"One thing I learned from singing lessons is that one sings better when one isn't playing an instrument at the same time. I know a lot of people do and not everybody likes to hear this, but I think it's the truth.

I also think folksongs in particular often don't gain from being accompanied by guitars, accordeons, autoharps, pianos, banjos, bouzoukis, bodhrans, mandolins, ukeleles, trombones, etc. Much as I love instruments of all shapes and sizes, I think harmonizing them and accompanying them the way they mostly are nowadays turns them into something different from what they were before being collected, arranged, put into books, "revived", etc. I know this is a contentious subject and I don't have the ultimate answer to it, either."

It's funny how a question about building up a repertoire has engendered so much debate about unaccompanied versus instrumental backing.

They're just different, that's all. I totally know what you mean. At the moment I have the melody of The False Bride (as written out in Penguin book of English folksongs) going round my head. I've often thought it's about the most perfect melodies ever - while it has a very clear, indisputable root note, sticking any chords behind it doesn't do it justice. Steamrollers it. Crushes a butterfly on a wheel, as one hack once put it.

But I don't think people necessarily sing *better* when not multi-tasking. Sometimes people "over-sing", and having to play a guitar accompaniment (or whatever the instrument might be) keeps things as they should be.