While I'm an a cappella singer of ballads, I do admire the use of skilled, usually unobtrusive, accompaniment by some instrumentalists. Some of them take an instrumental break at a point in the ballad where the story has you on edge--a matter of heightening the tension by making you wait for a resolution in the plot (sitting on the edge of one's seat...). A fine storyteller/balladsinger can use the instrumental break the way a great raconteur like George Burns used his cigar...

Timing.

--Charlie Baum