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Bodhrán Release Notes

What has changed in the bodhrán accompaniment app since version 1.1.0. The version number shows next to the title in the app, so you can check which one your phone or browser is running.

  • 1.1.0 → 1.10.3 over eleven days, 26 September – 6 October 2026
  • 36 → 151 automated checks
1.10.36 Oct

Reels up to 240

  • A reel’s tempo now goes up to 240 (counted per crotchet), the speed of a fast session. It stopped at 160.
  • At the fastest tempos the drum damps its strokes, as a player’s hand does, so each up-stroke is still heard arriving.
1.10.23 Oct

Drum strokes let go

  • Each drum stroke is let go once it has rung out, part of looking into Safari’s memory over long sessions.
1.10.13 Oct

A tidier Play panel

  • The Sound check line under Play is hidden. Add ?soundcheck to the app’s address to see it again.
1.10.02 Oct

A less electronic drum

  • The dum no longer swoops down almost an octave as it starts, the sound of an electronic kick drum. A struck goatskin settles only a little, and now so does this one.
  • It rings like a drumhead: the skin’s higher notes ring under the low one and die away sooner, a little different every stroke, with the goatskin’s own slap in the middle. Listen for woodier, less zip.
  • Just as loud as before, with the same balance of strokes, and more of it comes through a phone’s speaker.
  • No clipping at full volume and room. Everything is a shade quieter (0.6 dB) to keep it clear.
1.9.22 Oct

Offline copy made safe on bad wifi

  • On slow wifi, Session Buddies and the guitar demo could be given a mix of old and new files and play nothing. They now always get a matching set.
  • The offline copy can no longer be lost when the app is reloaded twice quickly, or saved half-updated just after an update.
  • Opening the app offline from an old link or bookmark works.
1.9.12 Oct

Your settings remembered, and the screen kept on

  • The sliders (volume, tuning, tone, room and the rest) are remembered again. They had been going back to their defaults every time the app opened.
  • The drone on its own now keeps the phone’s screen on, as the drum does.
1.9.01 Oct

Swing you can set by ear

  • The Swing slider now reads long against short, from 50:50 (straight) to 70:30, instead of a percentage.
  • Hornpipes start a little more swung, at 64:36. Barndances stay at 57:43.
  • Each tune type keeps the swing you set for it, and for a hornpipe or barndance the slider shows in Basic.
1.8.11 Oct

Session Buddies

  • Session Players is now called Session Buddies, and the foot of the page links to its new address.
1.8.01 Oct

Green and gold

  • A new colour scheme: deep green for what you press and what is playing, gold for names, and dark grounds with a hint of green, in place of the amber and browns.
  • Shared by the guitar demo, Session Players and these notes. Every piece of text stays easy to read.
1.7.130 Sep

Switch to Session Players

  • The foot of the page now switches between the app and Session Players.
1.7.030 Sep

A longer count-in

  • The count-in now starts at two bars, time to start the drum and pick up your instrument. A new four-bar choice gives more.
  • The bar counter counts the lead-in (“count-in 1 of 2”), so you can see when the drum comes in.
  • A count-in you had already chosen yourself is kept.
1.6.629 Sep

Safari’s other way to the speaker

  • In Safari on a Mac, the app’s sound now goes to the speaker the way a song or video plays, instead of straight out. When a Safari tab went silent, the sound check said the app was making sound: Safari was losing it. In that tab, sound sent this other way still played, and brought the direct way back.
  • Chrome and the iPhone are unchanged.
1.6.529 Sep

Sound check

  • While it plays, a line under Play says whether the app itself is making sound, and how loud. If it says it is and you hear nothing, the sound is being lost in Safari, not in the app.
1.6.429 Sep

A stronger Safari wake-up

  • In Safari on a Mac, each Play now sends a second of sound too quiet to hear, in place of a twentieth of a second of silence. A plain one-second audio file is what got a silent tab going again; the old wake-up didn’t.
  • The sound test page has a new button, F, for trying just the wake-up, and says what to press when the app has gone silent.
1.6.329 Sep

