I have a propensity to sing along with performers. I think I know how to control this impulse; I certainly don't indulge my habit in a sit-down concert milieu, and even in settings where alcohol is served and a degree of rowdiness is expected, I usually try to modulate my volume and not to out-shout the paid performer(s). Like my wife likes to tell me when she kicks me under the table, the people came to hear that guy, not me.

So, anyway:

One evening not too long ago, we were sipping a couple of pints and enjoying a musical performance, and I eventually began to sing along with the choruses of some familiar songs. Just the choruses, not the verses. It was a solo act, so I wasn't bellowing at the top of my lungs (as I might do with a high-volume electrified rock band). In fact, I'm quite sure that the fellow on stage was pleased to have inspired a bit of audience participation, and indeed was encouraging even more people to join in.

When he started a well-known and widely-loved Jimmie Rodgers classic, I was not the only patron to sing along. Everything was going along nicely until we got to the part where Jimmie had written in the yodeling part. All of a sudden, there I was, out on a limb, yodeling all alone!

I'm sure that some of you know the feeling, to suddenly be surrounded by silence, a lone voice where a moment before you had been hidden well down in the mix.

The worst of it was, I wasn't yodeling worth a damn because I was being so careful not to be in full open-throat mode, which is really the only way to deliver a decent yodel. How disconcerting to find yourself isolated, with everyone able to hear your whiney half-assed wimpy little half-stifled "yodelay-hee-ho"!

Now, the fellow on the bandstand was a very good singer, and a professional. He witnessed what happened, commisserated with me, and allowed as he never really felt able to yodel and just sorta skipped over that part.

Hey! If you're not willing to yodel, don't try to cover the Singing Brakeman! Seriously: I'm not saying to cut the songs from your repertoire, I'm saying this: open that throat and let yourself yodel! Sure, you'll want to practice in absolute privacy first, for a while, but you'll be glad you did!

There's such a thing as being too controlled, too careful; some approaches to singing demand am element of risk, of full-out, balls-to-the-wall, pedal-to-the-metal, exuberant shouting! Not only yodeling, but blues-"shouting," rock-n-roll wailing, etc. If it's a little risky, that's OK ~ it's part of what makes live music appealing, and definitely part of what makes music a medium for communicating one's own human spirit. I say, go for it!

Now, I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool "folkie." I started learning an instrument thanks to the influence of the big Folk Revival, and I still enjoy plenty of folk music, just as I enjoy plenty of other music, but I'm not devoted exclusively to any one genre, and I'm not a fan of everything that comes under the broad definition of "folk music." One thing I don't like about some folk music is that it's just so damn tame ~ as though some performers don't want us to hear how they really feel.

Now, I know that you have to exercise control and self-discipline to learn and progress as a musician. I understand that unbridled freedom of expression, without some degree of restraint and serous study, can make for some very boring, very stupid, overly simple noise. But I think that continued development as a musician demands an ebb and flow between the opposite poles of contraint and explosion. Sure, you want to become ever more precise in your fingering, in your ability to vocalize the exactly correct note, etc. But that's not all there is to music. Periodically, I think you have to force yourself to go nuts, take chances, and explore the limits of self-expression.

(Sorry about all the exclamation points. This topic has been bugging me for a while, and I had to finally get it off my chest.)