Have you found that you can mix the two effectively over a period of time in a group that gathers regularly, and if so, how?

Our "thing" meets monthly. When we first started out it was all songs, altho it was clear that a number of the musicians enjoyed the playing more than the singability of the material. Now, several of us have been exploring fiddle tunes, and it seems we've attracted more instrumentalists than songsters. After one night last summer when we tried to mix the two fairly, and discussed splitting into two rooms the next time after the opening beginners' jam, we just have not seen the singers come back in numbers.

I'm frustrated enough that if there were a song circle closer than two hours away, I'd go to it. I play rhythm, and there are only so many fiddle tunes I'm willing to play as backup-- I need to develop the song side, and it was fun-- I feel like we inadvertently drove the singers out.

We are exploring going to two meetings a month instead of one-- a song night and a tune night, although we would never exclude a tune on song night or vice versa; whatever the people choose when it's their turn, that's great. And we've added some PR to emphasize the songs circle side, with themes for the next several months and a leader designated to lead these in an almost workshop mode-- since the singers we HAVE had are not proactive about bringing songs to share-- we get a lot of "Whatever you want to play is OK with me," leaving Hardi and I as de facto workshop leaders each month.

Seems like one problem came from the loss of the home photocopier in our fire some time ago-- used to be, people would bring songbooks or binders and we could make a quick couple of copies to share. This is NOT a group that is heavily into memorization, and that's not going to change, take my word for it. They DO make progress in being able to JAM without songhseets, but learning words is not going to happen with most of these folks.

Your experiences? I am interested in opinions, too, but much more interested in your EXPERIENCE.

~Susan