Lets go of the speaker when stopped

  • Stopped, with the drone off, the app lets go of the speaker a few seconds after the last stroke, and takes it back on the next Play. Before, a stopped tab kept its audio open, and the Mac from sleeping on its own, for as long as it stayed open.
  • Each Play now starts Safari’s sound afresh. It didn’t cure the silent tab (see 1.6.4).
1.6.228 Sep

No stumble in a background tab

  • In Safari, a tab left playing behind another tab in the same window used to stumble: Safari slows a background tab’s timers to about once a second, even while it plays. The drum now plans several seconds ahead the moment its tab is hidden. Stop still stops at once.
  • The bar display and counter show the bar being heard, so they don’t run ahead of the music when you come back to the tab.
1.6.128 Sep

One fix, shared

  • The fix for Mac Safari going silent after sleep now lives in one place, shared with the guitar demo, so the two can’t drift apart. The app sounds just the same.
1.6.028 Sep

Guitar backing demonstration

  • A separate page at /guitar/, apart from the app: The Kesh, from setting 1 on thesession.org, with a synthesised guitar backing.
  • Turn the guitar, the tune (a flute) and the bodhrán on and off, choose a lilting or a driving strum, and set the tempo and how many times through.
  • The chord chart lights the bar being played, and each chord’s shape is drawn, in drone voicings that keep D and G ringing on the top strings.
1.5.228 Sep

These release notes

  • This page, on the app’s own site and linked from What’s new in the About.
  • Offline, every page on the site now comes from its own saved copy. Before, any page other than the app itself came up as a broken copy of the app.
1.5.128 Sep

Waltz length

  • Waltzes now start at 64 bars, since their parts are usually 16 bars long. Every other tune type starts at 32.
1.5.028 Sep

Play it N times, then finish

  • New Length (16, 32, 48 or 64 bars) and Play it (until I stop, or 1 to 6 times) settings under the bar display. Each tune type remembers its own length.
  • On the last time through, the drum lands one final stroke on beat 1 of the tune’s last bar, with your final note, and stops.
  • The counter follows the tune, for example “bar 13 of 32 · time 2 of 3”.
  • Lowering the number part-way through ends at the end of the time you’re on.
1.4.028 Sep

Basic and Advanced controls

  • A Basic / Advanced switch under the title. Basic is the default and shows the everyday controls: tempo, tune type, rhythm, the bar display, count-in, volume and the drone.
  • In Basic, each panel lists what it keeps back (“More in Advanced: tuning, tone, back hand, room”), and tapping that line opens Advanced right there.
  • Hidden settings still work, and Basic flags any that have been changed from where they started.
1.3.328 Sep

Mac Safari silence fixed

  • After the Mac slept, a Safari tab could go silent while looking as if it was playing, however often it was reloaded. Pressing Play now wakes the sound.
  • Added a sound test page, /tests/sound.html, for tracking down silent playback.
1.3.228 Sep

iPhone setting kept to the iPhone

  • The setting that lets an iPhone play with its silent switch on no longer runs on the Mac, where it has no job.
1.3.127 Sep

B for the drone, and small fixes

  • Added B to the drone, for tunes in B minor.
  • Typing a tempo outside a tune type’s range now shows the range, instead of changing it without a word.
  • Arrow keys move between tune types and between rhythms on the Mac.
  • Count-in clicks are sent to GarageBand, on their own note (side stick, 37), so they never sound like drum strokes.
  • Changing tune mid-bar no longer resets your swing until the next bar.
1.3.027 Sep

Back hand

  • New Back hand control, off by default: the player’s other hand pressing the skin from inside. It raises the pitch and shortens the ring, following one arc across each phrase, so the fill falls in pitch into the next one.
1.2.027 Sep

