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teleribConsider the stage magician. You know it's all an illusion - but damn, that's amazing! You were sure you were watching both his hands, but he still somehow did... something... and now the table is covered in red roses.
But it's much less amazing if you know the trick, right? Maybe, if the trick takes considerable technical skill, you're impressed in a professional sort of way. But the wonder is gone.
I had this conversation with the Dear Spouse a few nights ago. In the SCA, music is magic. Being a performer, and having been at many performances, I believe this strongly. Many, many people find their wonder around a campfire, listening to the songs of yore.
How long ago is yore?
On some levels, I'm a worse performer than I was eight years ago. Three years into my SCA membership, I had a fairly extensive repertoire - I could sing in the car for over two hours straight and not repeat a song. I had energy and presence and a ton of self-confidence. I went to a lot of events and performed a lot, and that's important.
Then I went to grad school. Joining a new SCA group was a slow start for me (I was also a little burned out from running my college SCA group for 2.5 years), and when I finally started getting more involved, my dissertation ramped up and demanded that I withdraw again. I wasn't performing nearly as much as I used to, and that hurt me somewhat.
But what really got me, I think, was overeducation.
Essentially, I'd poked around too much behind the magician's screen. I'd learned an awful lot about period music, and recognized that most of the SCA's most popular playlist sounded nothing like it. From structure, to themes, to language, to accompaniment, they were nothing alike. The SCA likes Kipling, not Chaucer.
Now, my personal philosophy is that "More music at events is a Good Thing and should be encouraged." I applaud and laud performers who do period stuff (and do it well), but I also smile and support the larger community of traditional musicians. I love that music, too. I'm just not sure I can perform it anymore.
When I get up to perform these days, I feel torn. Do I give them "Wild Mountain Thyme" or "Ramblin' Rover," which I know to be 20th century copywritten original compositions (by Jimmy McPeake and Andy M. Stewart, respectively)? They don't know it. They're thinking they're old, traditional tunes, possibly handed down via oral tradition from ages past. They're crowd favorites. I can do either one cold.
But it'll feel like cheating. Like I'm pulling a trick on them.
Maybe it's silly. We go to magic shows to be tricked. No harm done.
Or, I could delve into my new repertoire. It's much smaller than my old repertoire. It's more instrumental, or in other languages. There are no peasant boys becoming knights here, no 20th century sensibilities of egalitarianism and human rights dressed up in Robin Hood clothes. There's room in it for the bawdy and the beautiful, but some of it I'll have to write myself and it's not there yet. This is my new, period repertoire.
But the self-confidence isn't there. Which is definitely silly, because I know that 7/10 of getting the audience to like a piece is projecting out a completely assured sense of "Of course you'll like this! You'll love it!"
But I've heard too, too many times that the "bardic" and "early music" camps in the SCA shall never meet. One plays what people want to hear, and the other plays... well, other stuff. (And dance music.) It's like the vegetables at feast: they belong there, and they're good for you, but hardly anyone ever eats more than a bite.
So I get up already believing that the best response I can get is a polite golf clap. "Well, that was pretty. Now can we have 'The Scotsman'?"
So, more and more frequently, I'm just not getting up.
Now, that goes beyond "silly" and straight into "stupid." So. Let's not have me be stupid, hm?
Scadians like sad songs, love songs, bawdy songs, and war songs. I'm still not sure how to do the Anglo-Saxon song thing at all, what with the poetry having irregular meter and line length. But. For the New Year, in January, I will memorize Exeter Book Riddle 23. Perhaps also 42 and 43, since they are short, but one thing at a time. It looks to be funnier if there is a lot of physicality going on, so perhaps no harp or lyre accompaniment. I'll work it out.
By February 1, I will have at least one genuinely period piece that is also genuinely funny and bawdy, and should get a warm reception at any bardic circle.
But it's much less amazing if you know the trick, right? Maybe, if the trick takes considerable technical skill, you're impressed in a professional sort of way. But the wonder is gone.
