Folk Club / Session Etiquette

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:43 PM

...On the other hand there are some songs where surely everyone expects silly versions to be sung or silly sound effects to be inserted ...

That's OK, if you are singing that particular version, but if you've worked at performing a song it can be quite annoying to find somebody adding stupid hand claps that you had intended to omit because they are a modern idiosyncrasy which is not appropriate to a traditional rendering.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Tootler
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:41 PM

It's very easy to compile a list of your favourite horror stories and to give the impression that things are much worse than they really are.

I don't find that the kind of things described above in this thread are common, in fact, I've not come across many of them at all and for the most part, I find people respect the conventions.

Joining in is part of the folk song culture in England but there are conventions that are mostly adhered to. Choruses and refrains definitely. The other common ones I have noticed is where the last line of every verse ends in a similar phrase. The Gallant Frigate Amphitrite is a good example where most verses end in some variant of "around cape horn". The melodeon playing sharks in Pleasant and Delightful seem to have moved away from here (Teesside), but people mostly join in on the last line or two of each verse. Also people mostly will join in if the first verse is reprised. I don't see instrumentalists trying to accompany singers singing unaccompanied, or even with singers accompanying themselves unless explicitly invited.

I don't have any problem with these conventions. You expect them and taking part is part of what a singaround is about, at least for me. My only real niggle are the subvocalisers. You can be singing a song and someone will be singing along with you half under their breath, but just loud enough to be heard. It's particularly annoying when you are singing a song out for the first time and are concentrating hard on the words as it can so easily break your concentration. I think often the people concerned are not always aware they are doing it. I know I was guilty at one time and at the end of the song, the MC had a go much to my embarrassment, so I now make a conscious effort to try and avoid it. After all it was fair comment by the MC and it's not fair on the singers.

I must also admit to being a somewhat compulsive noodler. It can cause embarrassment in sessions when you try something out quietly (you think) and someone says "go on" and you're not sure of what comes next. Woops!

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:32 PM

I think Marje nailed it. And Terry when he said that if someone is leading something, others follow. I'll often put my mandolin down if there is another mandolin player accompanying a song, because I feel that what I would do would not fall to hand quite well with other mandolin players who just may happen to feel an accompaniment differently from me.

And speaking of listening - - -

There is one person who has posted on this thread who I have seen join in on an instrument with an unaccompanied singer and force a key change as a result.   

I've seen another poster here talk right over someone trying (7 times) to start a song - and then criticise the singer because the talker was "performing" a joke.

I've seen a banjo player (not represented on this thread) play right over everyone (yes, everyone) who tried to start a song - when he was a visitor to the singers' session (and not I add a booked guest).

No names, no pack drill.

Incidentally, I think of "noodling" as something quite different - a tendency of some guitarists or instrument players to play something, anything, when there is a silence - and it may or may not be an attempt to start a song or tune, or a bit of private practice, or just a compulsion to finger the strings, and one does not know which. I don't call a purposeful (even if mistaken) attempt to accompany "noodling".

I did have one embarrassing experience arising from this - a person somewhat given to proclaiming their instant expertise on any instrument they happened to buy was - I thought - "noodling aimlessly" - so I carried on talking, only to find later that I had talked right through a set piece they were playing to demonstrate their expertise on their new instrument!

On the other hand there are some songs where surely everyone expects silly versions to be sung or silly sound effects to be inserted - perhaps the greatest example being "Pleasant and delightful" - even down to the added verse to the words of "Pinball Wizard" (or the added verse to "A sailor ain't a sailor any more".

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Harry Doig
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:29 PM

I once went to a session and sang "The Old Furrier", halfway through the first chorus an old man started singing along, but it was a different lyric - he rhymed Potato with Impetago - which totally ruined the whole point of the song. I stopped singing and told him off. I said "hey, please don't mess with the song" and he stopped. After my song, I went to the lavatory. I wasn't asked to sing another song and when I got home I discovered someone had emptied an ashtray in my pocket.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:15 PM

Belfast, now where would that be?

