Soddit... if Elvis can do it on stage in Las Vegas BEFORE he got ill and Roy Bailey and Martin Carthy have both used crib sheets in concert, then it shouldn't matter a tinkers cuss who else takes the words in wherever. No one walked out on Roy Bailey to my knowledge.. but if that's your habit - to exit as soon as someone takes out a book or notes, then all I can say is you are very rude and have probably missed some damned fine singing.

As for choral works - I've sung in a choir of some sort or another for 35 years, both as a chorister and as a soloist.   I have sung pieces as diverse in size as the Messiah Oratorio and the Vicar of Dibley theme - using a score each time. Even as soloist, I have the score in front of me, be it a 200page tome or a single sheet, so the size argument just doesn't fly.

We have also performed pieces from memory - Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus springs to mind - in several locations, both formal and informal, with and without a conductor. Without a doubt, the worst rendition was the one without a conductor - our 'crutch'.. You see, crutches come in all sorts of shapes. Some are book shaped, some are guitar shaped, some are melodeon shaped, some are tankard or pint glass shaped and some are conductor or friend shaped. Whichever crutch you use, you should never be ashamed of it, and even more importantly, you should never make anyone else feel ashamed of theirs.

LTS