Mi Contra Fa

Art and Performance

I argue that "fun" and "authenticity" are not two poles of one axis, but rather independent, perpendicular axes.  So there can exist performances which are fun and authentic, fun and inauthentic, unfun and authentic, and unfun and inauthentic.

The "sweet spot" for SCA performance seems to be well up the "fun" axis and about centered on it.  That's "SCA appropriate" - maybe inauthentic, but too much; maybe authentic, but not too much.  It's close enough to modern to be accessible but also not "glaringly" modern.  Ideally, it is somehow evocative of the Middle Ages "as they should have been" as well.

For examples, consider the collected works of (say) Mistress Rosalind Jehanne.  "The Song of Roland" falls on the "authenic" side of the fun axis (but not too far - it is not, after all, a reconstruction of the chanson).  "At the Battle of Maldon" ambitiously captures the alliteration of the original, but also imposes meter and rhyme on it.  This fits it much more firmly into our modern performance idiom.  It makes it more accessible - that's the second time I've used that word, and I think it's important.  It's hard for something to be fun if you don't "get it."  Mistress Rosalind's work is marvelously accessible and brings some actual medieval stories and themes to people who might otherwise assume it would be boring.

As I'm  brainstorming ideas for a performance project, I find myself torn on this idea of accessibility.  Part of me wants to lump it and strictly pursue Art (and you should probably imagine that word all in pretentious fancy Gothic letters).  That's the part of me that's fascinated by the Anglo-Saxons and wants to try and bring their words and performance to life in the most accurate way I know how.

Then there's the bard part of me who wants a happy audience.  While I do  believe there would be people who would appreciate a very authentic re-creation, it is not going to hit that "fun" spot for most folks, because it won't be accessible. It'll be weird.  Good-weird, hopefully, but weird all the same.

So I found myself pondering parallel performances: the "real" one and the "modernized" one.  Say, the onion riddle in direct poetic translation vs. the onion riddle rewritten in three rhyming quatrains of iambic tetrameter and set to repeating music.

I don't think I really want to do that.  I think I feel like I need to, to satisfy this imaginary audience.  Maybe the brave thing is to try the weird performance and see how it flies. 

Writing Popular Songs

An observation from Performer's Revel:

Scadians love narrative.

We do get the occasional lyric or other form.  But we adore story-songs.  There are, for instance, far more songs written that tell the story of two people in love than there are professions or complaints of love.  Songs that tell the story of one man who goes to war are more numerous than songs about the idea of war.  There are far more songs about magic than there are incantations.

So, if you want to write a popular song, I would advise you to write a narrative song.  We've got period models for that, so you can have your popularity and authenticity, too.  In fact, I am beginning to suspect that the easiest way to slip period performance vegetables into people's bardics is to do narratives.  Just not 10000+ line ones.  That's pushing it.

Extending the metaphor

I credit Chalice of the Sun God, 2007, with giving me the realization that performance could be researched and documented like any other A&S - or indeed, like my 9-to-5 job.  Part of my job description involves writing technical papers about my research.  One aims for journals, but especially for quick, incremental papers documenting progress on a larger project, conferences are just fine.

It occurs to me that KASF is our annual A&S conference.  I'm even preparing a poster, for goodness' sake.  If I were going to a professional conference and presenting a poster, I'd have copies of my paper(s) and business cards.  I should have something of the same for KASF. 

What would people want to take away?  I flatter myself to think some of the class notes and some of the sheet music might be of interest.  Some of the fully-documented pieces, probably not so much.  SCAdians in general would rather have information they can do something with, rather than a (unpublished amateur) reference.  But I may bring a few copies of some of the projects I'm proud of, as examples of good PA&S documentation, if nothing else.

As for business cards... why not?  With the Mi Contra Fa URL, of course.  I wish I had a GIF or JPG of my arms to put on them... oh well.  For the future.  Maybe some clip art for the present.

KASF 2009

Tonight, I plan to hit the Staples and the Michael's (craft store) for display items.  Foam core, photo corner holders, perhaps some trim to decorate the foam core.  I have binders and page protectors at home, plus some more report covers.

Binder One: Great Translation Project.  Includes Wulf and Eadwacer, I Am the Dark Woman, None Suffer, Robin Hood and the Potter, How I Like the Gay Times of Spring, The Armed Man

Binder Two: Original works

Display Panel Left: Community Performance (maypole, carols, Robin Hood?).  Oh, I wish I had pictures.  (Email Storvik list! Maybe someone does.)

Display Panel Right: Anglo-Saxon Performance.  Poems, classes, instruments (pictures of).

Display Panel Center: Historically Informed Performance. 

I should stage some photo ops.  I'm not sure how I feel about leaving a laptop on the table to do video playback; not that I have video recorded.  (But we have a video camera now! Score!)

Display 1.0

A quick trip to the Office Depot yielded decent results.

For Tempore Atlantia, I got a folding tabletop easel and a pack of professional report covers.  The covers are linen-look paper, embossed with some geometric shapes, and with cutouts.  You can slide in a cover sheet that shows in the front window (and highlights some ornamental cutouts for good measure).  Inside, there's a pocket for the documentation.

What it doesn't have is a good place to put the music; I've paper-clipped it to the back of the front pocket, that holds the cover sheet.  (I'm not explaining this well, am I?)  Suffice to say, you see a nice report sitting on an easel.  You open it up and there's sheet music on the left and documentation on the right.

I may leave a recorder with the entry, for "do it yourself" investigation of the tune.

For Poeta, I have another report cover that holds my nine-page entry.  But then my poems are buried inside it.  Not wanting to spill out for another easel ($15), I bought a cheap, colorful paper folder ($0.80).  I printed out full-page versions of my two poems and paper clipped them to the inside.  Now I can stand the folder up and open on the table and put the pretty documentation on the table in front of it.

I have ideas for fabric-covered foam core, with scrapbooking-style photo-corner holders set up to provide modular yet attractive places to insert papers.  Pros: Lots of space, easy to read, can be decorated with persona-appropriate borders and ornaments.  Cons: Will look like a science fair poster, somewhat large to transport, somewhat delicate.

Or: I leather-bind a 3-ring binder and decorate it like a medieval book cover.  (Or get some wood panels and do the book thing for real!)  That could be a project in and of itself.

(You understand we travel with enough baby gear to launch a toddler's assault on Mt Everest, and sometimes with my instruments.  Cramming a 12" x 30" x 1" pile of foam core on top of the garb, gear, instruments, stroller, etc etc etc in the trunk can be a challenge.)

Law 20

20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
 - Dave Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design

I really have no time left to consider presentation on my entries for Poeta and especially Tempore Atlantia.  In Tempore Atlantia, I will be sharing a table with all manner of fabuous static A&S items.  A binder with some music and notes stuffed in it does not show well next to a Norman gown with hand-embroidered trim, glittering period jewelry, or detailed illuminations with gorgeous calligraphy.

In this case, it's a weak entry anyway.  Presentation will not cost me the competition; content will.  But in general, I should consider what kind of presentation I can give to my poetry and/or music.  And it should be modular: the artfully designed tableau meant to evoke a scribe's table might be fine when there's room for it, but an evocative and attractive binder might do for a crowded table.

Fame and Fortune

A passing observation:

When I call to mind some of the well-known bards of Atlantia or indeed, of other kingdoms, most of them have some particular specialty or style that I associate with them.  Indeed, observe these (somewhat dated) vitae of Atlantian bards.  Many of them call out to those specialties.

Not that any of these gentles is limited to those specialties.  I think of Yaakov HaMizrachi as a storyteller, but he sings and composes poetry as well.  Efenwealt Wystle is well-known as a funny, funny man, but he writes serious love and war songs as well.  Ruaidhri an Cu brings to mind Elizabethan-styled works in a Scots accent, but of course his repertoire is larger than that - and he heralds a mean court.

But there is something to be said for being "the one who does X," if recognition is your goal.  Advertisers call it "branding," and I don't know if they took that term from cattlemen or not.  But it serves the same purpose - it marks something out.  To sell something - whether it's soap or your performance - your potential customer has to know what it's good for.

So what are you selling, and who is your market for that?  I wouldn't recommend trying to "sell" anything you don't like to perform.  The widest market in the SCA, by far, is the traditional music one.  It also has the largest number of "sellers" singing in it, and you'll need to establish your brand quite cleverly - perhaps by using an instrument, singing with a partner, or even just maintaining a distinct persona.  But if you're not interested in traditional music - or at least, not interested in making it "the thing you do," accept that you're pitching to a smaller market.

That's okay.  And there's nothing wrong with trying to "grow" your market - trying to bring your specialty into the SCA mainstream to increase your adoring audience.   A more specific specialty will probably get you faster name-recognition - "Hey, it's the hurdy-gurdy guy!"  - even if it doesn't bring as much popularity.

Group Participation

We had a very successful carol sing here in Storvik back in January, at our Yule Revel.  I'm hoping the maypole will also go well.  But getting a spontaneous group participation activity can be rough.  Ask any dancing master who's trying to round up enough warm bodies to dance Rufty Tufty.

My thoughts, as yet largely untried:

Advertising helps but is insufficient. It's never bad to get the word out, but people forget and lose track of time.  Don't depend on a line or two in the site pamphlet to draw people over to your activity.

"Oyez, Oyez" is a start, but...  Having heralds announce an activity is good, but isn't going to be enough to convince fence-sitters that they want to try this.

Personal, directed invitations are the best.  If I were to do a maypole at an event, I would gather 1 or 2 other cohorts and begin marching or skipping through the site, with a tambourine and perhaps flute, stopping at groups of people to invite them to dance the maypole, come dance the maypole!