In the UK.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Eh?
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:19 PM

'If irish musicians are so appalled by UK behaviour why not stop at home.'

Because some us poor fuckers actually live in the UK to begin with, dimwit! Belfast, now where would that be?

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: JohnH
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:17 PM

And they "join in" with a different tune or timing!

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: michaelr
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:13 PM

Jim Carroll: I can, (and still would if I had the energy) go out five nights out of seven and hear music ranging from not bad to to world class, all within a twenty minute walk from here...We sat in a pub in the next village last Wednesday and enjoyed a magic night of fiddle playing from Kevin Burke and Tim O'Brien... we couldn't get into the Jackie Daly session in our local pub, but we can see him any two nights of the week.

Please, please tell me where you live!!!

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:53 PM

There is absolutely no point to this bickering. We are talking about different places where different norms are accepted. I used to go accross to Ireland regularly and would never have dreamt of attempting to accompany a stranger or a recognised singer without being invited. I wouldn't even have attempted to join in with most sessions unless I knew the tune well and had been invited. However, there are lots of different sessions over here and most are very welcoming of all levels, and most people get their enjoyment from simply participating. These sessions are often in a bar-room of a pub and the other occupants of the pub are only too glad of some live/lively music. It simply doesn't matter if everybody can't play every note of every tune. Occasionally somebody will lead off on a difficult tune or one nobody else knows and we are happy to sit and listen as long as they don't try to take over the session with this.

I've also gone into sessions in Ireland where the same group of half a dozen musicians rattle through the same repertoire of reels at breakneck speed and are unaware of anyone else in the room. Each to their own. Just not my cup of tea.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:18 PM

If irish musicians are so appalled by UK behaviour why not stop at home.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:11 PM

"....appears to be mainly for folk music as enshrined in songs."
Sorry Will; not the case.
I can, (and still would if I had the energy) go out five nights out of seven and hear music ranging from not bad to to world class, all within a twenty minute walk from here, much of it being played by the youngsters still in their teens and early twenties who are still emerging onto the scene.
We sat in a pub in the next village last Wednesday and enjoyed a magic night of fiddle playing from Kevin Burke and Tim O'Brien, with a handful of excellently performed American traditional songs thrown in for good measure.
We were a little late leaving, so we couldn't get into the Jackie Daly session in our local pub, but we can see him any two nights of the week.
I shudder to think what would have happened if somebody had pulled out a fiddle (or even worse, a bodhran) and joined in with Kevin and Tim - there aren't enough trees around here for an impromptu lynching so I suppose the Atlantic would have had to suffice.
How can anybody justify joining in with any performer, singer or musician, without being invited to do so - or does a 'class system' operate which allows it with some and not with others?
I know of several performers who visit the UK regularly as performers and are appalled at the practice, but are too polite to mention it.
By the way Steve, you can't complain about "those who try to change the tempo once somebody has started a tune" if you are going to allow joining in when the audience feels like it unless you issue a rule book of dos and don'ts.
I've said it before, but Walter Pardon felt it necessary to drop two of his favourite songs from his club performance repertoire because of audiences tendencies to harmonise and to slow down the choruses -"made them sound like bloomin' funeral hymns".
He would never in a thousand years have brought himself round to asking them not to.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 01:28 PM

Going back to the OP 2 items are mentioned.

Folk Club etiquette is set by the folk club organisers and has been discussed at great length on other threads. Each club has its own rules and as long as these are clear and obvious to newcomers no problem.

To avoid the arguments should we split sessions into 2 or more types, freestyle and controlled? Those with a lot of singing, those with a little singing, those with no singing?

At a freestyle which is what I mostly attend there is the occasional song and, unless the singer makes it very clear otherwise, it is accepted that joining in is the norm, with chorus, harmony, instruments.

