Define a Singers Club

Subject: Define a Singers Club
From: pattyClink
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 11:51 AM

In our outpost of the deep South, we are going to try to organize a place for singers to get together and share songs. The idea is to have a way to foster singers like the ceili bands and string teachers foster fiddlers and bodhran bangers, and to provide a venue outside of Public Performances to sing songs alone and in groups, and of course to have a place where songs and tradition can be passed down.

To me that sounds like a Song Circle, but the instigator of this keeps talking about a Singers Club like many towns in Ireland have.

So. What's the difference between the two?

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 12:24 PM

Google

singers' club

There are gangs of sites that will help you formulate a picture. (Be careful not to put a w in there or you may find more than you wished to.)

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: pattyClink
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 12:38 PM

Well, it will get you 15 million hits, with the first few screens a little heavy on canary breeders and glee clubs, as well as An Goilin and some others which have web sites. I'll deduce what I can but if anyone has personal knowledge of club operations, please let me know.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 12:45 PM

Usually in my book, a club which doesn't ever have guest performers, just their own members, and other floor singers that turn up from time to time.
G.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: GUEST,Floor Zit
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 01:00 PM

Is this not a club where a group of enthusiasts interested in sewing machines get together and exchange news, parts and manuals? ;-)

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: Barry Finn
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 01:04 PM

What I think of when someone says a "singer's club" is a place that's open to the public so non members can chance or happen apon the club & sit in to listen in or join in if they wish or ignor or stay off from it in say the main room of a bar instead of being in a side or back room or on a different floor froom the singers. I also would expect to pay a small fee to be charged to enjoy the pleasure which would hep the club to stay afloat & to help pay for the once & awhile special guest singer that would get paid to perform during asinger nite but here the guest singer would to a larger amount of singing while the floor singers would still sing but the focus would still be on the guest. Being an American & living in a country where this type of venue is not at all common I'd leave it to the Europens to give you a better discription though. To me it sounds like you're starting up a sing around on singing session which I'm far more familar with.
Good luck what ecer way you do it

BTW you said you're in the South, south what or where?

Barry

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: GUEST,Brendan Kennedy
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 01:09 PM

The format in An Goilin is that the MC on the night calls on 3 singers to start the ball rolling. After that it's a case of anybody who wants to sing simply jumping in. There is never any shortage of volunteers. Sometimes there are guest singers who sing 5 or 6 songs before the halfway break and perhaps the same again afterwards. Traditionally the first singer also closes the evening.

The Clé Club operates slightly differently. The MC calls on singers from the floor rather than have people jumping in when it suits them. I personally prefer this format as it allows the MC to enquire of any new faces in the crowd if they are interested in contributing. There is no pressure to do so but it allows people the option. Again there are sometimes guest performers (singers, musicians and the odd poet or storyteller).

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: foggers
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 01:20 PM

For me, the key difference is the thing about it being open to the public or not. If you are trying to specifically nurture new young talent, then having every sesion open to the public could be too daunting. I would say that a singers club is as others have described above, with members of public able to wander in and enjoy what is on offer. If you need to seclude your selves in order to do something more akin to teaching/mentoring (at least part of the time) then that is more like a singers circle.

Of course, as the group members gain confidence they may be ready to go public perhaps by turning a regular meeting into a Club night.

I was involved with a community drama & writing project that ran a bit like this, many years ago. We had regular drama sessions behind closed doors and one night in the month it was held in a pub's function room as a poetry and performers Club night. That way the new folks got support and coaching, and a chance to try their material out in public when they felt ready. They also had the inspiration of seeing existing performers do their stuff at the club night.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 12:56 AM

You advertise.

Folk music tonight.
Singers Welcome.
Get the local press around to take a picture of you with your guitar and an interview. Put handouts about your new club in local music stores and college notice boards - anywhere musicians might read it. Perhaps the local radio will do an interview or an announcement about the new folk music venue in town.

