The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #84679 Message #1566454
Posted By: Richard Bridge
19-Sep-05 - 03:36 AM
Thread Name: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
Subject: RE: Folk Artists - Wise up (or Fade away)!
I'm not a professional. I'm in England (part of Europe). I think I may have been paid to play once or twice in about 15 years since I've been folking (not counting whenI was young). I do think it is important to know a song well enough to do it without words/chords/dots as otherwise there inevitably comes an interruption in the flow of the performance as the concentration on capturing what one is about to do from the paper exceeds the concentration on the actual delivery.
The paper actually spoils the performance.
It also looks very slap-dash. It is certainly not the norm among professional performers I have seen.
Nonetheless, if a song is to be done before it is really ready, or has to be dug out of history because of a request, then it may be better to have the prompt to hand than to have to stop and start again (if you can't improvise). But to appear to be reading and to sound as if one is reading will be awful.
I used to do quite a bit of debating, and have won cups for it. It is quite literally fatal to effective debating to read a speech. At most a series of cue cards to provide a route map is tolerable. Comparably, if you need words or chords to hand, it is better to keep them inconspicuous, and to refer to them only as necessary (and make sure they are big enough and clear enough to be useful at a hurried glance).
An exxact repeat of previous routines and introductions will rapidly become boring if familiar. The comment of Brimmo "Even the introductions are honed to perfection" is a snide compliment that turns on the fact that exact repetition is not always good. Variation is highly desirable - but some things are hard to change because of their uniqueness - like "Queen Jane" being the only folk song I know about congenital syphilis, and Richard Mattheman's "Run the Tide" the only folk-style song I know about senile dementia. Or who wrote a song.
Balance, perspective, and moderation seem to be needed on this thread, but I would tend to agree that a semi-pro singer really ought to be looking to performing without song-sheets, and to having enough repertoire that repeat audiences could find significant freshness in each performance.
Some very big names might also like to remember that while an informative introduction is a great benefit, the audience is there mostly for the songs, so talking more than singing is not a good thing!