While I'm on, what p****s me off most is those who try to change the tempo once somebody has started a tune, particularly those show-offs who like to play tunes at breakneck speed regardless of fitting the notes in. I have been known to tell them in mid tune, especially if there are some beginners in.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 20 May 12 - 01:25 PM

Will's absolutely right in his comments about the vibrancy of the scene down here in the South East of England. It's not just Sussex (East or West) but Kent, Surrey and Hampshire where the singaround/session/folk club scene is alive, vibrant and healthy.

I could go to 2 or 3 different events in the above categories almost any night of the week here, within a 20-30 minute (max) drive of home. Tuesdays are a bit thin for some reason, but almost any other night I'm spoilt for choice....FIVE options this coming Monday, 4 of which I'd really like to go to. Some are traddy, some are quiet, more like 7 or 8 friends gathered in someone's sitting room than a pub session, and some are lively. They're all good fun. Like Will, the odd one I found to be too serious or too exclusive, I stopped going to. lenty more to choose from.

The Bull session at Ditchling is the only one I travel a fair way for ( an hour each way) because it's just so damned GOOD. Anyone who thinks it's "better" to listen to a recording at home should get along to this session! It's lively, yes, but when the occasional unaccompanied song's performed, or someone nervous like me tries to play/sing, the people are very sensitive to the moment.

As to "singing it wrong"...no-one's ever *told* me that, it's just been the odd occasion when a "joiner-in" (at singarounds, not sessions) has tried to browbeat me during the song into doing it their way (or are just so used to doing it that way that they're not even aware that I'm deviatig from the "norm"). It's not so bad with "standards" like John Barleycorn as there are a gazillion different versions of that one so no-one is mentally "hearing" a definitive version.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Musket
Date: 20 May 12 - 12:15 PM

Anybody would think the spectacle was for the performer rather than those listening...

That said, if you must join in, you become part of said performance, so yeah, best if invited and follow the leader rather than your own interpretation.

I have a relaxed attitude, but there are some songs which I perform in concerts but never in folk clubs, as my versions may, (and tend to..) string out the end of a stanza with a flourish, so whilst I am taking my breath waiting, others are playing or singing into the next verse or chorus. The upshot? "Mather got his song wrong..."

Whilst we are having a good bloody whinge, the next person who says I "sing it wrong" will be first up against the wall when I come to power.

Oh, there's a debate... Is porn better than sex? Can we take age, description of partner and our ability to perform into account????

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 May 12 - 12:01 PM

Thank goodness anything worth listening to at a folkclub is recorded and uploaded to the internet, for listening in the comfort of my own home.

This is, to use vaguely modern parlance, just so not true. It's like saying watching porn is better than having sex.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:48 AM

Bonzo can criticise anything he likes , wether he knows anything about it or (USUALLY) not

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:46 AM

Whoever has started a song or tune sets the way it is performed - ANYONE joining in should realise this , and either shut up or just play along and NOT try to move the arrangemrnt their way.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:46 AM

Well, if you've never attended a good session, then you really don't know what you've missed. Listening to music in a chair is, for me, no substitute for playing it in the company of friends and having a great time while doing so.

How can you possibly criticise what you've never experienced?

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 May 12 - 11:40 AM

This reads like every reason to stay away from folk clubs and sessions. Thank goodness anything worth listening to at a folkclub is recorded and uploaded to the internet, for listening in the comfort of my own home.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 10:58 AM

banjoman,
You need to be at a singaround or indeed a 'playaround'. The whole idea of a session is participation. You seem to have missed this.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: banjoman
Date: 20 May 12 - 10:47 AM

I agree that there is some confusion between a session and a singaround. However, it really P***s me off when I have gone to the trouble to learn a song or piece of music and find that someone who knows a slightly different version insists on joining in and then persists with their version. My favourite trick, especially in a room full of melodeons, is to put a capo on the banjo and play a well known tune in B flat. Watching their faces is worth the effort. I would add that I have been threatened on one occasion by a melodeon player when I did this. He is now dead( dont read too much into that)

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 May 12 - 09:01 AM

Jim, I think the main area where I have regularly taken friendly issue with you is that your love and enthusiasm appears to be mainly for folk music as enshrined in songs. For me, folk music is essentially enshrined in tunes - and the music is obviously somewhere in between those two viewpoints!

