[Bards] Topic: Comparisons

[Manners, Tabitha]

I've competed in that format and had a lot of fun with it.  It was great
to have to option of challenging fellow bards in areas I was strong in.
This meant that rather than competing just against their strengths I
could compete against them in other areas as well.  I know I did a piece
for humor, Drinking songs, Shakespeare, and poem among others that day.
The variety and chance to perform more made the competition a lot more
fun.  I also found that I received a lot more feedback from the "judges"
during that competition which proved very helpful.  

 

Liliana

 

________________________________

From: bards-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:bards-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Robert
Fitzmorgan
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 9:40 AM
To: Ansteorran Bardic list
Subject: Re: [Bards] Topic: Comparisons

 

     One format I have used approaches the martial tournament form.  The
Bards in the competition all meet in the morning and are handed a number
of tokens.  Throughout the day the Bards challenge one another and wager
tokens on the outcome.  The Bards determine the nature of the challenge
and choose a judge or judges acceptable to both of them.  At the end of
the day the Bards meet again and the 3 or 4 Bards with the most tokens
go into a final round that is judged by the retiring Bardic Champion and
the local Nobles.  
     The Barony of Northkeep often uses this format with the added
provision that the final round must be an extemporaneous piece composed
on site to a given topic.  
     It's a lot of fun, you get as much bardic in as you want, and it
involves the populace in the process of choosing the Bardic Champion.
It also allows the people competing for, or running,  the championship
to do other things throughout the day without being tied to a particular
place for a long period of time.  
     A couple of things you want to look out for though.  Don't allow
more than three bards in any particular challenge and don't allow
wagering more than one token per bard per challenge.  This prevents  4
or 5 bards who are way behind at the end of the day from throwing all
their tokens in one big multi-bard challenge and going from way behind
to top of the list on one performance.  

On 12/14/06, Michael Silverhands <silverhands at sbcglobal.net> wrote:


Gerald wrote:

> At Stargate Yule a question was asked; why must the A&S and bardic
> champion
> be announced as a "surprise" to the winner, while the martial
> community has
> the "advantage" of knowing the winner at the end of the final round.
>
> My answer was simply that we can't compare the two; they are oil
> and water.
> ...<snip>...
> But the biggest difference, in my opinion, is that of the ability 
> to call a
> blow.

Exactly. Martial combatants judge themselves; bardic competitors are
judged by others.

In martial combat, there's usually just one judge who determines the
winner (the fighter who calls the blow). He or she knows immediately 
when that occurs.

In bardic competitions, there's usually a panel of judges who
determine the winner. They need time to talk among themselves, tally
scores, compare results, discuss their opinions, and choose a winner. 
Competitions are *very* rarely so objective in their scoring that the
winner could be immediately (or even quickly) determined; the
subjective element takes time to resolve.

Alden wrote:

> ...  It may just be tradition that keeps us from revealing the 
> winner until court.  Maybe "artistic folk" just like the added
> drama, or perhaps we just default to the attitude we extend to
> awards, where we carefully guard the knowledge to maintain the 
> surprise.
>
> In thinking about this, I think it might be fun to hold a bardic
> competition, where the running scores are announced at the end of
> each round.  Then after the final round, the competition organizer 
> could really play up the reading of the scores to announce the winner.
>
> Alden
>

A la "Last Comic Standing" (or "So You Think You Can Dance", or any
of the other crop of artist competitions on TV)? I like this idea. :-) 

It would just require that the judges have previously worked out
clear and consistent criteria for scoring, thus making it possible
for them to determine and announce the winner quickly.

Michael
_______________________________________________ 
Bards mailing list
Bards at lists.ansteorra.org
http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/bards-ansteorra.org 




-- 
"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been
much of a day."     John A. Wheeler

Fitzmorgan at gmail.com 
Yahoo IM: robert_fitzmorgan 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/bards-ansteorra.org/attachments/20061215/f12607e3/attachment-0002.htm>