I had this conversation with the Dear Spouse a few nights ago. In the SCA, music is magic. Being a performer, and having been at many performances, I believe this strongly. Many, many people find their wonder around a campfire, listening to the songs of yore.
How long ago is yore?
On some levels, I'm a worse performer than I was eight years ago. Three years into my SCA membership, I had a fairly extensive repertoire - I could sing in the car for over two hours straight and not repeat a song. I had energy and presence and a ton of self-confidence. I went to a lot of events and performed a lot, and that's important.
Then I went to grad school. Joining a new SCA group was a slow start for me (I was also a little burned out from running my college SCA group for 2.5 years), and when I finally started getting more involved, my dissertation ramped up and demanded that I withdraw again. I wasn't performing nearly as much as I used to, and that hurt me somewhat.
But what really got me, I think, was overeducation.
Essentially, I'd poked around too much behind the magician's screen. I'd learned an awful lot about period music, and recognized that most of the SCA's most popular playlist sounded nothing like it. From structure, to themes, to language, to accompaniment, they were nothing alike. The SCA likes Kipling, not Chaucer.
Now, my personal philosophy is that "More music at events is a Good Thing and should be encouraged." I applaud and laud performers who do period stuff (and do it well), but I also smile and support the larger community of traditional musicians. I love that music, too. I'm just not sure I can perform it anymore.
When I get up to perform these days, I feel torn. Do I give them "Wild Mountain Thyme" or "Ramblin' Rover," which I know to be 20th century copywritten original compositions (by Jimmy McPeake and Andy M. Stewart, respectively)? They don't know it. They're thinking they're old, traditional tunes, possibly handed down via oral tradition from ages past. They're crowd favorites. I can do either one cold.
But it'll feel like cheating. Like I'm pulling a trick on them.
Maybe it's silly. We go to magic shows to be tricked. No harm done.
Or, I could delve into my new repertoire. It's much smaller than my old repertoire. It's more instrumental, or in other languages. There are no peasant boys becoming knights here, no 20th century sensibilities of egalitarianism and human rights dressed up in Robin Hood clothes. There's room in it for the bawdy and the beautiful, but some of it I'll have to write myself and it's not there yet. This is my new, period repertoire.
But the self-confidence isn't there. Which is definitely silly, because I know that 7/10 of getting the audience to like a piece is projecting out a completely assured sense of "Of course you'll like this! You'll love it!"
But I've heard too, too many times that the "bardic" and "early music" camps in the SCA shall never meet. One plays what people want to hear, and the other plays... well, other stuff. (And dance music.) It's like the vegetables at feast: they belong there, and they're good for you, but hardly anyone ever eats more than a bite.
So I get up already believing that the best response I can get is a polite golf clap. "Well, that was pretty. Now can we have 'The Scotsman'?"
So, more and more frequently, I'm just not getting up.
Now, that goes beyond "silly" and straight into "stupid." So. Let's not have me be stupid, hm?
Scadians like sad songs, love songs, bawdy songs, and war songs. I'm still not sure how to do the Anglo-Saxon song thing at all, what with the poetry having irregular meter and line length. But. For the New Year, in January, I will memorize Exeter Book Riddle 23. Perhaps also 42 and 43, since they are short, but one thing at a time. It looks to be funnier if there is a lot of physicality going on, so perhaps no harp or lyre accompaniment. I'll work it out.
By February 1, I will have at least one genuinely period piece that is also genuinely funny and bawdy, and should get a warm reception at any bardic circle.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-29 03:38 pm (UTC)And then there's the German one about the tragedy of losing the gray goose, for she was to be dinner.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 02:27 pm (UTC)"Fie on you, lover."
"I have a new man."
"He is strong and handsome."
"He pleases me all night."
"You are ugly."
"And you smell."
... And it kinda went on from there. For the most part, it was a pretty accurate translation, too, if a little vernacular.
Now, I know that the lowest species of comedian is the "Props Guy" (think Carrottop), but it was still an incredibly effective way to communicate the meaning of the piece while still keeping the music in it's original form. Could that be a direction you could try as well?
(no subject)
From: