Feeling a bit down on myself lately.....

[poltr1]

Some random thoughts while I try to fall asleep again.

almeda recently posted an interesting dissertation on the dynamics of filk circles. A lot of it rings true for me.


I remember my first filk circles. They were housefilks. We'd get together at someone's house, and play. They were chaos-style, and the host would often jump in, saying "I have to follow this", and proceed to sing one of their songs.

I'm normally a shy person, and I'd hate to interrupt when people were about to start, so I didn't get a lot of play time. Eventually I wrote a song, and performed it one night, and it became the theme of songs for the next half hour. I didn't know whether to feel complimented or ridiculed.

After that night, the housefilks stopped being fun for me. I soon got burnt out on them, and stopped attending. I haven't been back.


The type of post-con blues I'm feeling is a little different this year. I know OVFF has been, is, and will continue to be performer-centric, and with the size of the con, I usually don't get to play. It's tough to say hello to folks when there are about 100 or more people to meet and greet in the span of 1-2 days. I missed saying hi to several people, either because I didn't see them when we could talk, or they were otherwise engaged in conversations.

I don't get to play much anymore. Taking care of a household, my family, and my ongoing clutter issues have sucked up a lot of time. (I know: same-old same-old.) Because of that, I feel relegated to the "listener" class. But with my musical talents, I feel that I should be in the "player" class.

What would be my ideal filk circle? For me, it would be a small (6-8) circle of people, playing and offering constructive remarks to each other. (For those of you who are familiar with Toastmasters, it would have a similar format -- evaluation instead of critique; "I" statements instead of "You" statements.) It would be more of a musician's workshop than a strictly-for-performance circle.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I would like occasional genuinely constructive comments to be welcome in ordinary circles, but I don't think they are. It's very difficult to offer advice that would actually help someone improve. First one has to identify something specific and fixable about the performance, and then one has to find a way to offer the suggestion without the person hearing "you suck and I hate you" and just reacting defensively. And since we know this, and we're so afraid of hurting people's feelings, we don't say anything, which can leave the person unaware that they need to improve.

I'm not quite following your story about why you stopped enjoying housefilks. Was it just that you thought they didn't receive one song well, or is it some other thing that just came along at the same time? I wish there were housefilks in my area, and if there were I would try fairly hard to mold them into something I enjoyed if they didn't start out that way -- I need the push of being with other filkers more regularly than I can go to cons.

[poltr1]

The protocol we used for evaluation in my Toastmasters club was "An evaluation is 'This is what I saw, this is what I heard, this is what I felt. If you want to affect me positively, do this. If you want to affect me negatively, do that.'" Another rule I remember hearing was "Praise in public; criticize in private."

As for housefilks, there are several other details I deliberately omitted, as it would identify the host and/or venue. (The host is NOLJ.) This would be a topic for future in-person discussion.

[yourmommma.livejournal.com]

I'm very embarrassed to ask, but what is a "filk" or "filk circle"?

[poltr1]

In science fiction fandom, there are those of us who are amateur-to-professional-quality musicians. At an early SF convention, many years ago, there was a program for "folksinging". However, the word "folk" had a typo in it, which has since stuck to this day. "Filk" is the name of, and the music of, that community. Here's the entry in Wikipedia.

[yourmommma.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I didn't even think to look in Wikipedia. :)

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Just one thing I have done as a shy person: Filk cons very often have an empty room where nothing is happenning yet. I will take a seat in an empty room and start playing. I am fortunate in that I had managed to arrange collaborations with people in advance of OVFF this year, and so I was able to get together with them in empty rooms, allowing others to join us until it started to look like a circle.

I like playing a dulcimer alone better than standing around listening to conversations I can't contribute to. I can essentially escape the social situations where I feel like an out-of-place dork by slipping into a room and playing. If someone comes in, I try to be welcoming in my socially inept way.

I know that one of your unique strengths is your bass clarinet. I know from your posts and comments that you would like to play with others, but I assume you actually enjoy playing by yourself. I know that If I were walking by an empty filk room and heard a unique instrument playing, I'd be inclined to stop in and listen. Especially if it is playing a solo melody, rather than an out-of-context accompaniment.

There are a lot of spaces at a filk con away from circles and concerts where you can speak with your music. If there is an issue with volume (I don't know how loud a bass clarinet is when played softly, there is the lobby, and well, hell, there's a guy with bagpipes who plays them in the parking lot.)

Doing instrumentals in a chaos circle is hard. Typically I start playing the first chords of a dulcimer piece, am ignored, try louder next time, and someone looks at me irritated because someone else has a song, and then after three of four attempts, someone notices that I've been trying to play something for a while, and I get a shot. It's invariably going to be a mood change when I do an instrumental, so I don't have to worry too much about being a "Follower."

However, I think playing a unique instrument is an effective way to transform from an invisible man to "that guy who plays a Bamboozelophone." It took some time after I was "some guy, I think it was Dave Alway's brother, played the dulcimer" until a few other--a very few other--filkers began to think it might be fun to play with that dulcimer guy. So slowly I feel like I'm transforming into "Peter Alway."

[yourmommma.livejournal.com]

If I were musical at all, I would play the dulcimer. I love it. And, you are so right, I would be completely drawn to an almost empty room with a single musician playing in it. I can just feel the peace and beauty of it from your description.

[poltr1]

I know that one of your unique strengths is your bass clarinet.

Yes, it's unique all right. It's a distinctive sound. (Someday I hope to have an icon or two featuring me and the bass clarinet.) I want to have more music to play on it other than the Addams Family theme. Do you have any suggestions?

I had a great experience at FKO 5. I was in an empty room, noodling with the Minimoog, and people started coming in and we had a 70's jam. Wish I could do the same at OVFF.

For what it's worth, the bass clarinet and the Moog are my two favorite axes.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

You know, this reminds me of the same question in scale model rocketry--what do I build a model of? And the answer has to be the same--Don'e ask me! It has to be a subject that you love so much that you won't give up halfway through working on it.

I imagine hearing a slow, lyrical tune with the sound I get from my software for the Bass Clarinet, and I think it could be a really cool thing to come across unexpectedly. I have "The Swan" stick in my head as a good slow tune that would work without accompaniment. But really, it has to be something you love. It's easy to get yourself caught up in the idea that a piece has to be played on the right instrument in the right range, with the original accompaniment. But it can be astonishing what a "wrong" instrument can do. Not like "The Swan" on Kazoo and Banjo Uke, but more like "Gymnopedie No. 1" on mountain dulcimer and banjola.