What sets my teeth on edge is the person who comes into a song circle (singaround) lugging a stack of books, and when his turn comes up, says, "I just found this song this afternoon, and I don't know the words yet and I'm not sure of the tune, but here goes. . . ." and then spends a few minutes flipping pages trying to find the song because he's lost his bookmark.

You think I exaggerated? I've seen it happen. More than once. And not always by the same person.

I'm all in favor of the person just starting out who only knows two songs so far and wants to try them out, but before he or she does try to sing them for others, they should have the words memorized and know the tune well enough to at least give it a reasonable facsimile. More power to them! Even if they screw it up, they should be encouraged to keep plugging away. Hell, I was there once myself!

However, if you have aspirations of getting up on stage and singing for an audience that has paid to hear you, you'd jolly well better have some performance ability.

Don Firth

P. S. The person who has the slap-dash attitude that, "I don't have to be able to sing well. I sing folk songs!" is someone who needs to be summarily strangled.