I was invited to an invitation-only singing weekend, and I sent my $250 in to attend. After I signed up and paid my money, I received the following message:

We'd like to discourage folks from using "Rise Up Singing" or similar song word books. If you have a song or two you're dying to sing, and aren't sure of the words and want to stick a sheet in your back pocket for security, that's fine. But we'd like to avoid having people flipping through the pages of a book (or smart device) looking for what they're going to sing next while someone else is singing.

My response:

I'd like to say that if I had known of this restriction before the weekend, I wouldn't have attended. I have trouble memorizing lyrics, so I have to depend on something. I try not to be distracting when other people are singing, and I like to think I'm quite polite. I have some songs committed to memory, but I like to do songs that are new to me or more interesting for one reason or another.
I can sing camp and church songs from memory forever, but I don't want to do that.

I realize that this is a "hot issue" and many people have objections to the way people choose to sing, but I tend to think that sort of attitude is intolerably snooty.

Yeah, it's really nice if people can memorize every song they sing, but it just doesn't happen all that much any more. I think I'm a pretty good singer, and I do know a lot of songs from memory - church songs, camp songs, Christmas and Fourth of July songs, Peter Paul and Mary and Simon & Garfunkel Songs, and a lot of other songs I wouldn't sing at a traditional song gathering. I'm constantly learning new songs, but I'm ready to sing them for others when I have the melody down - I don't wait until I have the lyrics memorized. And for that matter, I learn lyrics best after I've sung the song for an audience a number of times. Even then, I like to have something that will tell me the first coupla words of every verse.


So, I feel like forfeiting my $250 and not attending. Most of the people at this gathering know me, and they must know that I sing from song sheets, a Kindle, and occasionally a copy of Rise Up Singing. Why did they invite me?

-Joe-