"I've seen some people make a half-decent job on tha concertina, but even then, there is a tendency to allow the instrument to make the running
"or not be allowed to play until they have learnt the tune off by heart"
As far as I'm concerned, the golden rule is 'private is for practice - public is for the finished article'"
good points, yes, any accompanying instrument should be just that, not a bad idea to learn the song unaccompanied first, first rule is singing has to be louder than instrument, then keep the accompaniment simple, and flexible using chords as an alternative to melody allows the singer to hold longer notes[altering timing and phrasing for effect] [in my experience only] it becomes simpler to do this using chordal acc rather than melody, but both can be done if a lot of time and practice is put in. I have seen both older and youger singers shuffling through notes in an amateurish way, I have seen the occasional performer make an excellent job of reading from notes.. Johnny Handle for example, BUT THEN HE HAS HAD BEEN PERFORMING FOR YEARS WITHOUT NOTES.
" Here in England there has been a significant growth in ukulele groups (and community choirs) at the same time as folk clubs have declined. There can be between 10 and 50 people playing together, possibly 20 songs in an evening from songbooks containing up to a hundred songs.

They use iPads here. This kind of thing goes back to the "community song" movement of the 20s, and there's no sensible alternative to singing off a sheet. There's a reason why the News Chronicle songbook sold as well as it did."
There is a sensible alternative its called practice and menorisation most of the ukelele stuff is fairly simple chords that can be learned quickly, it is just laziness., and you know it Jack Campin
However classical music and brass band music is a different ball game.
When I was a member of the new mexborough english concertina quartet we had to use sheet music the parts were too complicated and lengthy ,but that is a different genre, it is debatable that what we were playing was folk music, I dont think it was ,but i enjoyed it