Peoples Parties

“Give us a song, Stan” I can’t resist a request for a quick burst on the banjo, will merrily burst into song on any occasion given half an opening. I sing most of the time anyway throughout the day but it’s always good to have an audience. The thing about being in a formal situation like a gig though, with or without a band, is that you’ve minimised the cock-up  variables to give yourself the best chance of sounding half decent i.e. probably rehearsed the songs, have your own guitar which you’re used to, bit of a PA to make yourself heard etc and an audience who have come expecting to hear some music

The danger of an ‘impromptu’ performance is that some or all of the above may not be in place which can make it a rather dangerous sport. The party you’re at may be going perfectly well, with most participants perfectly happy with the music provided by the host when the ‘play us a song’ arrives. So now what do you do. Take the safe path and politely decline? Best of course as it’s likely that a fair few people there would rather not have to listen, you haven’t brought your guitar anyway and can barely remember a song to sing. This is even more true with a truly captive audience such as singing at the back of a minibus

But you’d never sing anywhere if you took the safe path so of course you grab a guitar and launch into something. If you, and preferably the vast majority of the ‘audience’, are nicely inebriated then it will all be brilliant. If you/everyone else isn’t then who knows what will happen. A problem certainly with me as I’ve been sober for 10+ years so there isn’t the option of heighted reality. It is what it is and it will sound to me what it really sounds like

So last night. A request to play at a friend’s. A classical guitar on hand rather than my trusty acoustic which stretched my usually passable guitar technique. Fortunately the small group present were more than kind and Ann was there to help out on the vocal harmonies and to indicate when enough was enough. The last problem with party players being not knowing when they’ve well and truly lost their audience. Better to leave them wanting more rather than singing them into submission, my default strategy :-)