Feeling a bit down on myself lately.....
Oct. 25th, 2006 02:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1Some random thoughts while I try to fall asleep again.
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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.
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.
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Date: 2006-10-25 03:06 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2006-10-25 03:18 pm (UTC)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.