[Bards] Situations That Ruin Bardic Circles

Peter Schorn peterschorn at pdq.net
Tue May 1 17:35:19 PDT 2007


Matt Groenig once asked: "Is there anything scarier than an open-mike poetry
reading?"  

Which is what a bardic circle is, more or less.

I can't offer a formula that will make everybody happy in all circumstances.
I don't think that's possible.  Instead I'd like to offer my observations on
the limits of certain approaches, and some suggestions on what I've seen
work well.  

1) TOO MUCH "FAIRNESS" KILLS: having everyone take turns in strict
succession discourages the bards who've just wandered up, especially if the
circle is large.  Also, unless a good portion of the performers are VERY
good AND evenly distributed throughout the circle, you'll eventually have a
run of weak performers and see your audience (and other performers) start to
melt away.

(Late nights at a large SCA event are like cable TV: if what you're watching
isn't interesting, there's always something else close at hand.  This makes
it hard to hold an audience)

2) TOO MUCH "FREEDOM" KILLS: a free-form circle will almost invariably
become dominated by the pushiest, most forward bards.  These are, again
almost invariably, not the *best* bards.

(Someone else suggested having a local noble play "Patron" to the circle and
call on various performers.  This can work very well if done right: at Loch
Guardian one year we had Baron Leofric with a jug of Tully and Baroness Cadi
with a bottle of Baily's preside over a bardic circle, calling on various
performers and passing round their particular drink as largesse.  It was a
great success, as they played their parts with discretion, wit and much
amusing banter.  Also, having Nobility's gimlet eye on them kept some
notable hams within bounds*.  The problem here is finding nobles who have
the presence and skill to do this, and who aren't exhausted after a full day
of watching the tournament, judging A&S, holding court, giving awards, etc.,
etc.  This is not a trivial problem)

3) TOO MUCH AUTHENTICITY KILLS: Is "Song of he Shield-Wall" period?  Nope,
not a bit of it.  Likewise all of Kipling's work.  Likewise the songs from
the Lord of the Rings.  But these are the things that drew most of us to
bardcraft in the first place; drive them out of a circle and you'll drive
out a great deal of joy and fellow-feeling too.  Also bear in mind that many
humorous pieces, which are absolutely essential to keeping a bardic circle
running well, are considerably less than documentable.  Look, I'm an
authenticist myself, but I wouldn't swap a whole trainload of
impeccably-documented Welsh _awdlau_ for _God Rest Ye, Franticke Autocrat_

(I've seen a few good 100%-authentic bardic circles. They've all been held
by Cariodoc at Pennsic. Cariadoc can pull this off because he has inimitable
stature, gives great largesse, advertises the circles in in advance and
usually hits large events where there's a lot of such. If you can't match
those circumstances--loosen up a bit)

So that's all I have t'say about that. 


*...why are you all looking at ME?





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