I have very few folk songs in my repertoire, and am rarely enthused by songs in folk clubs because - although I love folk tales of murders, ghosts, love and death, etc. (and have a very good attention span) - I prefer my entertainment from such things to be got from books of prose and poetry, curled up in an armchair or reclining "on a mossy bank". Tunes, on the other hand - English, Irish, Scottish, French, Cape Breton, Cajun, etc. - I have unbounded enthusiasm and an insatiable appetite for. (I've banged on about this on Mudcat before and will leave it at that).

So, to draw a conclusion about the state of any folk music purely from its songs and its singers is wrong, in my view. There is actually a good, vibrant scene for singing down here in my neck of Sussex - in folk clubs where I venture on occasion - and an equally vibrant scene for tunes and mixed sessions - which I attend as often as I can. It seems to me - and correct me if I'm wrong - that your passions are really for the tradition as carried in words. My passions are for the tunes and the variations in those tunes which have come down the years. I see a thriving folk scene with a huge number of wonderful tunes to be played regularly - and I was playing many of 'em at a wedding only last night! There are innumerable ceilidh bands where I live, all working regularly and all playing a solid selection of traditional tunes for dancing.

Valmai is running a ballad workshop in Lewes next month with Scottish singers Gordeanna McCulloch & Anne Neilson. I won't be there as it's not my thing, but I raise a glass to it in recognition of the efforts of my dedicated friends down here in keeping the music going and the standards high. The state of folk music here - in song and tunes - is a far cry from what you're constantly describing.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:51 AM

The events I most like are somewhere in between a session and a singaround, where there can be solo spots as well everybody-join-in sets. They are perhaps not quite as common as they used to be but they still happen.

But what absolutely does NOT work is people treating solo melody instruments as if they were solo ballad singers, and sitting on their hands when they could be trying some sort of accompaniment for tunes that absolutely require it. It doesn't feel like respect for the music, it feels like being shunned.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:23 AM

Taking this a little further, whilst most folk enthusiasts in England have a clear idea of the differences and etiquette between the words 'singaround' and 'session', it occurs to me that there are people in different areas and newcomers who are not fully aware of these differences.

Having read the whole thread it would appear that some of the problems here stem from the two words having different meanings to different people. Perhaps it is time we started thinking about a new set of words to cover the several different types of occasions when people meet together to sing and play.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:18 AM

Totally with you, Will and Marje.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:17 AM

If you don't like joiners in go to an open mike night ( with or without mikes). Ive had some of the best and worst experieces of joiners in, but the best outweigh the worst by far.
FloraG

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 12 - 08:15 AM

Sorry Will - a spoonerism - should have read regular singing session.
"I run a small session in my local pub on a monthly basis"
Don't think we have any serious disagreement; we call what you describe here, 'singing circles' - usually anything goes repertoire with basement-level standards.
Have been to a few (usually only once) and found them sometimes fun but musically unsatisfying.
My objection is to 'folk clubs' who allow, even encourage audiences to join in unasked.
My "party line" is that the folk music I know and love, and have devoted the best part of my life to, is beautiful, complex, extremely enjoyable and satisfying and important (and demanding) enough to be performed well enough for the listener and performer to go home with enough fuel to encourage him/her to come back the following week to do it all over again, and maybe even to take it further (some of our finest researchers sttarted off as singers).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:17 AM

Well said Mr. Fly.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:09 AM

Your view of a "session" is then different from mine, Jim - and we must agree to differ. You describe a "singing regular session" which, on my terms, would constitute a singaround and not a session.

I run a small session in my local pub on a monthly basis - and when I say "run" I mean facilitate in such a way that everyone gets the chance to perform. Unless a performer indicates that their turn is to be a solo effort, or perhaps a duo with a friend, then everyone is encouraged to join in - that's what the session is all about. And there's enough common sense around the table for people to understand and appreciate what's appropriate.

