Another take on 'noodling'?

Recently I attended a session over two days at a small festival. It was a pretty open affair. All styles of music were being played. There was only songs from two people, who were there together. The majority of the rest were tune players.

Almost every time a set of tunes were finished, one or other of them would start up a song that they were obviously used to singing together.

First the players would wait patiently for the song to finish. However as time went on and the songs from the two singers continued, a few people, rather than just wait, started to 'noodle' or actually to play the tune being sung, quite well.

In the end the two singers found that they were struggling to make themselves heard over the rest of the session playing the songs that they started.

I don't think this was done on purpose, but it would not have happened at all, if the two singers had accepted the situation, rather than fighting it insist on turning the players into an audience.