Finish

  • New Finish button, or the F key, plays to the end of the phrase and ends with one stroke on beat 1 of the last bar. Press it again to carry on.
  • Fixed: the count-in bar used to count as a bar of the tune, so every fill landed a bar early, on bars 3 and 7.
1.1.127 Sep

Fixes and more patterns

  • Fixed the slide’s only fill, which played a whole bar squashed into two beats.
  • Added fills and busy bars for slides, barndances, hornpipes and slip jigs.
  • Stop now silences strokes that were already queued.
  • Changing tune waits for the next bar, and no longer plays the old tune’s pattern under the new one.
  • The About text matches the current layout, and the GarageBand panel is one line on iPhone.

Guitar demo

The guitar backing page at /guitar/ had its own version number, shown next to its title. It was retired on 3 October 2026.

Guitar demo retired3 Oct

Retired, in favour of Session Buddies

  • Session Buddies does all the demo did, with any tune, and The Kesh opens there on a first visit. The demo’s address now points to Session Buddies and the Bodhrán app.
Guitar demo 1.12.02 Oct

The new drum

  • The app’s new bodhrán (1.10.0): no swoop, a skin that rings like a drumhead.
Guitar demo 1.11.12 Oct

Screen kept on

  • The phone’s screen stays on while the demo plays.
Guitar demo 1.11.01 Oct

A smoother guitar

  • No more metallic edge: each string starts from a soft pick and settles warm as a real one does, set against a real guitar chord.
Guitar demo 1.10.01 Oct

Green and gold

  • The app’s new colours.
Guitar demo 1.9.429 Sep

Safari’s other way to the speaker

  • The same route to the speaker as the app’s 1.6.6, in Safari on a Mac.
Guitar demo 1.9.329 Sep

Sound check

  • The same sound check line as the app, under Play.
Guitar demo 1.9.229 Sep

A stronger Safari wake-up

  • The same Safari wake-up as the app’s 1.6.4: a second of sound too quiet to hear.
Guitar demo 1.9.129 Sep

Lets go of the speaker when stopped

  • Stopped, the demo lets go of the speaker once the last notes ring out, and takes it back on the next Play, the same as the app.
Guitar demo 1.9.029 Sep

DADGAD drones on D

  • In DADGAD, the open low D and top D now drone under every chord: G, C and Em are played over the open low D, the way DADGAD backing is known for. Before, G and C started on their own roots as in standard tuning, which is why the two tunings sounded alike.
  • The low D now sounds in every bar, 5 to 11 dB under the whole guitar; before, it was 35 to 44 dB down in the G and C bars. The chord chart is unchanged.
  • The “ring through changes” switch is gone: it was heard in only two bars, and it thinned the sound where a note was struck again. “Ring in sympathy” stays.
Guitar demo 1.8.128 Sep

A drone you can hear

  • Ringing through was barely audible: the open low D only faded under the C. Left unmuted, it is now struck along with the new chord, so in DADGAD the low D drones through the C in bars 3 and 7 of the A part.
Guitar demo 1.8.028 Sep

Open strings ring through chord changes

  • A string the next chord leaves out is only stopped if it was fretted; ringing open, it carries on under the new chord. In DADGAD, as D goes to C in the A part, the open low D now rings on under the C.
  • An open string struck again carries on into the new stroke instead of being cut off. A switch turns both off and on, to compare.
Guitar demo 1.7.028 Sep

Open strings ring in sympathy

  • On a real guitar the open strings hum along with the notes they share, which is much of what makes DADGAD sound like DADGAD. The demo’s guitar now does this, with a switch to compare.
  • Neither tuning is favoured: each open string rings as much as it is in tune with the others. DADGAD, with more strings open, all D, A and G, rings noticeably more, most of all on its open-fifth D.
Guitar demo 1.6.028 Sep

Bass runs off, for now

  • The bass runs are taken off the page: no runs, no switch, no marks in the chart. The work behind them is kept, so they can come back.
Guitar demo 1.5.028 Sep

