Same songs every time?

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: goatfell
Date: 12 May 09 - 01:13 PM

I try and sing a new song almost ecery week at the local sesion that I go to and so do some of the other people there, except a guy named Dick he sings the same songs and plays the same tunes week after week, Now I like Dick but I just wish he would learn more songs and tunes.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: MMario
Date: 12 May 09 - 12:32 PM

No one ever says, "Sing us a new song that we've never heard you sing before!"

I guess I'm lucky - because I *do* have a venue where that is the request...gotta love friends running the show!

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Bernard
Date: 12 May 09 - 12:16 PM

When audiences ask me to 'sing a song we know' I usually gently remind them that every song they know started off as one they didn't - just as strangers are friends we don't yet know...!

Okay, get yer fingers outa yer throats!!

;o)

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 12 May 09 - 12:15 PM

First,
What IanC said.

I am a yank.

I sing in public but I am NOT a performer.
The venues that I sing and play in bear little resemblance to English folk clubs.

I know lots of songs and tunes, but I sing and play some things repeatedly because I like them. Imagine that. I also hope that if I sing the same song or play the same tune repeatedly in a venue that others will learn it and join me.

I make music with lots of different people in many different configurations. Some groups get together sporadically, some regularly. Some focus on instrumental music, some on songs. We do like new material. But we like to do some things repeatedly because we like them and we want to develop a common repertoire.

Russ (Permanent GUEST and traditional musician)

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 12 May 09 - 12:14 PM

Besides which, The Rigs of London Town has a REALLY great sing-along chorus

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Marje
Date: 12 May 09 - 11:59 AM

But bear in mind, Frozen Gin, that the audience will only request songs they remember hearing from you before. It's a bit like the requests, in public bars, for "The Wild Rover" or "Duelling Banjos".
No one ever says, "Sing us a new song that we've never heard you sing before!" but that could well be the one they'd enjoy most, particularly in a folk club.

Marje

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Frozen Gin (inactive)
Date: 12 May 09 - 11:20 AM

It's what the audience, at large, wants not a few discontented individuals. If the audience at large wants to hear Blackleg Miner or The Rigs of London Town every week, then who am I to deny'em that pleasure?

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 May 09 - 11:15 AM

Its not just repeating the same songs - The ones who REALLY wind me up are the people who 'dont realise' they are next until told by who ever is running the singaround , despite the fact tha the person alongside them has just performed , THEN They get the instrument and or song book out and eventually do the same piece thet did last week !!

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 12 May 09 - 10:06 AM

At the first two clubs at which I was a resident I frequently got the job of starting the night (either because I was reliable or it got me over with quickly - I don't know) but I always though it was disrespectful towards the audience to inflict the same few songs on them week after week. This certainly encouraged me to learn a larger number and wider variety of songs; along with the excitement and satisfaction of presenting new material on a regular basis.
However at one of these clubs a fellow resident performed "The Irish Rover" five weeks in succession; now what was worse, his repetition of the same song so often or me for realising that he had done?

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: IanC
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:29 AM

This whole thing here seems to me to illustrate quite well the difference between "folk" and "folkies".

If you've gone somewhere to listen to interesting songs, I can understand why you wouldn't want to listen to the same person sing the same song week in and week out. A good folk club will be the place for you. Some singers nights, some guests. Excellent.

If you've gone somewhere to make music as part of a village or other neighbourhood community, then you'll be more than happy if Charlotte brings her flute every time and plays "Amazing Grace" because that's all she can confidently play (though you might encourage her to learn a 2nd and a 3rd tune for her own satisfaction) or if Keith sings "Old Shep" again (though you might complain for effect so that the whole pub joins you and him in having a good laugh).

;-)
Ian

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:19 AM

A good job we're all different, innit?!

********************

But going back to the old timers contributions mentioned above, brings to mind an old Welsh chap who used to attend a local sessh regularly & had but 2 songs.

He'd alternate them, tho - doing 'The Rose of Tralee' one week, then 'The Mountains of Mourne' the following week - & always to a great audience response joining the choruses

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Bernard
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:12 AM

Tricky one, this... I suppose it depends upon the reason why the person is singing... if they are singing for their own enjoyment primarily, then they sing what they enjoy. If the primary concern is entertaining others, then a little 'audience savvy' comes into consideration.

People who attend singarounds are usually there primarily for their own enjoyment, so are entitled to be a little 'selfish'.

Having said that, it irritates the hell out of me seeing/hearing someone sing the same song every time I see them, and reading it off the same pice of paper with a page turn in the middle of a verse!!

A good job we're all different, innit?!

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:11 AM

I am with Crow Sister. I get bored with what I am singing. If I am bored others in attendance sure gotta be.

Luckily, at the local club Crow Sister and I currently attend the repertoire collectively has been expanding. I am so proud of that merry little group.

One Knockholt, with the aid of songboooks, I played pretty well all the time I was awake from Thursday to Saturday night without repeating myself. I have seen the picture of you asleep at Knockholt, Richard.... awwww he looks so vulnerable and harmless, don't he?

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:07 AM

That's a good example of what I didn't mean!

Of course in almost every venue there'll be old Tom or old Mary who just have one or two songs or tunes & its often the case that audience & performers alike will have the good grace to applaud these out of respect.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:01 AM

"[There] would be calls for old David's Outlandish Knight; not because they wanted particularly to hear it - indeed, they had heard it so often they all knew it by heart - but because, as they said, "Poor old feller be eighty-three. Let 'un sing while he can." So David would have his turn. He only knew the one ballad."

Lark Rise to Candleford

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:56 AM

There is a South American culture described in Bruno Nettl's book on ethnomusicology that took this to the ultimate extreme. Everybody in the culture had their own personal song, which they'd composed themselves. Nobody else would ever sing it and you would never sing more than the one.

