Janie, I'm sure both Bob and I would appreciate anything you sing and any way you would care to sing it.

What I have trouble with is the person who comes into a song circle and wants to sing a song that they simply don't know and never even encountered until they ran across it in a song book a half-hour before they left home to come to the sing-around. And they drive others screwy by trying to blunder their way through a song whose tune they barely know and some of the words they are actually reading for the first time.

I'm not exaggerating! I've seen that happen. And let's face it, that's pretty self-serving, and downright tacky! All too often, they don't seem to really be all that interested in the songs per se, they just want to be recognized as a full-fledged singer within the group without having to put in the time and work that the other people have.

When more and more people with this attitude showed up, those who had a strong interest in the songs and who had put in the time, work, and study began dropping out—sometimes to form another group.

My point in urging people to memorize the material is that once a song is solidly committed to memory, you can then apply your attention to aspects of the song other than just getting the words and tune out.

For example, most songs and ballads can benefit by the singer doing a bit of subtle and tasteful acting. For example, in dialog songs, say Edward, you have one person demanding to know where the blood on the other's sleeve came from and, dissatisfied with the answers she's getting, she refuses to give up until she gets a believable answer. In the meantime, the man being questioned is being evasive, not wanting to reveal the grizzly truth.

Now, I've seen this sort of thing horribly overdone. Operatic bass-baritone George London was an absolutely brilliant singer, but what he did with Lord Randal—well, it was pretty ghastly! But—a subtle change of voice and inflection as you switch viewpoints can really infuse life into a song and make it downright gripping. After all, you're telling a story. And you would want to tell it well.

There are few things more satisfying that to lay down a song that you have discover and that is new to the group, and do it so well that everybody looks at you wide-eyed and goes, "Wow! Where did you learn that!??"

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As to orchestras, choirs, and other ensembles working from sheet music, I think there's more to it than meets the eye. Symphony orchestras will often rehearse a particular piece for months before they do it in concert, so it's not as if they aren't thoroughly familiar with it. When you have some ninety or a hundred musicians all working together, you don't want any of them going astray, so they keep the music in front of them just in case.

Church choirs have a very short time to rehearse. Often it's on a Wednesday evening when they begin working on the two or three pieces they'll be singing on the following Sunday, and they spend a couple of hours working on them. Then, they get together again 8:30 Sunday morning and rehearse them again, to be ready to sing them in the service at 11:00. They may not have all of the words memorized, but they are certainly more than just a little familiar with them, having gone over them a good dozen times or so.

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Once again, if a group of people want to get together and all sing out of the same song book, say "Rise Up Singing," fine and dandy. I, personally, don't particularly enjoy this. What I do enjoy is when I hear someone sing a song I've never heard before, or sing a different version of a song I've heard and/or sing myself. Or a really good verse I've never heard before that appears in a song I've sung for years, and that really fits and enhances the song. And that's simply not going to happen if everybody is singing out of RUS.

Or a new and interesting interpretation of a song I'm very familiar with. And that also is not going to happen if everyone is all singing together out of the same book.

But as I keep saying, your mileage may vary.

Don Firth