Thumb-plucked bass runs

  • The run notes are rebuilt as a low string plucked with the thumb. They used to start from a burst of noise, which made them sound synthesised; now each starts from the bend a thumb puts in the string, so its tone is clean and round.
  • The string vibrates two ways at once for a natural shimmer and long tail, its pitch settles the way a plucked string’s does, and the guitar’s body rings along with it.
Guitar demo 1.4.228 Sep

Heavier, darker bass runs

  • The runs still sounded bright and a bit weak. Their notes now come from a string that loses its top as it rings, the way a real one does, with a rounder attack, more thumb than pick tip.
  • They sit a few dB above the strums, as a bass line should, instead of level with them.
Guitar demo 1.4.128 Sep

Bass runs that sound like a guitar

  • The runs sounded like a piano: picked alone, their notes stayed as bright half a second in as at the start, the way a piano’s do. A guitar string starts bright and settles warm.
  • The run notes now have their own voice: a firm pick near the bridge that darkens as it rings, a knock from the guitar’s top, more low end, and more level, so they sit with the strums instead of under them.
Guitar demo 1.4.028 Sep

Bass runs between chords

  • On the last beat before a chord change, three single bass notes walk up into the new chord: G A B into C, D E F♯ into G, A B C♯ into D. They lead into bars 2 and 5 of each part.
  • A switch turns them off and on (on to begin with), the chord chart marks the bars that have one, and the Now panel names each run as it plays.
  • Each run sits where the tuning plays it: in DADGAD the walk into G starts on the open low D; in standard tuning it climbs the D string to the open G.
Guitar demo 1.3.328 Sep

No stumble in a background tab

  • Like the app, the demo no longer stumbles in Safari when left playing behind another tab, and Stop drops every note already queued.
Guitar demo 1.3.228 Sep

Mac Safari silence fixed here too

  • After the Mac slept, the demo could go silent in Safari while looking as if it played, as the app once did. It now wakes the sound the same way, from the same code as the app.
Guitar demo 1.3.128 Sep

The bodhrán brought forward

  • The bodhrán was buried under the bassier guitar: 4 dB under it overall, and its stick click, the part your ear picks a drum out by, far under the guitar. It now sits level with the guitar, with the click lifted so it cuts through.
  • The count-in clicks stay as loud as before, and the drum in the bodhrán app itself is unchanged.
Guitar demo 1.3.028 Sep

DADGAD tuning

  • The guitar now starts in DADGAD (D A D G A D), with a switch back to standard tuning to compare. The new tuning comes in at the next bar, so you can switch while it plays.
  • The DADGAD shapes leave strings open: the top D rings through every chord and the open G through three. G and C carry an added ninth, D is an open fifth, and Em is Em7.
  • The shape diagrams follow the tuning, with each string’s note under it and the ringing strings highlighted.
Guitar demo 1.2.028 Sep

A volume for each sound

  • A slider for the guitar, the flute and the bodhrán, beside each one’s on/off tick. 100% is the measured balance, with the guitar leading; each goes up to 200%.
  • Changes are heard straight away, even mid-tune, and the page remembers them.
Guitar demo 1.1.028 Sep

A bigger, bassier guitar

  • More like a Martin dreadnought: a deeper body resonance and a fuller low end, the mids scooped a little, a softer pick on the bass strings, and bass notes that ring on. Measured, the bass came up by 9 dB against the rest.
  • The demo’s own version number, next to its title and at the foot of its page.
Guitar demo 1.0.028 Sep

The first version

  • The Kesh with a guitar backing, released alongside app 1.6.0.

Session Buddies

The play-along page at /buddies/ has its own version number, shown next to its title. It was called Session Players until 1.8.0.

