Introducing or 'setting up' a song?

Subject: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 08:29 AM

How do you introduce a song?

Is it always necessary to do so?

Are they any 'hard and fast' rules as to 'setting up a song'?

Is it possible to actually detract, from the song by the way it is 'set up'?

Can you 'set it up ' so well that it is then not necessary to actually sing the song?

Would you always introduce the song, in exactly the same way, each time you performed it. With the same jokes and 'spontaneous' ad-libs for example?

How do you feel about the way songs are introduced to you, as an audience member?

There are some performers I have gone to see sing and at the end of the performance, realised just how few songs were actually possible to fit in, given the lengthy introductions (and constant re-tunings). And entertaining as those introductions may have been, I usually feel a little cheated. Some performers have even moved from singers who did amusing introductions, to entertainers who occasionally sing the odd song. I am thinking of people like, Billy Connelly and I am sure there are other examples?

I am sure too that there are many examples of those you would consider to have the balance just right and those that have it wrong?

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: sophocleese
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 09:50 AM

I figure good jokes wear out faster than good songs so they need to be changed more often. I think an intelligent and witty introduction can be a pleasure to listen to and I enjoy hearing it. I think five minute explanations of every song in a set as the writer tells you what colour the sky was, the exact time (it was three fifteen..no.. actually I think it was three eighteen in the afternoon)and when his/her bowels moved that day, when he/she was inspired to write this song about peonies, are to be avoided by audience and performer. I think if a song written today, about somebody today, still needs that much introduction for people to relate to it its either too personal or lousy. I like performances that mix up the length of introductions as much as they mix up the songs.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 12:25 PM

I am quite keen to hear correct attributions (but not a lot more) of contemporary songs unless there is a particularly pressing reason (Richard Matthewman's "Run the tide" about his mother's Alzheimer's disease being an example).

As for traditional songs I am very keen to know the historical context if there is a detailed one (Rufford Park being a very good example).

If the place is one where it may be appropriate to play along, a clue (and a key) is very useful - little gestures about how many sharps or flats don't help most of us much.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 12:39 PM

I think a lot depends on the personality of the performer. If they can keep my (and the rest of the audience) interest, I don't mind whether they are telling jokes, giving a bit of background to a song or whatever.

I do get frustraded with the ones who go through lengthy tuning sessions in between each song though and fail to see why it is necessary - OK in instrument might need to settle down a little but should not need the amount of fiddling about with that I have seen some do. Also, I would have thought that some performers who know they are going to use say DADGAD and standard tuning on a guitar could either oraganise their sets a little better or use 2 guitars.

Jon

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 02:05 PM

There are some singers whose introductions are brilliant. Vin Garbutt is the supreme case - and the thing withn him is that typically the introduction will have virtially no connnection with the song.

But most of the time the less introduction the better. Especially in a club or session set up. Give the explanations afterwards if people want to hear them.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Gary T
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 02:09 PM

I would say if every song "needs" to be introduced, a new mix of songs is called for (or a less anal-retentive attitude about it). Many songs speak for themselves quite well.

Others do benefit from some background info, depending on the setting. When I sing "Come out ye Blacks and Tans", I usually say a few sentences about who the Blacks and Tans are (were?), how most Irish folks seem to regard them, and how the songwriter's father inspired the song by coming home drunk and calling out his neighbors, many of whom were retired British Army people. I think that helps them understand and appreciate what is being said, which isn't self-explanatory to those unfamiliar with the history of the situation. But if the crowd is one that is pretty familiar with this branch of Irish music, there's no need for an intro.

I like to talk briefly about a number of songs--emphasis on briefly. I'll introduce "Matthew" as a John Denver song that hasn't been played to death. I'll introduce "Paradise" as lamenting the coal mining coming to an area, followed by "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore" as lamenting coal mining leaving. I think most songs would suffer from a long lead-in talk.

It has been pointed out to me that most people don't give a rat's ass who wrote the song. Mention the songwriter only if there's a specific reason to do so.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Mbo
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 02:12 PM

It's hard to do my Wild Geese songs..it takes 15 minutes to give the listeners enough back history to understand them!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: JedMarum
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 02:19 PM

Good Thread!

I always play the song intro by ear. I am not one to spnd much time on introductions, and I recognize that some performers do this so well, and I believe it can be a very important part of the show.

I usually select songs in a series to introduce others, and string a series of ideas together. When I want to play one of my own songs about a given subject eg., Scot/Irish immigrant's experience in the US, then I will likely play one of my favorite songs from that tradition, and talk a bit about why I like the song, then when I play my own song, I have already set the stage, a bit, and less lengthy intro is needed.

