[Bards] Help! We need late-night circles

[Charles O Floinn]

Kat and Maggie, I too found Sir Randall's fire by the lilting of your songs.
I had just finished walking around the entire encampment hearing song and
drums, heralding an upcoming fire-dancers exhibition (that was both well
done and well received), and found your company most entertaining.  I heard
songs of battle and war that I must have heard at every event I have
attended over these last two years.  But at Sir Randall's' campfire, I was
drawn by songs and tales I have not heard at all.  Songs from the 80's
written and sung by a Duke who joined us later (I now know what the
shishie-poke is), songs of elves, written and sung by a most beautiful one,
tales of bravery told by a Knight and a Master at Arms, and songs of
appreciation, sung by all there.

I have seen on this list a post (made after I embarked on my journey to join
the 3Kings) where Ivo wants a concrete statement about  "this is what the
college will do that is not being done".  I do not know how this has been
answered as yet, so please bear with me as I give it a try.  What this
college idea will do that is not being done now is, in my opinion, .
*	Collect songs and disperse them unto the known world to be both heard and
not forgotten.
	*	That last night of 3Kings, the discussion turned to some well-known
facts.  Such as;
		*	Depending on memory and word of mouth to pass along songs and stories
from one herald to the next means inevitable errors and changes - some by
accident and some by design - so that singing a well-known piece at a
multi-kingdom event will have, at best, mixed results.
		*	This seasons favorites will be all but forgotten in just a few short
years, and even the author can have trouble recalling them later on, when
faced with remembering the large amount of currently performed pieces that
need to be remembered to continue to be an effective entertainer.  Compound
that with the filks we sometimes write and you have one heck of a lot of
grits to sort thru to find that one pearl you are wishing to perform.
	*	Give Ansteorran Heralds a focal point.
		*	As it is now, we only measure ourselves (and better ourselves) thru
public performances.  Why not make it possible for us to learn from each
other without having to be in front of the public to do that.  Create an
environment where we have what amounts to a Bardic Symposium?  Do we need to
be on our own?
	*	Then call it a Community instead of a College, a Symposium instead of a
retreat or training.  Heralds have the CoH to help bind them together and
make the rules we heralds NEED to operate consistently throughout the Knowne
World.  Heralds also have the Known World Heraldic & Scribal Symposium to
help them disseminate all that knowledge.  As Bards, we do not need that
level of consistency and degree of training (or do we?), but I feel we do
need that level of community.  How do we know a bard except by their
performing?  And is that the time to ask them about the worlds they create
in verse?  To share their songs with the new member who wants to become a
bard?  Again, No.  But having a centralized way to collect and disperse
songs and tales both new and old, to train bards up from a person who loves
to sing but has a tin ear to a bard who knows what they can sing and add
stories the populous wants to hear to his repertoire.  Would thin not be a
service we can perform for not only our audience?  But also our Shire,
Barony, Kingdom and the entire Knowne World?

We could continue as we are knowing we are doing our own personal best, and
everything will continue onward into the future, each of us driving on our
own up the stream of time without anyone ever knowing we had been so close
to what could have been a renaissance event for this community.  I feel we
will not do it at all without some form of organization, someone or some
many who will step up to the wheel of the greater good and help direct us
into the future.

Ultimately, it is not any one of us that will make this possible, but every
one of us.  I know that some will prefer to be alone in their quest for what
they perceive as the perfect art form for their performance style.  And they
are right to do so.  But some, like myself, like to know they are a part of
a greater thing, or a thing becoming greater with each breath.  And we are
right to do so.  That is why there is no easy answer to this issue.


Charles O Floinn


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