I'm approaching this question in a kind of apologetic and nervous/fearful manner because I worry about the response I might get!

I love the folk scene and have, over many years, found so many folkie friends who make my life so much richer; more than they may ever imagine.

I love a good singaround with these friends and many others and until recent years I used to stay in the background and just join in the popular choruses with all my heart.

But in the last two or three Years I have raised my head over the parapet and started to actually sing a song; usually in informal singarounds in a pub etc or in M.C directed singarounds where they go round the room and ask you if you want to do a song. Usually in "fringe" sessions at folk festivals in the UK.

I am not a good or a confident singer but I kind of get by and no one has yet said I was rubbish.

But the point of this thread is that I find it very hard to commit a song to memory and have to resort to my trusted old song book (To which I am adding songs all the time) to read from when I am delivering a song.

In some circles this seems to be OK but in others people have told me that it is frowned upon/ looked down upon because if I was really serious about singing I should learn the song by heart so I can lift my head and my voice and sing to the audience and not down to the book.

I do understand where thy are coming from in terms of giving the full effect to the volume of your voice and 'engaging' with your audience but is it really such a sin and frowned upon to sing from a song book?

I'm still pretty much a 'virgin' in the singing community and find this whole thing a bit bewildering and frankly intimidating.

So any advice and guidance here from 'old hands' and anybody else on the folk scene would be very much welcomed.

Thank you.

Chris