I'd have to agree that there's a sort of "magic" with the music; sometimes its there, and sometimes its not. In the groups I sing with, anyway, no one person or group can "make" it happen, no matter how hard you try; but as Joe mentioned above, sometimes it all just clicks and there is some indefinable quality to the evening. Those are ususally the "evenings" that go on until near dawn. Other times, the same group of people can be there, and want it, but the magic just doesn't come that night. Around midnight the first people start drifting out of circle, and it just peters out from there.

My favorite magic night was an impromptu event at a family camp. We had a grandmother in her late 80's, my father, who claims 39 (I'm 40, can't explain that one....) on down to high school ages. No instruments (or books) at all - someone just suggested a Sing after dinner. One song suggested another, and so on until, at about 2 in the morning, one of the youngsters looked at us and asked "How do you guys know so many songs?" That's when we realized we'd been singing for more than 5 hours! And we weren't ready to stop.

campfire/Dawn