Session Buddies 1.27.225 Oct

The mandolin from the start

  • A first visit now plays the mandolin too, so the first Play is the whole band: guitar, flute, concertina, mandolin and bodhrán. If you have unticked it, it stays unticked.
Session Buddies 1.27.125 Oct

A third address

  • sessionbuddies.ceardlann.app opens Session Buddies too, as the other two addresses do.
Session Buddies 1.27.025 Oct

The address stays plain

  • sessionbuddies.shedworks.app and sessionbuddies.ceardlann.dev now show Session Buddies at the address as you typed it, with no /buddies/ on the end. Older links ending in /buddies/ still work and come to the plain address, with your tunes and choices as they were.
  • A browser that opened those addresses while they still showed the Bodhrán had kept an offline copy of the Bodhrán there, which a slow connection could bring up instead. It is cleared away the next time the page opens.
Session Buddies 1.26.125 Oct

A second address

  • sessionbuddies.ceardlann.dev opens Session Buddies too, as sessionbuddies.shedworks.app does.
Session Buddies 1.26.025 Oct

Its own address

  • sessionbuddies.shedworks.app now opens Session Buddies. The Bodhrán stays at its own address, and the Bodhrán link at the foot of Session Buddies goes there.
  • Your browser keeps tunes and choices separately for each address, so the new one starts as a first visit. A tune saved to a file opens there as usual.
Session Buddies 1.25.223 Oct

The Setting box fits a phone

  • A tune with a long setting name, such as Whiskey Before Breakfast, ran the Setting box out past the edge of an iPhone’s screen and made the page slide sideways. It now fits.
Session Buddies 1.25.122 Oct

A mandolin you can hear on a phone

  • On an iPhone’s speaker the warm new mandolin was lost under the other instruments. It now has a little more presence, as a real mandolin’s pick attack carries, while keeping its warmth.
Session Buddies 1.25.019 Oct

A mandolin

  • A mandolin can play the tune, with or instead of the flute and concertina: tick it in What you hear.
  • Picked down and up as a player does, with a picked triplet in place of a roll and tremolo on a waltz’s long notes.
  • Its sound was matched against a real F-style mandolin’s recording, and tuned by ear.
Session Buddies 1.24.017 Oct

The flute ornaments as a player would

  • Ornaments: Player’s own. The flute adds rolls on long notes, crans on the low D and cuts between repeated notes, as well as anything the setting writes, and differently each time through.
  • A few or Plenty sets how many. The concertina keeps to the plain notes.
Session Buddies 1.23.56 Oct

A smoother flute at speed

  • In a fast reel the flute tongues lightly and only on beats 1 and 3, slurring the rest, as flute players do. It no longer sounds clipped at 240.
Session Buddies 1.23.46 Oct

Fast session tempos

  • Reels now go up to 240 (counted per crotchet: 120 counted two to the bar), jigs to 145, hornpipes to 140 and slides to 170, the speed of a fast session.
  • At those speeds the flute still plays its written rolls, and the bodhrán damps its strokes so each up-stroke is still heard.
Session Buddies 1.23.34 Oct

The Kesh, setting 3, to start

  • A first visit opens with setting 3 of The Kesh, with its rolls and turns, in place of setting 1.
Session Buddies 1.23.24 Oct

Standard tuning to start

  • On a first visit, and after Reset settings, the guitar is in standard tuning. Your own choice is kept.
Session Buddies 1.23.14 Oct

The concertina joins in from the start

  • On a first visit, and after Reset settings, the concertina plays the tune with the flute. Your own choice is kept.
Session Buddies 1.23.03 Oct

Paste ABC

  • Paste a tune in ABC, from thesession.org or anywhere, and play along with it as if it came from the Session. Several at once: you choose.
  • Open a PDF is gone: pasting is simpler and always readable.
Session Buddies 1.22.03 Oct

Open a PDF

  • Open a PDF of a tune and play along with it, as if it came from the Session. A tune written in ABC is read note for note; a PDF with several offers them to choose from.
  • A PDF with the notes drawn on staves can’t be read note for note, so its title is looked up on the Session instead. A scan or photo has no text to read.
  • Each note now lets go once it has rung out, part of looking into Safari’s memory over long sessions.
Session Buddies 1.21.23 Oct

