JulieF: well explained and my thoughts echo yours!

GUEST, Bruce: As an unaccompanied singer I also agree partly with your views as I feel a whole evening unaccompanied by one singer could be quite boring, but that's often dependant upon the singer and one's own taste of course. An unaccompanied singer needs to give variety to their set, and if they can include some items which are accompanied, by friends perhaps, then that would help the audience's enjoyment tremendously.

But as a non-musician, I can also enjoy singing and listening during whole weekends of unaccompanied singing such as in the Middle Bar, or Whittlebury. Sometimes even 24 hour non-stop, as in the MBS Reunion a couple of years ago.

Personally, I have always been in awe of musicians who can play instruments and sing at the same time. Firstly I'm not musician enough to play any instrument, and secondly I'd only be able to cconcentrate on singing the song itself. To do both I reckon is wonderful, though sometimes either the singing, or the playing can suffer as a consequence of this split attention in less experienced performers.