In the last session of the conference the closing keynote was given: “TUNES: The Irish traditional music session as organizational model” by Micheal O Suilleabhain from the University of Limerick. The first thing to notice was that the whole setup has changed – instead of a screen for a video projector there were some music instruments placed on the platform.

The theme of the talk is “How does a (music) session work?”.

A reference: ‘Creative Process in Irish Traditional Dance Music’, in Irish Musical Studies 1: Musicology in Ireland. G. Gillen and H. White (eds). )Dublin: Irish Academic Press 1990)

Irish traditional dance music differs from Jazz music and symphony orchestras – collaboration and polyphony (Jazz) and power of uniformity (Symphony Orchestra) – “the uniformity of the bowing is the power in the string section” (even if the sound is off, one can see that it is a bad performance!)

Monophony in symphony orchestra: The musicians are submerging parts of their individuality (for the purpose of the music)

In contrast monophony (as a team) in traditional Irish dance music: Harmophony – Musicians play together – more or less the same (monophony), but every one keeps some individuality – in the tradition of the music and in coordination/cooperation with the co-musicians.

The musicians are not payed – they play with their backs to the audience – they are playing for themselves (interesting connection to Social Software!) – there are even musicians that act as lurkers, or join in later, …

Characteristics of a session: Some “rules/conventions/patterns” that form the “architecture” of the music; there is no leader (everybody can take initiative to develop monophony into a different direction); additionally there is a lot of individuality in playing the music (when to breath, when to set breaks, … – “identity markers”)

“Creative process that informs the music”

I do not know if I got everything right / made it understandable for anybody who has not been here … A great and inspiring talk! With live music to demonstrate the concepts.

A quote from Micheal about teaching (to a teacher): “you will grow older but your students will stay the same age all the time …”

A quote about being late (from the one who is late and is questioned because of it): “you have the clock, I have the time”

And that was it … But “after the conference is before the conference” – next ECSCW will take place from September 7th to September 11th 2009 in Vienna – see web site of ECSCW 2009.

With that my blog will switch back from (bad) English [the language of science ;-)] to German – So, bye to my English readers.