I particularly encourage newcomers and beginners to join in, however nervous they might be - some take up the opportunity and some are more reluctant. We have some fairly basic beginners and some very experienced and talented musicians - all are there on an equal basis, and I hope more than anything else that the newbies/beginners fee confident enough to join in and learn something from the more experienced players. The regulars who come to listen also love it, and there's lots of banter and good-natured heckling (and counter-heckling) through the evening as the beer flows.

That's what I call a session - communal, acoustic music-making with good fellowship and tolerance - all for that essential element: fun. There are plenty of other venues in my area where I can go for, say a more purist Irish session or a more purist French tunes session or a more purist English tunes session, should I feel the need. Some of these sessions are joyous and relaxed - others are not - and there's not necessarily any correlation between the seriousness of the attitude and the quality of the music. Needless to say, I avoid the joyless sessions like the plague because, if there's no joy in music-making, we may as well turn our faces to the wall.

To be honest, Jim, much as I respect your experience, I feel there's little point in trying to have a debate with you as your attitudes towards what happens musically over here have been fixed and unyielding ever since I started reading Mudcat threads, which is about 5 years now. You have a personal party line which, in spite of the ever-changing scene and regional variation in music-making over here in that time, you follow and never change. You seem to have no idea what the scene is in my area, but still the party line is trotted out about "cultural vandalism".

If you're so fixed and unchanging in your attitudes towards the British scene, then why bother to say anything at all - why not keep quiet and let us get on happily with our obviously inferior cultural vandalism? You think it exists - I don't - so let's just beg to differ.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Marje
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:08 AM

Jim, British folk music is not struggling to see the light of day. There's lots of it about if you know where to look. And in my experience, the areas in which it is flourishing are those which have an open and encouraging attitude to participation at informal sessions.

Harmony and choral/chorus singing is much more a part of the tradition in England than it is in Ireland (not sure where the rest of the UK fits in on this spectrum). People have sung songs together for centuries at various social occasions, festivities and celebrations. A folk culture that failed to acknowledge this and include it would be denying our tradition and promoting, instead, a performance-based style that encouraged the audience to be passive consumers of the music.

When I sing at a session, I either accompany myself, which to my mind invites others to play along, or I sing unaccompanied. It's rare for anyone to try to play an instrument during an unaccompanied song, but not uncommon for others to sing along quietly, either following the tune or improvising a harmony. That's just fine with me - I have a strong voice and I stay in charge of the song whatever happens. It pleases me to hear others wanting to engage with the song by joining in, and many songs are purpose-made for such participation, with choruses, refrain lines, and repeated verses.

At a club where you get up and stand in front of the room to sing, there's a general understanding that others don't join in on instruments, but if it's a well known song, people do sometimes want to hum or sing along. Far from thinking they're "God's gift", some of the joiners-in who hum quietly would never get up and sing alone, but are developing their confidence and musicality by joining in at their own level. It's such a natural response to music that I wouldn't want to forbid or prevent it, even if it doesn't really enhance the performance. The process is sometimes more important than the end result. And sometimes, just sometimes, the end result of spontaneous joining-in is magical.

Marje

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:07 AM

If you really don't want people to join in you could just ask them not to. Or maybe just sing "The Old Sow Song"

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:04 AM

Bob, find a slow session and have a go. Joining in, provided it is the right setting is what it is all about. many of the common session tunes only require three chords for a perfectly acceptable accompaniment. It is getting the changes right that is important.   John.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: BobKnight
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:53 AM

I try not to join in, because I don't think I'm a good enough guitar player to accompany tunes I don't know. Sometimes I worry that they may think me a bit stand-offish, in not joining in, but I'd rather let them get on with it than play duff chords.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: JHW
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:50 AM

