There's been a fair bit of discussion about take your turn sessions vs. jump in sessions, which seems to stem from a comment I made last year about the after hours Shanty Sing at the Mystic Seaport festival. I don't want to give the wrong impression - generally a guided session where everybody gets a chance and nobody gets to hog the floor works best, particularly if the venue is relatively small. It's just that there was something special about Mystic. The venue was a community hall, not the typical back room in a pub and there seemed to be a few hundred people present. It's also been running for years, and it has developped it's own dynamic which might not work at another event. Two things struck me about this session. First, the singing was simply better than at most other sessions I have attended. It was a knowledgeable crowd, who really knew their sea music, and included some very accomplished singers. Second, there were no floor hogs and the more advanced singers (including some of the performers at the festival) would do a song every now and then, but leave a lot of space for the others. Admittedly, that put some pressure on everyone to be prepared before they launched into a song, but to my mind that is no bad thing. It was a good place for a singer to raise his or her game a little.