I have a feeling the folks who want to only play tunes won't go near a shanty/forebitter session. I don't think a few tunes would be bad though. If there are lots of choruses, tunes would give all a chance to rest our voices. Sailors played tunes, so there!

That said, I prefer accompanying singing to playing tunes because it's more flexible and I can concentrate more on sounding good and improvising than playing the 'correct' notes as fast as humanly possible.

I checked my calendar, and I can squeeze this in between breakfast at Tiffany's and golf with my lawyer. 2nd Saturday's fine.