while sessions were a great place for playing informally with other people, they could be elitist and unfriendly. Learners were easily put off by "WTPTF" (weird tunes played too fast). The idea of the evening class was to build up a repertoire and learn to play with other people. That, after all, was the whole point of learning traditional music, reasoned Mr Gatherer.

After the beginnings of a repertoire was established, the Slow Session ventured into the big bad world. Our first venue was the basement of a restaurant. Ideal in some ways because very few people used the basement, and our timid, novice sessioneers felt secure enough to play. In time we moved to a local hotel, then to a few pubs in the centre of Edinburgh. At present the Wednesday Slow Session is now at The Green Room at Bennett's Bar, Tollcross.

• Session participants
• Repertoire