A new icon

  • The session’s instruments in silhouette, a flute, a bodhrán and a guitar, in the bodhrán icon’s style. At the top of the page and on a phone’s home screen.
Session Buddies 1.21.13 Oct

No more slowing down on a Mac

  • In Safari on a Mac, the music could slow and drop in pitch after a while, like a tape running down, while the chords kept time. Its sound now goes straight to the speaker.
Session Buddies 1.21.03 Oct

A tidier top, and choices that fold away

  • The top of the page now matches the app’s: its own icon (a guitar’s soundhole, in the bodhrán icon’s style), the name, a one-line tagline and About.
  • What you hear folds into a short summary once you are happy with it, with Hide or Done, and opens again with a tap. It stays as you left it.
Session Buddies 1.20.03 Oct

Back hand, and a waltz bass that walks

  • The bodhrán’s back hand, as in the app: the pitch rises and the ring shortens through each four bars, then lets go. Off to begin with, under the Bodhrán.
  • A waltz’s bass note now walks between the chord’s root and its fifth, bar by bar.
Session Buddies 1.19.23 Oct

Settings named properly, saved ones too

  • A setting saved while the naming fault was live could still show “[object Object]”. Every tune is now tidied as it opens.
Session Buddies 1.19.13 Oct

Settings named properly

  • After a reload, the Setting menu showed “[object Object]” where each setting’s poster should be. It names them again.
Session Buddies 1.19.03 Oct

Ornaments on the flute

  • The flute now plays the rolls and cuts a setting writes, as an Irish flute player does, instead of the plain note.
  • Ornaments: As written or Off, under Melody, kept with your settings. The concertina keeps to the plain notes.
Session Buddies 1.18.43 Oct

A tidier Play panel

  • The Sound check line under Play is hidden. Add ?soundcheck to the page’s address to see it again.
Session Buddies 1.18.33 Oct

My tunes stays put, and every setting on offer

  • My tunes stays open or closed as you left it, instead of opening at every reload.
  • After a reload, or opening one of your tunes, the Setting menu offers all the tune’s settings again, fetched from thesession.org.
Session Buddies 1.18.23 Oct

Your settings kept, and a clean reset

  • Which instruments are ticked is now kept when you reload, like every other choice.
  • Switching to another setting of the same tune keeps your tempo.
  • Reset settings, at the end of What you hear, puts every choice back to how it starts, keeps your tunes and chord changes, and can be undone.
Session Buddies 1.18.13 Oct

Less snare in the bodhrán

  • A treble boost from the old drum made the new one sound a touch like a snare drum, more than in the app. It is gone, with the drum’s level nudged up to keep its place against the guitar.
Session Buddies 1.18.03 Oct

Choose how the bodhrán plays

  • Full, Simple or Pulse, as in the app, shown while the Bodhrán is ticked. It used to play one plain bar throughout.
  • Full phrases like a player: patterns change bar to bar by a Busyness slider, with fills where the tune’s phrases end.
Session Buddies 1.17.03 Oct

A flute player, not a keyboard

  • The flute now slurs most notes, as an Irish flute player does: it tongues the note on each beat and runs the others into it under one breath, instead of stopping between every two notes.
  • A wooden flute’s tone: a reedy low octave, a purer high one, and breath under every note.
  • Notes scoop gently into pitch, and long notes swell and ease. Timing, lilt and playing together with the concertina are unchanged.
Session Buddies 1.16.03 Oct

Waltzes

  • Waltzes can now be found and played, in 3/4, starting at 116.
  • The guitar backs them oom-pa-pa: the bass note on the first beat and the chord on the second and third. Driving plays the full chord on every beat instead.
  • The flute and concertina lean on the first beat, and the bodhrán plays the app’s waltz.
Session Buddies 1.15.02 Oct