Acorn4 says 'I think fiddlers are probably often the worst offenders with songs - there is a knack to accompanying which involves subtly playing in the background - a lot fiddlers tend to swamp a song' and generally I'd agree but it reminds me of a young fiddle player Jess (Richmond, N.Yorks) fairly new to folk sessions who understood how to sidle in here and there to the extent that I found myself choosing songs that I reckoned she could benefit. Done well it's a treat.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: johncharles
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:50 AM

My overwhelming impression having been in many many mixed folk sessions is the inherent niceness of the participants. Singers who can't sing in tune,players who can't play in tune and percussionists who can't hit something in time;all are welcomed and none belittled for lack of skill. The key here is people are having fun.
By and large people gravitate towards settings which suit their personal preferences. If you don't like a particular setting or format go somewhere else. John

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:49 AM

Sessions are for joining in !

Well, mebbe. In our session, space is very tight. We've being doing what we do for nigh on 20 years. I think it means we get some say as to who joins in. It's our party. That doesn't mean we say no - we don't - but generally we don't want any rattlers or thumpers (due to previous awful experience with 'em), and, well, we already have a guitar player, thanks. Melody players are a different matter. There must be at least some respect shown for the regulars, spiced with a just a hint of diffidence. That way, everybody's happy.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:40 AM

What have is essentially A SESSION but it involves a lot of SINGING and a lot of JOINING IN and a lot of HARD WORK by SEASONED MUSICIANS to make sure the music is always AMAZING. The assumption is here that no one plays anything UNLESS THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING and can contribute to a song or tune in a such a way that will ENHANCE the overall experience for both the singer and the company.

Harmony singing is encouraged; virtuoso ensemble improvisation is de rigueur, and consequently the standards are invariably pretty damn high. What isn't needed are people who think bog-standard FAKERY and enthusiastic CHORD STRUMMING in any way, shape or form equates with MUSICAL ARTISTRY or SENSITIVITY or APROPRIATENESS. I can think of dozens of clubs in our area where this aproach really wouldn't be a problem at all, but in the rarefied atmosphere of our Friday Session this just isn't the case. This is why I go there. Fair enough, we all blunder, but one shouldn't be placed in a position of awkwardness by someone joining in with your song who hasn't got the first fecking clue what the song is about having never even heard it before - and if they had they'd know it doesn't need accompanying.

*

I remember once this singer-songwriter guy was in doing this song in E and I joined in on my E Jew's Harp, with modal wit, rhythmic sophistication and genuine musical cunning. Next time he came in and did the song I picked up my E Jew's Harp only to find he'd notched his guitar up a few cents sharp of concert. Obviously he didn't dig my thang! But at least I had the decency to stop at the first twang. I get the impression that no what measures people took some guys & gals would just keep wading on because they don't LISTEN.

This is basic COMMON SENSE one would have thought.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:30 AM

I am a Notorious 'Noodler' , but NOT with Unaccompanied songs - I am fully aware that a lot if singers vary the metre to suit the song (AND their feeling) , and with acconmpanied song , I DO like to sort out the arrangement , but QUIETLY unless I get a Nod to join in .
Last thing I would ever do is impose MY idea of how a song should be performed on another performer .
Sessions and Singarounds in UK are normally two totally different things - No One at a 'Session' should be performing intricate arrangements of songs in C# - Sessions are for joining in !

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:22 AM

"It's not the norm, in my experience "
It has been argued for often enough, here and elsewhere, for it to be fairly common practice will.
My particular example was of a nationally recognised singer, making it widespread enough for me to believe it to be a not uncommon practice.
It has been argued for elsewhere as a point of principle that if unless a guest requests that the audience does not join in, then they are free to do so.
"at sessions anyone can join in"
We have a singing regular session here; ballads, narrative songs, lyrically introspective pieces.. all to be joined in with in your definition Banjie?
Sorry... not in a million years.
Call them singalongs if you want, but sessions are a thousand other things.
If singing along is common practice in a club it is not easy to ask others not to join in - you have immediately thrown up a barrier between the listener and the singer.
My respect for Tom Paxton has just rocketed sky-high.
The practice of singing along has attained 'bodhran' status as far as I'm concerned
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:16 AM

