MMario sez: "The problem is - the guy with the instrument SHOULD be following me ..."

I think I've discovered the difference between the folk approach to accompaniment and the "standards" approach. I like to accompany singers, and several people have said I do it well. I listen.

But one time I was accompanying a choir member at church, and I realized that she was waiting for me to LEAD her, while I was waiting to follow. Once I get the idea that I was to lead her, prompt her, then we pulled it off (the second half of the song was much less halting than the first, as we tried to go our mutually-exclusive ways).

But it occurred to me, at that moment, that some kinds of music (church music, pop "standards" -- as opposed to pop/rock songs, perhaps jazz, although I'm not so sure of that one) require the accompaniment to lead, not follow. The singer waits his/her cue, takes the pitch and beat from the guitar/banjo/piano/whatever, and it's the job of the musician, not the singer, to set the frame for the song. Folk just isn't one of those musics.

Bob Clayton