The new drum, and a concertina that loads safely

  • The app’s new bodhrán (1.10.0): no swoop, a skin that rings like a drumhead.
  • On patchy wifi, one lost concertina recording used to lose them all for the visit, leaving the old “keyboard” concertina playing with nothing said. Now each recording loads on its own and is tried again, a missing note is borrowed from its neighbour, and Play tries again for any still missing. A line under the mixer says when a stand-in is playing.
  • The stand-in concertina, heard while the recordings load, is no longer 12 dB louder than they are.
Session Buddies 1.14.02 Oct

Backing feel

  • The guitar and bodhrán can now lilt with the tune, so their off-beats land with the melody’s instead of a little ahead. Choose Straight, A little, or With the tune (the new start) and compare by ear.
  • Triplets in reels and jigs play even now, instead of rushing their last note.
Session Buddies 1.13.02 Oct

Finish, and your turn

  • A Finish button (or F): the tune plays on to the end of this time through and closes properly. Press again to carry on.
  • Lowering “Play it” in the middle of a tune now ends it properly, instead of stopping dead and leaving the page stuck.
  • Your turn: let the flute and concertina take turns with you, or play one part each, while the guitar and bodhrán carry on. On your turn the melody is silent, or quietly there as a guide.
Session Buddies 1.12.32 Oct

Tunes read right, and your chord changes kept

  • Some settings lost a whole part (Off To California, The Swallowtail and others). They are played in full now.
  • Words such as “Ending” are no longer taken as chords, and one stray chord no longer sets the whole tune.
  • The last time through ends on the tune’s real last note, not on the lead-in back to the top.
  • A chord you change is kept in My tunes even if you haven’t pressed Play, and “Back to the chosen chords” can be undone.
Session Buddies 1.12.22 Oct

Your work kept safe

  • Searching a tune you already have now opens your copy, with your setting, chord changes and tempo. It used to overwrite them.
  • A tune on setting 3 (or any but 1) no longer turns into setting 1 after a reload.
  • Opening a favourite no longer switches your guitar tuning, strum or count-in back.
Session Buddies 1.12.12 Oct

Screen kept on

  • The phone’s screen stays on while a tune plays, so it can’t lock itself and stop the backing while you play along.
Session Buddies 1.12.01 Oct

My tunes

  • Favourites: tap ☆ by a tune’s name to keep it in your list.
  • Played lately: the last twelve tunes you played, with when.
  • One tap opens any of them, no search needed, with the setting and chord changes you had. Save them to a file to keep a copy.
Session Buddies 1.11.01 Oct

Set the hornpipe’s swing

  • A hornpipe now has a Swing control, from straight to 70:30, starting at 64:36. The guitar, bodhrán and tune all follow it, and it is kept for next time.
Session Buddies 1.10.11 Oct

Hornpipes with their swing

  • Hornpipes now swing as they should: long-short, about 2:1, in the guitar, the bodhrán and the tune. They were too even.
  • Triplets in a hornpipe stay even, and a setting written dotted plays as written.
Session Buddies 1.10.01 Oct

Hornpipes, polkas, slides and slip jigs

  • Four more kinds of tune can be played, each with its own time, strums and bodhrán rhythm.
  • Hornpipes swing long-short, guitar, drum and tune together, and a setting written dotted is played as written.
  • Slides lean on beats 1 and 3, and slip jigs change chord on their third beat.
Session Buddies 1.9.01 Oct

A tune ready from the start

  • A first visit now opens with The Kesh ready to play, so pressing Play plays something straight away. Search for any other jig or reel as before; the tune you left on the page last time still comes back instead.
Session Buddies 1.8.01 Oct

A new name: Session Buddies

  • Session Players is now Session Buddies, at a new address. The old one links there and forwards you, so bookmarks still work. Your last tune and settings come with you.
  • The description at the top now mentions the concertina.
Session Players 1.7.41 Oct

