Subject: RE: why do singers take so long to start?
From:
Don Firth
Date: 15 Aug 15 - 09:24 PM
Yeah, Joe, I first met Merritt Herring in 1960 at one of the Berkeley Folk Festivals. Fantastic singer! He moved up to the Seattle area and manifested himself at the Seattle Song Circle meetings in the late 1970s. He was a regular, every Sunday evening—at least until the dreaded "blue book" started showing up, and then he—and a fair number of others—started making themselves scarce.
Along with "Rise Up Sinking" (a good collection as far as learning words is concerned, even if they have been bowdlerized and rendered "politically correct") as the "official and ordained hymnal," plus watching people stagger into the meetings laden down with a stack of song books and three-ring binders, mull through their libraries while others waited, then regale the assembled company with feeble attempts at Jacques Brel songs, for cripe's sake (!!) was a bloody waste of a perfectly good Sunday evening.
That's when the singers like Merritt Herring, Bob Nelson, John Dwyer, Stan James, John and Sally Ashford, and others decided that there were better things to do with their time. Wotthehell! Sunday evening. Masterpiece Theatre is on TV, so….
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Fair question, pete.
One aspect is simply loving the song and wanting to keep it. And one way of keeping it is to memorize it, so you can hear it any time you want, even if it's silently in your own mind.
Another is to be able to sing it—and sing it well, not just by rote. One of my voice teachers had me bring my guitar to lessons and sing whatever song I was working on at the time. As I sang it, he would often stop me and say, "Now, what does that line (or phrase, or word) mean?" Now, he knew perfectly well, he just wanted to make sure that I knew what it meant, and was not just singing the song by rote.
The key to really putting a song across to others is to know what it is you are singing about. And it's next to impossible to do that—with feeling—unless you have the song solidly memorized.
And then the reward of enthusiastic and genuine applause, indicating that the audience you are singing for at the time enjoyed your rendition of the song. And if you can do this consistently with all the songs you sing, you might qualify for
Financial rewards. And who knows how far that can go?
Early on, as I was first learning songs, I sang at "hootenannies," parties, generally in private homes, where folk song enthusiasts would get together and sing for each other. We were all working hard at learning songs, so there were no song books or crib sheets in evidence. We brought our particular collection of songs in our memories.
After I'd been doing this for maybe five or six years, and had developed a repertoire of maybe a hundred or so songs (I also studied up on where they came from, which also informed me as to how the song should be sung), I was approached by a jazz musician friend who often attended these "hoots" just to listen. His day job was working for the Seattle Public Library, developing programs for the newly formed educational television channel based at the University of Washington, to make people aware of materials available at the library. He had put on a series of shows about jazz, his particular field, then another series about string quartets, calling on a fledgling group of students at the U. of W.'s music department—and he asked me to do a program of folk songs and ballads with explanations about the backgrounds of the songs. Since I had learned a number of songs from songbooks and records I had checked out at the library, this would not be a problem. I panicked a bit at the thought of doing a series of live television shows, but he assured me that I would do fine.
I did manage to bring it off, and I was told that the library--and the U. of W.--were happy with the programs.
Important point for the purpose of this particular discussion: this was before the days of teleprompters, and the small, mostly student-run station didn't have the personnel to do me up a bunch of cue-cards. I had to rely solely on my memory! There were a number of near coronaries during the series, but my careful memorization of the songs helped me to muddle through.
I muddled through well enough, apparently, because I got a number of offers for singing jobs from people who watched the series—including an offer for a steady job from a man who was just about to open what turned out to be Seattle's nicest coffeehouse, next door to the art and foreign film theater that he owned—hence the name of the coffeehouse, "The Place Next Door."
That involved singing four or five half-hour sets per evening, three evenings a week. It was a steady, on-going job, and it paid, not lavishly, but well and regularly! It paid my rent and kept me fed!!
This, in turn, led to other singing jobs, some at private parties, but mostly at nearby schools and colleges. Each singing job led to others.
I was off and running!! Upthread, at 14 Aug 15 - 06:17 PM, I mention a number other singing jobs I've had, including at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.
I have a whole bookshelf full of song books and academic ballad study books, and big shelf in the living room of folk music LPs, another shelf of CDs, I keep my repertoire of a few hundred songs and ballads in a couple of three ring binders (alphabetized) along with set lists and concert programs, and other related notes and materials. I also keep the same materials on my computer, safely backed up on flash drives.
The only "visual aid" I use when I'm performing is my planned concert program or set list taped to the side of my guitar, so a quick glance will show me what song is next. These, however, are not chiseled in stone. I can make last minute changes if I deem it necessary.
This post is getting pretty long, so I'll end it here. If anyone is interested, I can post a rundown on my procedure for memorizing songs.
Don Firth
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