Choose a nice room - preferably a function room or backroom in a pub. By nice, I mean physically comfortable, a pub not populated by mad looking street characters, clean is good, heated in winter time is good, comfortable seating is good. Ask youself, would I have to be of below average intelligence to want to spend a night in this room.

Best to charge on the door. a small fee - it keeps out people who would talk through other peoples performances and be inattentive. Its best if you can organise it with three or four reliable friends. that means
1) if you are ill the club doesn't close down
2) the whole burden of a residency doesn't fall on you.
3) if one week no other singer turns up - well you just get a longer turn.
4) do a raffle for a bottle of wine or an album in the interval - work towards setting up a fund to attract a professional act occasionally - this way young or inexperienced players get to see the sort of standard they must aim for, a lot of people nowadays simply have never experienced live folk music.

See who turns up!

Its a bit like that Field of Dreams film - set the club up and believe there are folksingers out there who want to share their music.

Best of luck

Some clubs work, some don't. Don't beat youself up if it doesn't. See if there are any lessons to be learned, take a rest then try again.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 08:27 AM

As Giok and WLD said , In UK a Singers Club is a folk club which doesnt book regular paid guests , but relies on local performers and visiting itinerant folkies . Usually a small admission is charged , there may well be a raffle , and any funds are used for publicity ,
rent , and if there is a sufficient surplus , a VERY occasional booked guest .

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: pattyClink
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 09:25 AM

Lead, Brendan, Giok, thanks for all the good info. Weelittle, great planning ideas. Barry, we are in Jackson, Mississippi. We have one wonderful but small Irish pub. There is a sizeable community of people into set dancing and instrumental playing here, believe it or not, but not so many on the vocal side, we tend to have visiting singers from Hattiesburg and New Orleans. I do have a small list of interested people to get started with.

And foggers, thank you for defining the public/private issue. I definitely think part of this must be to get out of the public eye for at least part of the time. So we may need to do as you suggest, having private 'home nights' where lots of teaching goes on, and public 'floor nights' where we get out in public, perform and pull in some new people.

Some people around here don't grasp that trad singing originated in and belongs in homes, not just in a bar or on stage, and one reason we don't have more performers is this big gulf between performers and audience we have inadvertently established.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: MartinRyan
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:02 AM

I love the expression "wonderful but small", here! In Ireland we like our pubs "small but wonderful"!

Regards

p.s. More seriously, in my experience, small singers clubs/circles tend to depend critically on having one or two people of an inclusive, sympathetic character, who can gently shepherd the session along - or tactfully shut up the obstreporous or merely boring. In the absence of some such, sessions tend to either become chaotic, enter terminal decline or take refuge in such rule-based methods as noting down each person who enters and calling them in that order! Such regimentation rarely sits well with the singing.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:06 AM

worth taking into account - some newspapers won't bother sending a reporter and photographer round as this expensive for them having to pay these people - however if you send a photo -together with a press statement and interview - you have done their job for them and they will be pleased to do a feature on you from what you send.

Remember all the bases you are covering here. fromthe sound of it your local church might be willing to give it a mention in their parish magazine.

Nowadays - you can e-mail evry local paper, plus the folk press.

frankly I don't believe you aren't awash with Irishmen and women, and other ethnic groups in Jackson who would fancy getting up an giving you a song. You are obviously going to have to have the dance club one night and the song night on another night.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: pattyClink
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 10:12 AM

I like a small pub to drink in, too! But this poor little place is called upon to be concert hall, dance hall, and restaurant, and needless to say has no 'side room' for holding singers clubs in. Hence the 'but small'.

I can only imagine the little hassles we will be running into as far as the 'obstreperous & boring'. But so far, the song circles we have had at our annual festival have mostly been pretty wondrous things. We need them way more often.

Subject: RE: Define a Singers Club
From: pattyClink
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 01:34 PM

Thanks, wee. We have no folk press but the entertainment/alternative weekly would probably give us a little help if we send them material.

One thing Jackson is definitely NOT awash in in Irishmen and women! But you are probably right that singers will start coming out of the woodwork once they know what's going on.