DMcG, good question.

Performance

The word "performance" has wide application, and in its broadest sense, just about anything one does can qualify as a "performance." But in the sense that I'm using it in above posts (3b, "a public presentation or exhibition") , it's an interchange between someone, a singer, actor, tap dancer, stand-up comic, or such, and an audience—whether from a concert stage or at a folk club, or in someone's living room, in which other activity stops to listen to or watch what that person or persons are doing.

If you're whistling while skipping down a country lane or if you're Ridi Pagliacci-ing at the top of your lungs in the shower, one could say that's a "performance," but that's not the sense in which I am using it. In these circumstances, you are not charging anyone to listen to you, nor are you demanding anyone's attention, you are doing what you are doing for your own enjoyment. You are your own audience. If the birds in the trees along the country lane look at you in horror and clap their wings over their ears, or if your upstairs neighbor just above your bathroom starts stomping on the floor and shouting "Shaddap!!!" because you're louder than an air raid siren and way to hell-and-gone off pitch, it doesn't really matter—unless the birds decide to dive bomb you with poop or the upstairs neighbor runs downstairs, crashes through your front door, pulls back the shower curtain, and punches you in the nose.

But if you are charging people to attend to what you do by asking them for money or by requiring their time and attention, then, to my mind anyway, you have an obligation to be worth asking people to fork over their money or spend their time and concentration on what you do.

Different venues demand different standards. If you're singing from the stage of Carnegie Hall or Royal Albert Hall, you'd damn well better be pretty good! But assuming that you are at a folk club (if I understand correctly what they're intended to be), or the Seattle Song Circle, or sitting around a table at a pub, or at an informal gathering in someone's home, if you are a beginner and you know only three songs, and have finally worked up the courage to try to sing them in front of other people, then more power to you! Give it a go! The people there will be (or certainly should be) tolerant, even if you blow it, and generally be encouraging and supporting. After all, if you keep plugging away, perhaps in a few years you will develop into a singer who is most enjoyable to listen to and can easily pack them into Carnegie and/or Royal Albert Halls at fancy ticket prices. They can always brag that they were there at your birth.

But before trying to perform, even in a "warm plunge" venue, learn the song first. Know the words, know the tune, try to learn something about the song (this will help you in knowing what it is you are actually singing about), and practice it by yourself until you have it down solid. Otherwise, even in that "warm plunge" venue, the folks there may not be all that tolerant next time, if you were obviously ill-prepared. And, believe me, lack of preparation is all too obvious!

Even if it's folk music.

Don Firth