My first post on this thread -

(Should a person's ability be paramount when performing?

I think not.

If someone wants to sing/play/recite - good on them. It takes guts to get up and perform and is even more nerve wracking if you are inexperienced.

The whole point of a singaround/music session is so that people can have a go and no one should be excuded because of their level of ability.)


I started this thread because I have come to realise that there are those who simply will not tolerate people whose ability is, of their opinion, 'sub standard'.

I wanted to find out if even novices would be deemed to be unfit to perform at singarounds/music sessions.

Everyone has to start somewhere, I started at around the age of 7 and if I had been treated badly by others in singarounds at that age for reading my words I think I would have abandoned Folk altogether.

I do still occasionally use my words but as some of the contributors to this thead have mentioned, I do my best to make the performance override the fact that I have the words in front of me. Having my words is more of a confidence issue as I have performed whole concerts without words and have even managed to pick myself up and dust myself down when I've made mistakes but I am apalled to think that if I had not been lucky to be treated quite so kindly that so many would have excluded me in the past.

G