<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/3/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ken Theriot</b> <<a href="mailto:kentheriot@ravenboymusic.com">kentheriot@ravenboymusic.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><SNIP><br>Again, this is not meant to be an assertion that it was not done. But if we<br>are going to enter a piece of work into a bardic competition, I feel we need<br>to find some good evidence for it. When I enter a song in a competition, it
<br>is not hard to find many, many examples of songs being performed by bards,<br>(insert favorite word for medieval performer), etc. I then document the<br>existence and use of the meter, the existence and use of the mode/key used
<br>in the melody, the existence and use of the guitar (yes, the guitar is well<br>documentable), and the likelihood of the storyline. I recently learned a<br>really cool story, in prose, from a modern storytelling competition. It's a
<br>sort of combination of the 5 Chinese Brothers, and a few other popular<br>tales. I am looking for a way to document it as something that would have<br>been done in period. That is what started me on this road to travail.
<br><br>Kenneth</blockquote><div><br> What follows is a general rant, prompted by Kenneth's comments but not directed specifically at him. <br><br> Where is your documentation to show that Bardic Competitions in the Middle Ages required this kind of documentation from the competitors? I'm not trying to be a Smart A** here, but we are in theory, attempting to recreate selected aspects of the Middle Ages. What aspect of the Middle Ages are you trying to recreate in asking for that kind of documentation from a performer?
<br> I am not an expert but I think that even in the more structured "Bardic" traditions a performer was expected to demonstrate his or her knowledge of the forms and practices by using those forms and practices correctly rather than by writing out documentation explaining what he knew and how he knew it.
<br> I want a performance to feel like something that could have been done in period. I want the performer to make an emotional connection with me, to make me feel something. <br> Filk and mundanity are acceptable in some performance venues and not others. In the "Serious" venues I want something that makes me feel a connection with my fellow performers and an connection with the past. Something that takes me out of the mundane 21st century. But as soon as you start asking for and presenting documentation that what you are doing is period, you have ceased doing something period and started doing something modern. It's an intrusion and a distraction from the reason we are there in the first place. The best you can hope for is that it is being done unobtrusively.
<br> I'm not against doing research, or sharing that research. Good research won't prop up a poor piece, and a good piece doesn't need propped up. <br> This is just my opinion and I'm sure that some will disagree with me, but I believe that in a competition, the research you have done should be judged by what appears in your performance. If it's not in the performance then it's not relevant.
<br></div><br> I'm looking forward to what the rest of you think. <br><br>Robert "The Opinionated" Fitzmorgan<br></div><br>-- <br>"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day." John A. Wheeler
<br><br><a href="mailto:Fitzmorgan@gmail.com">Fitzmorgan@gmail.com</a><br>Yahoo IM: robert_fitzmorgan