This is a follow-up to the "When should you charge for performing?" thread.

Someone mentioned that it was valuable to have a unique repertoire, and someone else mentioned that audiences enjoy songs that they know more than songs that they don't. I thought this question was worth a thread of its own.

When I'm listening to a performance, I virtually always prefer hearing the songs that I know already and can sing along to (in my head if not out loud). If the song is good, then it can't be done too often by definition.

It's the same in other areas besides music too - I've read my favourite novels dozens of times each, and I prefer liturgical churches to non-liturgical; I figure that if anything is worth doing once, it's worth doing over and over again.

And while new songs might turn out to become old favourites, I find that they're not as much fun the first time round. Maybe it's because it's a kind of "work" to really listen to a song I haven't heard before, and I don't go to concerts to have to work.

Agree? Disagree?

Marion