"Some people are shy and enjoy things much more after drinking."

Then they have a problem and should seek counseling. Taking their problem to a folk music venue will not help them and may very well spoil the experience for other people, alienating them from going to any further folk music events.

"why do you insist that preservation of songs in the minds of a very few professionals is significant. Surely preservation is best when it extends to everyone. You just dont want the competition. If everyone had the songs what would you do- you wouldn't be special would you and people would notice when you missed a line. Standards would be higher"

I don't insist on it, Conrad. The simple fact is that not everyone wants to memorize a bunch of folk songs. I don't decide what people want. They do. All I can do is expose them to the songs and they make up their own minds. And even though many people, amateur or professional, sing the same songs, folk songs and ballads are such that not everyone sings the same version. And if they do, not everyone sings it exactly the same way. What you are advocating is that if two or more people sing the same version of the same song, one or more of them is redundant. That's hardly a viable argument in favor of increasing the number of people who sing folk songs.

Why is it that many people will go to hear the same violin concerto played by Itzaak Perlman, then Pinkas Zuckerman, then Gustaf Stern, then Hilary Hawn? Why do people buy CDs on which many singers sing the very same songs. Why would a person go to see a performance of La Bohème if he or she has seen the opera a few years before?

Because among different performers, even though they are playing and singing the same notes and the same words, each one does it colored by his or her own temperament, personality, and interpretation of the work.

And this is even more evident among singers of folk songs. Not every singer sings the same version of a particular ballad. And if they do, each one sings it slightly differently, in his or her own uniquely individual way.

And as to competition, I don't view other professional singers as "competition," I view them as colleagues.

Although it can always happen, I rarely blank out on a line, forget a verse, or sing a wrong word. In a full concert, I will usually sing about thirty songs or so. I properly prepare, like any professional musician, by practicing and singing the songs over and over until I'm absolutely sure of them. In a coffeehouse, I may sing four or five sets of about nine or ten songs each. Same with those.

Richard Dyer-Bennet had a repertoire in excess of 700 songs and ballads. Early on, I asked him how he manages to keep that many songs in his memory. He said that he practices them. All! And unlike many performers, on a concert tour, he rarely sings the same program each time. He rotates the songs, so he keeps them fresh.

I try to do the same thing. And when I am not lined up to perform somewhere in the near future, I sing several songs a day, making a point of going through my whole list over period of time. To keep the songs fresh in my memory

And if one should goof a line or a few words in a song, those who know and sing the songs have probably done the same thing themselves and understand that that happens now and then. More often than not, the rest of the audience doesn't even notice it.

I once saw Andrès Segovia blow a passage during a concert, then quickly cover it. I noticed it, as did a couple of classic-guitar playing friends, but it slid right by most of the audience who didn't notice it at all. And we who did notice it know that such things happen, and we wound up admiring Segovia's ability to cover the goof so well and go right on with the rest of the piece.

You don't really know a helluva lot about performing for audiences, do you, Conrad?

OH, HELL! I KEEP FORGETTING!!

Proverbs 14:7.

(yawn)

Don Firth