I also have a habit of playing too many songs, and give very little introduction. Sometimes, none at all. But I agree, that some intro is normally appropriate.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 04:17 PM

The extremes here suck. The performer who speaks never, and the performer who speaks too much. It depends on the venue and the crowd I suppose, but if you are ignored you can't talk them into hearing you. Cliches and parodies of same don't work, neither do "in" jokes. Brevity is all. I once saw a well-known Irish singer/songwriter turn his festival set into a standup comedy routine wherein he not only spoke for most of his set but played covers of non-folk material when the crowd was obviously more interested in hearing him sing his own stuff. The lesson I think is not to be mislead by laughter, it doesn't necessarily mean the crowd is getting what they want, just that they're amused.

I do want to know something of the song or writer or singer or its era or a quick related joke, I just don't want to hear too much information when I could be hearing music. Sometimes a few words say alot, I guess it's a matter of choosing the words.

There are no rules outside of forethought and common sense and that includes reading and understanding the crowd. The exception is the crowd that can't be read, which probably means alot of them don't want to be in attendance anyway, meaning "here goes nothing" is the order of the day.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: MK
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 04:20 PM

Another humorous way to set up a tune is to introduce it as ''your encore number'' but you never get the opportunity to play it.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 04:40 PM

MK, I've just officially stolen that line from you. Thanks. You can't have it back. Na na na na na.

Mooh.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: MK
Date: 16 Apr 00 - 05:02 PM

You're welcome to it Mooh. I actually stole it from a comedian friend of mine who uses that line pertaining to a joke in his routine. I figured it could easily be adapted to any type of material being performed.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 12:43 AM

My introduction to any song I sing (and I usually sing a cappella, so it's not just something to kill time while I tune)--my introductions are very much dependent on the context--where I am singing the song, for whom I am singing it, the song(s) that preceded it (or occasionally, the ones that will follow it)--

My usual introductions for my Anglo-American repertoire include information about where the song comes from, mainly because I sing in a traditional crowd where such information is expected and appreciated. My foreign language songs are introduced with a translation, often just of a line or two, but enough to give the audience a sense of what I'm about to sing.

Some songs I sing absolutely require introduction. For example, if I sing "Lunatic Asylum" (from Tennessee) without an introduction, someone will giggle at the first mention of words "lunatic asylum", and yet properly introduced the song can be a very poignant artifact of a person wrongfully committed and trying to make sense of their incarceration. I can set up a version of Lord Randall (John Randolph) as a tale of a boy not wishing to share details of a love-gone-wrong with his mother, rather than just a boy-dies-of food-poisoning song.

I'm not beyond using humor. I love to put a local spin on at least some songs I sing, showing how they could relate to local history, even if the song itself comes from another country and culture. I pay attention to the length of my intro, and watch the audience for subtle cues and clues as to whether they are into more brevity or greater detail. The only hard and fast rule is that there are no hard and fast rules--good song set-up is an art, every bit as complex as presenting the song itself.

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 01:25 AM

I think I have to take serious exception to one statement in Gary T's post. It said, "It has been pointed out to me that most people don't give a rat's ass who wrote the song. Mention the songwriter only if there's a specific reason to do so." It even may be so (particularly at a bar gig), but I care, & I know at least some people in the audience do also. If your intro is too long, then shorten it, but not the 10 seconds it takes to acknowledge the writer whose creativity gave you a song to communicate.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: late 'n short
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 02:47 PM

I may just want to make my high school English teacher proud of me, but who could blame Lord Randall for not wanting to share that story?!

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Willie-O
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 05:13 PM

Well, I'm eminently qualified to comment here since lots of people have told me that I talk too much between songs...(and I dont' perform very often!)

So I try to be brief, just long enough to set a context for the number, perhaps a thumbnail sketch of the plotline to help focus peoples' attention.

But some people have a lot to say about their music--Dick Gaughan comes to mind. He seems to go on in a didactic fashion about Scottish politics and psyche and so on, but what the hell, its what you have to expect, concert performers are not just ambulatory jukeboxes. If you didn't know when you bought your ticket that you were attending a musical political rally, well, you know a lot more on the way out than the chorus to "Loch Lomond".

As for Billy Connelly, well he's a comedian ain't he? you can only expect him to tell a lot of jokes.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: SeanM
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 06:15 PM

Something I'm surprised hasn't made it's way into the discussion... "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" by Arlo Guthrie. Probably the most well known version of a song where the intro is better known (and considerably longer) than the song.

I've had this discussion in the past, and part of the resolution is that almost every song you do is going to have some sort of "introduction", even if it's no more than the body language you assume before performing it, or the banter between you and your 'mates. Unless you're mechanically moving from tune to tune, that is.