If you are a guitar player, and you really don't want anybody else to join in instrumentally on your songs, the politest and most effective way to prevent this is to tune your guitar down by exactly a quarter tone (if you have light gauge strings you could tune it up a quarter tone). Ideally, you would have a Snark tuner to accomplish this quickly and accurately, ( and obviously you would have done it before your turn to sing)

Ideally, you would also use a capo and an open tuning, and this will totally throw any unwanted would-be accompanists, who will spend the entire duration of the song trying to figure out what key you are actually playing in.   

Of course, if you are one of these unfortunate people cursed with so-called "perfect pitch", it might be difficult to sing a song a quarter tone below concert pitch, but I don't think that would be a
problem for most folk singers.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 May 12 - 06:16 AM

And it's not a bad pub, that one, either.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: banjoman
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:50 AM

Its simple really - at sessions anyone can join in because thats what a session is about. At singarounds its easy enough to ask others not to join in unless asked. My favourite Tom Paxton story (1960's) when he was at the Philharmonic Hall in liverpool made it clear that the audience were welcome to join in the chorus but not in the verses. Otherwise, he said, I/ll go and sit in the pub opposite and phone the doorman to tell them what to sing next.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 May 12 - 05:14 AM

It is little wonder that British folk music is still struggling to see the light of day if this cultural vandalism has become the norm!

Jim, I wouldn't extrapolate a whole "cultural vandalism" from just one example that you happened to witness. It's not the norm, in my experience and, with great respect, sounds a little like a predictable ride on one of your hobby horses.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Acorn4
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:44 AM

I think fiddlers are probably often the worst offenders with songs - there is a knack to accompanying which involves subtly playing in the background - a lot fiddlers tend to swamp a song with soaring concerto like accompaniment all the way through, including a lot of recorded music.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:15 AM

"If one doesn't know the piece, just listen & enjoy"
I think it goes way beyond this. Each singer has his/her own particular take on the song which can differ enormously; this can affect the speed, intensity, volume, phrasing..... of any song.
The success or failure of any song, for the singer and for the listener, is in making the interpretation work for both. It is impossible for any singer to make that interpretation and pass it on with the massed choirs of.... whichever folk club droning away in the background.
I club audiences want to sing, they should do so only when invited to and not the other way round, which is guaranteed to create an 'atmosphere'.
If they can't do without their 'fix', them plan your evenings around chorus songs; and mention to a guest that this is the type of club you are running (do not impose your own styles and idiosyncracies on visiting performers - that's the despotism of the masses).
As for accompaniment, I don't play an instrument but when I worked with accompanists (often) I spent hours practicing with them so we could (at the very least) get the phrasing right.
I have restarted singing recently and am now feeling the itch to work with an accompanist again; if I do, exactly the same methods of work will apply.
As an audience member, last year I attended a singing festival with some excellent singers (some of the older ones completely unused to an audience any larger than half-a-dozen family members). I had the misfortune to sit next to an established singer (from your side of the Irish Sea) who joined in every single song, and when she didn't know the words, she hummed the tune audibly - people are still talking about her here.
It is little wonder that British folk music is still struggling to see the light of day if this cultural vandalism has become the norm!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 20 May 12 - 03:46 AM

I'm with Will on the "sessions v singarounds" front. And these are also, in our area, very different from Folk Club etiquette, where (in our area at least) you tend, if the evening's not advertised as a "singaround", to have a booked act supported by a number of floor singers who do generally perform solo, or as,say, a rehearsed duo.

Stating "the rules" up front won't work at the events I go to as people tend to arrive and depart throughout the evening, so as a newbie you just need to take a while to absorb the "style".