Steadier concertina

  • Long concertina notes no longer waver slightly twice a second: the way a held note is repeated from its recording is now seamless.
  • The recording of F♯ (and three rarer notes) wobbled on its own. They are now played from a steady neighbouring note, retuned.
Session Players 1.7.31 Oct

No more warble

  • The flute’s vibrato beat against the concertina’s steady reed, which made the concertina sound warbly. Playing together, the flute now has no vibrato. Alone it has a light one, coming in late on long notes, as an Irish flute player would.
Session Players 1.7.21 Oct

Flute and concertina in step

  • The flute was heard a little after every note while the concertina was heard on it, which made the two together sound jittery. Both are now heard on time, together, and the flute sits on the beat with the backing.
Session Players 1.7.11 Oct

Flute and concertina together, without the clash

  • The concertina’s old note no longer hangs on against the flute’s new one at a change, and playing together the two start every note as one.
Session Players 1.7.01 Oct

A real concertina, a smoother guitar

  • The concertina now plays recordings of a real Anglo concertina (recorded by Alwayswonder, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0), retuned, quick to speak, and held without pulsing, still shaped by the lilt.
  • The guitar has lost its metallic edge: softer picks and strings that settle warm, set against a real guitar chord.
Session Players 1.6.11 Oct

More lilt

  • The melody lilts more, the concertina most: a jig’s first note of three held 12% long on the flute and 16% on the concertina, which also leans harder on the beat.
Session Players 1.6.01 Oct

The tune lilts

  • The melody is phrased as a player phrases it: the first note of a jig’s group of three held a touch long, reel quavers a little long-short, beat notes leant on and the notes between lighter, with a gentle swell and no two notes quite alike.
  • The flute is now labelled “Flute (the tune)”, like the concertina.
Session Players 1.5.11 Oct

A concertina that flows

  • The concertina’s notes now carry over into each other, as the bellows keep the air up through a phrase, instead of each stopping dead. Repeated notes are still struck twice.
  • Less like a machine: the reed wanders very slightly in pitch and level, bends up into pitch as it starts, and is brighter when pushed harder.
Session Players 1.5.01 Oct

A concertina

  • A concertina for the tune, with its own tick and level. Tick it with the flute for both in unison, as at a session, or on its own.
  • A reedy, bouncy free-reed sound, synthesised like everything else here.
Session Players 1.4.01 Oct

Green and gold

  • The app’s new colours.
Session Players 1.3.11 Oct

Setting numbers kept

  • A tune brought back on reopening the page no longer says it came from a saved file.
  • Fixed: saving again a tune opened from a file recorded it as setting 1, whatever its setting.
Session Players 1.3.01 Oct

The chosen tune, clearly shown

  • The tune you pick fills the search box and is shown large under it, with which setting of how many is playing, and the setting chooser beside it.
Session Players 1.2.130 Sep

Switch to the app

  • The foot of the page switches to the bodhrán app, as the app’s now switches here. The Kesh demo link is gone from it.
Session Players 1.2.030 Sep

The matches fold away

  • Once you pick a tune, the other matches fold under one line that opens them again, so they no longer push the tune far down the page.
Session Players 1.1.030 Sep

Chords that know the shape of a part

  • The chosen chords now follow the shape of a part: bar 4 rests on the cadence chord (D, in G) and bar 8 goes from it to home. The Kesh’s bar 4s are now D, as a backer plays them.
  • Reopening the page keeps the chords you changed and chooses the rest afresh. A saved file still comes back exactly as saved.
Session Players 1.0.030 Sep

Find a tune, and play along

  • Name a tune and it is found on thesession.org and given a backing: guitar, bodhrán, and the melody on the flute. Untick the flute to play it yourself. Jigs and reels for now.
  • Choose any of the tune’s settings; repeats, endings and pickups are played as written.
  • Chords are chosen from the melody (or taken from the setting, if it has them). Tap any bar to change its chord; the change holds every time that bar comes round.
  • Save the tune to a file, with your chords, and open it again later with nothing fetched.