[Bards] courtesy

Fitzmorgan at cs.com Fitzmorgan at cs.com
Tue Dec 25 20:24:02 PST 2001


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In a message dated 12/25/01 4:34:17 PM Pacific Standard Time,
YsfaelEleanor at aol.com writes:


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>        Greetings to You all,
>              And many a Happy Yuletide wish to you.  My question is this:
> What are the "rules" which one should apply to filking.  As I understand
> it,
> to filk is to take a tune that someone else wrote, and putting one's own
> words to it.
>
>        Grace and Peace
>              Ysfael

I don't know that there are rules but the two things that tend to annoy me in
a filk are:

1. If it doesn't scan.
        In other words the pacing and beat of the words need to match.  Lots
of people will cram in extra beats where they don't really fit or streatch
out one syllable for several beats rather than do the work to make their filk
match the tune thay are filking.

2.    If it's too obvious.
       A good filk needs to be creative.  You could take "I like Beer" by Tom
T. Hall and change the work "Beer" to Mead" and call it a filk but it won't
be a very good one.

       There's more but if you can make it scan naturally rather than force
it, and be a little creative you will be way ahead of the average.

Robert Fitzmorgan



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