Nettl doesn't say, but I suspect they took up headhunting and cannibalism so as to hear some bloodcurdling screams as a change from the weekly singaround.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: MMario
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:50 AM

I'm going to a session/singaround this weekend and have already been told what song they want me to sing; the same one I always end up singing there....

Which is okay - I guess, because I only get there maybe three times a year...but frustrating for *ME* because I usually only get to do one song; and sometimes I'd like to sing something different in this venue.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Marje
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:47 AM

I try to avoid repeating a song to the same or a similar audience, even over a period of months, except for the occasional seasonal song that just needs to be done on a particular day. I think it's lazy and inconsiderate to keep on doing the same songs every week/month to the same people.

What I find most tiresome (like the example given by Jermaine above)is "humorous" songs repeated too frequently. Just because people laughed the first time, it doesn't follow that they'll find it as funny a couple of weeks later, and the week after that .... I do have a few funny songs but I'm very sparing with them, and air them only occasionally.

If I do learn a new song, I nearly always get it right the first time I do it "out", probably because I've just been practising it. The songs I forget are the ones I've been doing for years and never faltered on, until suddenly one day a curtain falls in my brain and ... well, you all know the feeling.

Now I'm getting anxious - I think I'll go and revise the new song I'm planning to do at the club this week.

Marje

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:47 AM

I think most people who get as far as halfway serious about what they are doing do try to vary it.

I was once introduced when singing in a break in the dancing at a ceilidh "This is RIchard, he's one of our singers, we don't know what he's going to do, in fact I don't think we've ever heard him sing the same song twice".

One Knockholt, with the aid of songboooks, I played pretty well all the time I was awake from Thursday to Saturday night without repeating myself.

Over the winter song sessions I have run in my local pub, I think I have only repeated myself once, and that was by request.


Not that I'm like the late Carey Roberts, who had thousands of songs in his memory, but I think it's worth avoiding sameness, and I think most people do try to.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:36 AM

Don't worry Peter - you're not the only one. I still use cheat sheets on occasion as there are too many songs to learn that I enjoy singing and I prefer that to stopping in the middle of a song because I can't remember the next line.

The first singaround club that I went to back in 1999 had a number of people guilty of singing the same old same old week after week and, when I go back there occasionally, they are STILL doing it! One of the regulars was rather impressed that "You've added some new songs to your repertoire!"

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:32 AM

If you're only getting out to one session each month, even a handful of songs should ensure you don't have to sing the very same song month in month out. Personally I think it pretty selfish of anyone to expect the poor audience to endure the same song over and over again, and not try to learn at least a handful of songs! I can't imagine what satisfaction peddling out the same tune can be for the performer either, don't they get sick of singing the same old thing repeatedly? As a slow learner it takes me ages to set something to memory, so I don't get that many new songs learned each month. But I do hopefully learn enough songs so there will be a couple of new ones whenever I get out to sing. If it's a long session, then I see no shame in repeating some songs already sung before amongst the same group. An all day meet and a smallish circle makes singing a fresh half dozen or more songs unrealistic.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Midchuck
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:28 AM

Folks should make an effort to learn their new songs thoroughly before performing them, rather than impose the ragged efforts of performing new songs or half-forgotten old songs on people expecting music. Yes, there always has to be a first time for presenting a new song and it won't necessarily be as polished a presentation as when it's been presented several times but the singer should be able to get from one end to the other without stumbling or resorting to notes.

Guilty. I try out new songs at our local song circle before I do them in a paid gig. I do so in full awareness that I may well stumble, it's part of the learning process. If this makes me a bad person, I will go out and drown myself so people will feel better about me....

Peter.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: GUEST,Jermaine Stewart
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:23 AM

Yes this happens at a few clubs that I used to attend. One bloke has been singing the same 3 or 4 songs every week for about 25 years. I wouldn't mind but, Leaving On A Jet Plane, Streets Of London, Ride On, Colours etc can get on your nerves week in week out. Then there's the club where somebody has, for the last 10 years, every week sung/spoke this awful song about a "moggy" getting run down and the regulars still laugh at the punch lines as if they had never heard it before! It's more interesting to sit and watch telly at home. These same clubs wonder why they are loosing audiences.

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 May 09 - 07:48 AM

Folks should make an effort to learn their new songs thoroughly before performing them, rather than impose the ragged efforts of performing new songs or half-forgotten old songs on people expecting music. Yes, there always has to be a first time for presenting a new song and it won't necessarily be as polished a presentation as when it's been presented several times but the singer should be able to get from one end to the other without stumbling or resorting to notes.

The other extreme of singing the same song every time can also be irritating. Certainly it's nice to include a few familiar songs in any song circle or session but one should also be able to rotate them so they're not presented every time. People tend to go to sleep if the same song is presented too often, or break for the loo. Not exactly the reaction one wants to encourage.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Same songs every time?
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:39 AM

I think I go to the other extreme - I feel embarrassed about doing a song twice in the same venue, or even two venues where I know the audiences overlap. Plus I like learning new material, and I don't get out often enough to make it a problem to bring out something new every time. But I think I'm probably over-correcting.

Subject: Same songs every time?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:30 AM

At some've the music & song events I attend, certain individuals are prone to perform the same songs/ tunes time after time.

I'll freely admit that if I've recently added a new item to my repertoire, then I'll want to do it frequently, but hopefully at different venues with a fresh audience.

What irks me, [& others, I know] is that the predictability of some performers can become somewhat irritating & boring in the long term.

Of course there'll be manifold reasons that some never seem to learn any fresh material, or is it that sameness is part of 'traditional'?

What think you?