Happy New Year, all. Yes, Diva, this is a good thread. Lots of stuff I agree with strongly - English Jon and Mary on putting together your own version of the ballad, for instance. The more it feels like a part of you, the better job you will make of putting it over.

I want to go back to the subject of instrumental accompaniment (last discussed Dec 30). The idea is propounded regularly in certain quarters that accompaniment inevitably detracts from the storytelling aspect of the ballad. That this is utter cobblers is easily demonstrated by thinking of such fine ballad singers as Ray Fisher and Sara Grey, who tend to use accompaniments more often than not. Of course it needs to be unobtrusive both in volume and complication, it needs to be sufficiently well-drilled as to require little or no concentration, and it needs to be used on the right ballad. Even somone like me, who's fascinated by the interplay of voice and instrument, would regard certain ballads as being inappropriate for accompaniment. Others ballads, though - the less emotionally-intense, more swashbuckling kind - will actually take quite flamboyant accompaniments without complaining.

Jim mentioned above MacColl's vocal techniques for retaining audience attention over the course of a long ballad. The instrumentalist has even more weapons in the locker: a switched chord, a drone, a more insistent rhythm or a picking-up of pace can convey a change of mood without the listener realising quite what's happened.

As for instrumental breaks, I'm afraid I have to disagree with GSS ("the only purpose instrumental breaks have is to show how good the instrumentalist is... it is one of the most stupid things I have ever come across"). My old friend Charlie Baum has it right: things like the passage of time, a switch of narrator, a battle, etc. can usefully be marked by an instrumental passage. That's not the same thing at all as popping in a quick set of jigs to stop people getting bored.

Ultimately it boils down to a question of taste. I quite agree with points made above that different ballads and different singers will require or adopt different approaches. There is no right way to do it. However, I do reserve the right to cringe and make derogatory comments (privately, of course), when someone really murders a good ballad!