Virtual Song Circles
When we realized that Covid was like a real thing that we had to pay serious attention to, in March 2020, we pivoted to getting together on line, and it worked beautifully. Now, after a hundred plus virtual song circles, we know they aren't a stopgap substitute for in person events. They are a loved tradition that enables people from all over the world to get together. If you haven’t been to online singing events, they are a lot more fun than you might imagine. You don’t have to drive anywhere to attend. You can come when you want and leave when you want without bothering anyone or having to climb over their autoharp. You can see everyone's face. No one climbs over you to get their seat. And you get to be with a variety of particularly nice people from around the world. Seriously, these are great!
When? How?
We open up a "room" on Zoom at 6:00 PM Pacific time every Saturday evening. We start singing at 6:30 PM and we keep it going until the last person leaves. Feel free to come in anytime, and stay as long as you like. We run it kind of like a physical song circle. Everyone who wants to can sing once, and then we’ll do another round, and just keep going around as long as you like. Of course, it is totally fine to just listen and some people do that.
Here's the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87176553766. That's all you need if you are coming in on a computer, tablet or browser of any sort. If you are dialing in, you'll need more information, available below. Keep scrolling...
Who can come?
Pretty much anyone. This is not just for PFS folks at all. Most of the participants are from the Pacific Northwest, but we are honored to have singers come from all over.
What's the musical focus?
Any style and genre is welcome. We have old ballads, '60's folk rock, singer songwriter numbers, show tunes, Beatles, rock, rap, poetry, jazz, cowboy, Hank Williams... We define folk music as music made by folks, so everything is fine.
What's excluded?
We don't want to hear recordings of your music. Some people have sung along with tapes they have made, and - well - we didn't mute them, but this is mostly about live singing. Anything we can see on YouTube, well - we'll just watch it on YouTube, not at the VSC. There may be occasional exceptions to this - we might make a highlight version of someone's songs if they pass away. But - generally - this is exclusively for live music.
A lot of folk music - like everything else - has roots in racism, misogyny, sexism, and other parts of our cultural heritage that may be offensive. Let's remember that some people are going to be sensitive to some things that we aren't sensitive to, and we want our song circles to be safe and fun for everyone.
We shouldn't think that saying "it's just a joke" keeps a song or remark from being hurtful. It doesn't. In general, it's probably good practice to avoid any songs that categorize groups of people, whether Italians, transsexual people, women or men. Exception might be made for a group of which you yourself are a member: for instance, it's probably fine for an old white male to sing a song poking fun at old white males.
Here are some approaches to dealing with favorite songs with offensive lyrics:
- We can preface the song by saying, "This song reflects the era it was written in, and talks about men treating women in a way that I abhor."
- We can change the song a little bit, say, by replacing ethnic terms by geographical terms or proper names, for instance, singing about Black Jack Davy instead of Gypsy Davy.
- We can change the song a lot. Look for rewritten versions of potentially offensive songs on the internet, like this clever reworking of Baby, It's Cold Outside.
Everything said here about song choice applies equally to the comments we make between songs, and what we write in the chats. If we have an inkling that something might be offensive, it probably is, and we should probably avoid it.
Thank you!