My first question re. the fellow Barbara initially asked about was whether he might be hard of hearing. Sometimes people whose hearing is impaired speak very loudly and because they can't hear themselves, they think others can't. They just don't have the mechanism with which to be aware.

And sometimes people who are in the initial stages of Alzheimer's or other diseases that affect the brain do inappropriate stuff like that and are quite testy about it. In any case, if it were me, I'd find out if the behavior were noticeable to others in the circle and I certainly would want some company if I were going to meet with him.

And, he might just be an asshole. In that case: Give 'im no quarter. Nice, schmice. Nail 'im.

Re. general etiquette for singing circles: In New Mexico, the circle I sang with worked it out so that the singer said before s/he began a song, "I'm going to do this one a capella as a solo," or, "I think I do this one in D, but please keep the guitars fairly quiet so I don't trash my voice trying to sing over you.." Or, "If you wait 'til the chorus, I think you can hear a couple of very nice harmonies to join me with..." or whatever. The point was, we stated at the beginning how we wanted to do it, and people generally honored that. The singer got to say how s/he chose to have that one song go, then the next person got to decide how her/his song would be...

The downside of this is that some of the spontanaeity goes out of it, but it does keep you from feeling stepped on. And then, if you hear a great harmony that you'd love to do on someone else's song, maybe when they head to the kitchen, you can follow them and say, "Hey, I was thinking that maybe when my turn comes 'round again we could do that song over and I could do this harmony I heard with it..."

I'll be very interested to hear the outcome of this situation...

Good luck, ww