M

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 09:40 PM

"Alice" is performance art -- the intro is a piece witht he actual tune and neither would make much impact without the other. Hell, any stage performer with experience knows the one cardinal sin is to bore your audience, and the pretty well describes the parameters of appropriate introdsuction. Some audiences are intellectual, others are more inclined to get down to the rhythm, and if you miss your audience, you'll misjudge your intros. And possibly your play-list as well.

The burning question is always, "What will reach this house?"

A

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Just another Dave
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 11:07 PM

This is a topic that is very close to my heart. It really depends on the audience... it is part of the "performance art" to try to gauge how much information the audience needs. It is easy to fall into the extremes by providing too much or too little information. Providing information as a form of entertainment is an interesting concept that may not be universally appealing. But forums such as this and the World Wide Web _may_ be changing the way people view the sharing of information by finding it more entertaining.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 11:43 PM

Martin Carthy is my hero of song introductions. He often tells the whole plot of a long ballad -- interjecting humo[u]rous anachranisms, like "and he stopped off for a video on the way home" -- and you'd think that telling the whole story would ruin your enjoyment of the song. But it doesn't because 1) He gives you context that we don't know anymore that our ancestors did when they heard the song, so you understand and appreciate the song more than you would have if he hadn't talked about it; 2) He sometimes tells you what or whom to watch out for, which you might miss in the 14th verse because your attention might wander -- for example, pointing out that the wife of the Lochmaben harper only has a line or two, but she's the one who's really smart and saves the day, so listen for what she says; and 3) he's ususally very amusing.

I haven't quite got the hang of it -- I think I tend to go on more than is necessary sometimes. But sometimes I've figured out a single line that sets up a song perfectly. Problem is, you can't always use the same line. Jokes do stale faster than the songs.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 11:58 PM

In recent years an awful lot of what I've done has been at street fairs and schools. Kids really enjoy the stories as much as the songs in a way. Without them they tend to drift and so I also use a lot of audience participation stuff too. Adult audiences are always up to some kind of trivia, humorous or otherwise as the song may warrant (not too many jokes on "Christmas in the Trenches are there?). But as others have said, reading an audience is important most of all and if you have experience in any type of thing that involves group presentations, you learn to do this. The many years I spent in National Accounts with Sun makes this easier for me and I'm generally more relaxed than folks who haven't had the "pleasure" (oy) of making a pitch on the 16th at General Motors or to those tight-asses at Firestone.

RE: Arlo----If Arlo didn't tell a ton of stories and and jokes, he wouldn't be Arlo and I'd feel let down by any performance that didn't include rambling tales about nothing. He is a great performer.......not to mention a fine picker.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: GUEST,Paul Crawte
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 04:21 AM

I've sometimes set up the songs I have written with...

"All good folk songs have an introduction, where the singer explains why it's such a good song. On that note I'll stop there."

Problem is, no one's ever felt the need to take me to task on this.

Paul

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 12:49 PM

My sense is that if a song needs that much introduction, or setting-up, then the songwriter didn't do a very good job of getting his/her point accross. Other than the title, I usually don't say much to set up a song, unless there is a phrase in a foreign language for instance. In other words, if you feel compelled to say "This song is about my friend Bob's first lost love." the songwriter didn't make it clear enough, and the performer would be well advised to cut the song from the playlist.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: SeanM
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 01:15 PM

Another thought on the "intro" question would be that intros would also vary according to the reason for the gig.

Case in point, would be educational shows of varying nature. I've been to a couple public performances by various shantymen where the intros wound on for most of the set, and the show was greatly enhanced by it. They gave the shanteys the background that was needed for the avertage layman to really understand why it was the way it was.

So for me, at least, in those cases I can see introductions as being entirely necessary, and at times almost being more important than the songs they introduce (imagine singing a Stephen Foster set without the proper background...)

M

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 02:50 PM

I think it's pretty case-specific -- depends on the song, the venue, the audience, the performer. Since I'm not a very chatty sort, when I'm performing I tend to keep song intros brief. But some performers definitely make the introductions part of the performance. Arlo is a good example, as is Leo Kottke -- probably a lot of people would have trouble relating to his between-song rambling, but the people who actually go to his concerts tend to enjoy that part of the show, and look forward to it. On the other hand, there's Bob Dylan, who rarely says much of anything -- and that's fine, too.

Subject: RE: Introducing or 'setting up' a song?
From:
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 07:29 PM

I agree with Whistle Stop, it will depend on a number of factors.

1 - Are you comfortable with the information which you will impart
2 - How is the venue and audience appearing
3 - Do you need time to tune?

As a rule of thumb, you should keep the introduction shorter than the song itself. Try not to digress too far in telling the story.
I would believe that in a bar situation it's touchy to spend too much time talking about the song. In a concert type venue or a song circle, it would probably be common to explain a little about the song.