But it's musical awareness that's the key factor, whatever type of event it is. The "session" I go to that Will attends is fantastic, due not just to the quality of the musicianship from most participants, but also to the sensitivity they bring. Although tunes often "just start" by consensus or by several people "twiddling around" before one twiddle becomes dominant and everyone gets behind it, people at the back or newbies are invited to "do something" at some point in the evening, and the group appears to be very sensitive as to whether a contributor would be happy for people to join in or not. It's mayhem, but controlled, joyous, sensitive mayhem and the fact that I'll happily drive an hour each way to attend it, despite having little to contribute musically (yet?) speaks for itself.

Singarounds can be great or terrible for joining in. I don't mind anyone joining in with what I'm doing, if it "fits" but from time to time I get absolutely pissed off when someone sings or plays the version of a song *they* know, rather han listening to what I'm doing and following it.

A while back I did Sandy Denny's "Rising For The Moon" at a singaround. I was being fairly loudly accompanied by someone playing a lead line on guitar to my rhythm. It didn't sound bad, but the way I play this one I've put 16 bars of my own lead between verses 2 and 3, and I'm not experienced enough yet to modify "on the fly" things I've learned. I hoped the guy would stop when I started my own lead riff, but he didn't...and the 2 riffs clashed horribly.

Similarly with "Poverty Knock" which I did at another singaround very recently. This is a song I learned at my mother's knee, and my version has a slightly different chorus from the accepted version. I also run two verses together between each chorus as otherwise I think it makes the song too long. There are 10 short verses and since it opens with the chorus, 11 choruses if you do one every verse. A very loud singer "helped me out" by constantly trying to intersperse the "missing" chorus at the end of each verse, and also (loudly and empatically) "correcting" the line in the chorus which I sing as my mother taught it to me *well before* the song was known outside Batley, Cleckheaton and Liversedge mills. I'm sorry, but I WON'T be "corrected" in an interpretion of a song originating in the exact Yorkshire mills my mother started working in in 1930 by someone living in Kent who's never seen a woollen mill in his life :-)

Mostly, singarounds are great though. Very different to sessions but just occasionally spoiled by someone who's not "aware" enough to be sensitive to others.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 19 May 12 - 09:10 PM

There are so many subcultures going on that it is nonsense to believe that someone is being rude if they join in or don't join in. In the old Seattle Song Circle it was understood (by me anyway) that you would join in with the singing if you knew it..but you were not to overpower the leader, unless he or she was so floundering it had to be done...instruments were more of a problem and we finally just said only guitars. Now, if a person wants no instruments, or all instrumnets, or only flutes, she can say so up front or have a discreet hand signal if they start to confuse her. Some places consider it rude to join in; some expect it. I personally prefer it..singing..but I hate guitars playing the wrong chord..I don't want to hear myself singing a solo and I don't want to hear too many others singing a solo either..one after another after another..what I want to hear is a group singing...I have been confused for a while because people listen adoringly (or seem like it) instead of singing along..I would look around and think..half of them have to know this song...I finally figured out they were trying to be polite. So state your preference upfront, don't act morally superior because it is a preference and not a virtue. mg

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:53 PM

"Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Jack Campin - PM
Date: 19 May 12 - 02:09 PM

With something like Mrs MacLeod, banging away in the right rhythm on A all the way through is a lot better than nothing.

You only learn what works by actually trying, and the Americana fanboys aren't willing to do"
what a ridiculous thing to say, it is not better than doing nothing,MiSS McLEODS REEL, Is not harmonised correctly by banging away on a even if the melody was being played in A.
IT IS BETTER FOR PEOPLE TO DO NOTHING THAN TO BANG AWAY AT RANDOM ON A GUITAR.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 12 - 05:19 PM

As an old folk singer I vary the timing for effect. It has the advantage of discouraging un-asked for accompanists.

Subject: RE: Folk Club / Session Etiquette
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 19 May 12 - 03:55 PM

"With something like Mrs MacLeod, banging away in the right rhythm on A all the way through is a lot better than nothing."

Unless, of course, you're in England and practically everybody plays it in G.