{"id":3787,"date":"2013-02-06T14:12:41","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T22:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=3787"},"modified":"2026-01-11T11:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T19:00:14","slug":"mentoring-in-the-world-of-hosting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/mentoring-in-the-world-of-hosting\/","title":{"rendered":"Mentoring in the world of hosting"},"content":{"rendered":"

All the best stuff I have learned about mentoring has been in the context of traditional culture, whether with indigenous Elders from Canada or in the traditional Irish music community. \u00a0Traditional Irish music is played and kept alive in a structure called a “sessiun.” \u00a0There is a repertoire of thousands of tunes, but most musicians who have played for a while will have a hundred or more in common, and that can easily make for a long evening of playing together. \u00a0Sessiuns are hosted by the most experienced musicians (traditionally a Fir a Ti, or Ban a Ti; the man or woman of the house). \u00a0These guys are responsible for inviting people in, inviting tunes, keeping a tempo that everyone can play with, resolving any conflicts\u201din short they are the hosts.<\/p>\n

But the best ones are also the teachers and the mentors and they dispense wisdom, lessons, encouragement and direction during and between tune sets. \u00a0If you are smart and you are learning you try to sit near them in the circle to pick up teachings.<\/div>\n
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With Irish music, the best mentors I ever had always did a few things well:<\/div>\n
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  • They were better musicians themselves than I could ever imagine myself to be<\/li>\n
  • They created space for me to play with them and gave me increasingly more responsibility from starting tune sets to perhaps playing a solo air to eventually sitting in for them if they couldn’t make it out to host a sessiun. \u00a0But they didn’t invite me to lead the session when I was just beginning.<\/li>\n
  • When they knew I had a set of tunes down they invited me to lead that set. \u00a0If I had a slow air they knew I could play, they would invite me to play a solo.<\/li>\n
  • They pointed out things that I could DO, rather than things not to do, and if they played flute (my instrument) they showed me on their instrument what they meant. \u00a0There was never any abstract conversations about the music or technique. \u00a0If I was doing something wrong, they would suggest an alternative (indigenous Elders, and especially Anichinaabe elders are very good at this. \u00a0There is something peculiar to traditional Anishinaabe culture that makes it very hard for an Elder to tell you NOT to do something. \u00a0They always point to doing something else.)<\/li>\n
  • They protected me from “hot shots” who like to show off by playing tunes too fast for you to play with them.<\/li>\n
  • And when I was ready I got invited into more and more responsibility with the sessions and was eventually invited to perform with them. \u00a0The day of becoming a colleague is a big deal, and I still feel that I can’t hold a candle to my teachers, even though they insist that we have moved into a co-mentoring relationship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
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    What was beautiful about all that was that, even when i became colleagues with my mentors I never lost the sense of gratitude of being able to play with them. \u00a0Even today 20 years later, it is a treat for me to play with those who taught me.<\/div>\n
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    Mentoring in the art of hosting, of leadership of working with groups is the same. \u00a0It is a traditional practice.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    All the best stuff I have learned about mentoring has been in the context of traditional culture, whether with indigenous Elders from Canada or in the traditional Irish music community. \u00a0Traditional Irish music is played and kept alive in a structure called a “sessiun.” \u00a0There is a repertoire of thousands of tunes, but most musicians who have played for a while will have a hundred or more in common, and that can easily make for a long evening of playing together. \u00a0Sessiuns are hosted by the most experienced musicians (traditionally a Fir a Ti, or Ban a Ti; the man …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[29,16,9,8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-of-hosting","category-leadership","category-learning","category-music","category-practice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-Z5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19753,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3787\/revisions\/19753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}