When I first started singing at "hoots" in the 1950s, which, at the time were song fests generally held in someone's living room and amounted to informal song swapping sessions, I sang only from memory. Songs I knew by heart. Everyone else did the same. NO ONE used cheat sheets or books.

It was just the way it was done.

That was good training for when I started getting hired to sing. I knew the songs in my repertoire, and could sing them from memory. And put my attention on putting the song across.

And I was not unique in this. There was never a music stand or cheat sheet in sight.

Seattle Song Circle got started in the late 1970s and, at first, that's the way it was done. We sang in rotation, going around the circle. Singing from memory.

Then, sometime in the 80s, a few new people started showing up with notebooks or stacks of song books. I remember sitting there one evening grinding my teeth with everyone else while one guy pulled out a song book, searched for the song he wanted, announced, "I haven't learned the words or tune yet, but. . . ." And then proceeded to set the whole room (about thirty people) writhing with his attempt to sing a Jacques Brel song (at a folk song circle), complete with backing up and restarting a couple of times.

OY!!

Actually, that was the last time Barbara and I went to Song Circle. This sort of thing had been happening for some time.

Then I heard that Rise Up Singing appeared at the Song Circle gatherings. More and more people began singing together out of the book, sort of like a hymn sing. By then, many of those who had started Song Circle in the first place had long since dropped out.

I have never used song sheets when singing in coffee houses, in clubs, in concerts, and I didn't use song sheets, cue cards, or teleprompter when I did television.

When I was taking singing lessons from George Hotchkiss Street many years ago, he had me bring my guitar to the lessons, then after we had worked on vocal exercises and technique, he would ask me to sing whatever song I was working on at the moment. He would often stop me and ask, "Now, what does that line mean?" He knew, of course, but he wanted to make sure that I knew, and wasn't just singing the song by rote.

And knowing what the song was all about made it possible for me to put something into it that made it come alive.

You simply can't do that if you don't KNOW the song and are reading it off a sheet of paper.

Keep a book of song sheets, yes. And use them to refresh your memory if you haven't sung the song for awhile. But do this at home in your own time.

And then leave the damned thing at home!!

Don Firth