I was wondering Bjornsberg has a reuputation of haveing a vital 
performing community. Do you have many "bad" bards in your group? Do 
you think your education and model have helped people not be "bad" 
bards? 

singing-- Many of us are not good singers, but one of our goals is to 
be able to sing something. I worked and worked. Sometimes I can sing 
and sometimes I can't. I have been at some performace circles that had 
so few performers that even a bad song was better than nothing. Of 
course some of you are blessed/cursed with perfect pitch and I have 
been told bad singing is torture to you. My voice is so bad my sons, 
as babies, used to put their hands over my mounth when I tried to sing 
to them. 

I find bad singings entertaining if they do something short with 
energy. Somwtimes it is a great show. I find even "good" voices boring 
if they go on and on. I was at an event where a "good" bad sang a song 
that had been well received other places but it was just too long. I 
have heard good singer sing some period songs and did all the 
choruses. This was too long. I believe the song was used in period for 
people to dance to. It was not too long for a dance. 

I hate bad storytellers. I have had to sit through a two hour saga, a 
period jack the gaint killer story and a middle eastern story that had 
all its part and they killed me. They were totally correct and totally 
period. I believe the people who told the story thought because I was 
a Laurel that I would enjoy the stories. Most period stuff needs to be 
cut down. Laurels are 21st century people too and don't have the 
attention span of people even 40 years ago. 

I have a book on a Hindu Storyteller. He is a kind of priest. They 
tell stories about their  god. He is complaining in 1950's in India 
that people won't listen to stories anymore. He had cut  his to 30 
min. at a time. He remembered a time when people would listen for 2 
and 3 hours.