Yeah, Marion, I learned that same lesson about song #s and page #s when I put my first book together, too!

My wireless lapel mic (before it went belly up) did pick up my voice and my guitar pretty well.   But wireless mics are tricky; in some rooms they give you terrible feedback.  Occasionally, I'd have so much trouble getting mine adjusted properly in a room that the residents would be pretty disgruntled before I even started.  (That feedback can be really uncomfortable for folks with hearing aids!)<BR>
It's: especially problematic when you tie your wireless mic into their own amp & multiple overhead speakers.  Sometimes, to keep from getting feedback, you have to stand pretty much in one spot in the room--which partly defeats the purpose of a wireless mic.

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Marion, I don't do Old MacDonald, and other children's songs unless there are children present or it's a facility for folks with advanced Alzheimer's.  A lot of folks in Asst. Lvg. communities would be insulted if you did "My Bonnie" and "Clementine," too.  You can easily tell by the reaction of the group whether it's appropriate.  I do songs like Doggie In The Window (as a bark along song), Old MacDonald (with the best sound effects I can muster), etc., because they engage the residents in these Alzheimer's units more than just about any other songs do, as well as getting them to really laugh.  For the most part, they are laughing at/with ME --especially when I do my "attack Chihuahua" imitation at the end of Doggie In The Window.  These songs get the residents, the staff, the family visitors, etc., ALL laughing. And the residents request these songs, too.

I can often get the Alzheimer's folks to sing along more readily than anyone else, because they're often less self-consious.  They may sing along on the choruses of La Bamba and Proud Mary, too, and dance around while I'm singing.  But often their memory impairment is so severe that they can't remember the words to Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and other senior citizen favorites.  As Mike pointed out above, there comes a point in advanced age/dementia at which about all that is remembered is what was learned in early childhood.  It is folks at this stage for whom it is most appropriate to do "children's songs" -- the ones from their childhood days (not "The Barney Song."

I'm with you, though, on not patronizing these folks.  I sometimes rub some staffers the wrong way by speaking to the residents the way I would any other adult, instead of cooing to them as to an infant.

Here's a story that illustrates that there may be more going on upstairs than some younger folks may assume.  At one Alzheimer's unit, we regularly did "Old MacDonald," and I would add the very politically incorrect verse:
"Old MacDonald had a wife ... With a nag, nag here, and a nag, nag there ... ."
This verse used to crack them up more than any other.  These folks would not only request Old MacDonald a lot, but some of them would break into the "nagging wife" verse spontaneously if I forgot to include it.  I'm pretty sure they learned the verse from me--i.e., learned it recently--, yet these folks, who would not remember that we had just got through singing "Red River Valley" would remember this new verse from one month to another.