Avoid competition, including with the weather.  If you are opposite another activity, people can't do both.  If you have enough attendance, or distinct groups of participants (e.g., very young children's activities do not compete with Youth Fighter do not compete with adult A&S), this isn't so much a problem.  Time blocks before and after court and before and right after feast are also often not good, as people are setting up or breaking down.  In the summer, consider that few people over the age of eight are going to feel like running around in high heat and humidity - go early or late.  If rain is forcing people under shelters, consider a spontaneous singalong.

Make the barrier to entry as low as possible.  Sing well-known songs and pass out lyrics sheets.  Promise simple dances and follow through.  We once held a bardic circle in a mundane college coffeehouse and got some mundanes to participate, by leaving books of short stories and poetry on a table.  They could pick one up and read a selection for the crowd.  Offer sanctuary in numbers, if possible - people who might never sing solo will sing as part of a group.  Use familiar material if possible.

Don't sweat the details.  Relax, have a good time, and don't worry if the song isn't note-perfect or the dance has some bobbles.  It's not a stage performance, it's an activity.  Encourage people to take a similar view - have fun, screw up, laugh and do it again.  The more it feels like a party game and the less it feels like something their 5th grade music teacher is making them do, the better it will be received.

The Soundtrack of the SCA

A lot of us spend our days immersed in music.  Our radio alarm wakes us up with our favorite tunes.  We listen to our iPod in the gym, then turn on the radio in the car on the way to work.  Work may have ambient music, or if we're lucky we can tune in to our favorite radio station via the Internet, or play CDs if we work on a computer.  After getting the traffic report, we switch back to some music on the radio, before heading home to watch some TV where a nearly subconscious soundtrack increases the drama or comedy of each scene.  Even our commercials are highly musical, many with jingles we can sing years after we first heard them.

At events, we tend to box the music up.  We expect (or maybe dread) a performance or two at feast, and maybe a bardic circle if it's a camping event.  If there's a bardic competition, there's some music there.  And of course, if you're lucky enough to have dancing, that's where the instrumentalists can go.  I have occasionally heard a boombox or two, playing ambient music under a dayshade or in the kitchen.  (Incidentally, a boombox works in the kitchen.  A live performer there would just get in the way of the cooks.  That is bad; they have knives.)

Where's the music?

We're working at getting more ambient music at events around here.  I've heard Lord Richard Wyn of Bright Hills in a far pavilion, his guitar echoing down the event site.  Mistress Fevronia Murometsa has perched herself on a hillside and let her harp and voice roll down to the field.  Our humble Music Ensemble has set up shop and played, and I've parked myself under a dayshade for an hour or so to provide music.  I'm sure there are others whom I haven't heard, or who don't come to mind at the moment.  It's coming along.  But why is it something we have to work at?

On the one hand, it's because it is work.  It's not critical volunteerism, like Troll or MOL, nor physically demanding work like list field set-up or pavilion tear-down.  It looks a lot like loafing around, to be honest, and in some ways it is.  We love our work and it's fun.  But to commit to spend an hour providing music is an hour we're not participating in the event's other activities, not speaking with our friends, not shopping or eating or enjoying the weather.  It's a service for which, I'll point out, people in the mundane world will pay $60-$100 an hour.

Yes, seriously.  Go find out how much a harpist or harper charges for playing at a wedding.  That's the value of live music.

On the other hand, bards aren't used to being background music, especially the vocalists.  Instrumentalists often have some experience with being ambient sound - as dance musicians, if nothing else.  Vocalists expect attention.  And to a certain extent, the populace also feels that they should give them attention.  Singing is close to speaking, and when someone starts speaking loudly near us, we (usually) attend to them to see what they have to say, at least for a few moments.

But the populace is not at the event to listen raptly to bardic performance.  They are there to socialize, and fight, and shop and eat and enjoy the weather.  A "bard in a box" can be politely ignored and relegated to background music.  With a live bard, there can be some tension.  Does he expect me to listen to the whole thing?  Will she be mad if I keep walking?  Am I supposed to do something here?

I think the problem on the first hand is of more consequence than the problem on the second hand.  The second hand will solve itself if we just make more music, more often, in more places, until it becomes normal.  I'm not advocating that bards entirely self-efface until they become walking boomboxes, but not every performance needs to be all eyes on the bard, either.

The first problem is valuing the intangible.  People do value it - I've played harp throughout a feast, utterly ignored by all signs - until people came up afterward to tell me how much they enjoyed music while they ate.  Our experiments in court music have gone over exceptionally well.  Once you find a hole for music and fill it, people will miss it when it's gone.  But you have to find the holes, and then fill them at enough events that people begin to associate the music with moment.  Then you'll start seeing autocrats put out a call for volunteer musicians and bards along with trolls, MOLs, kitchen help and waterbearers.

Some obvious (to me) holes:

• Troll.  Wouldn't it be nice to be entertained while you waited on line?
• Royal or baronial room, dayshade, hangout.  Crowns need musicians as well as heralds.
• Court, as background music, not as a performance venue.
• Feast, the same.  I mean one long stretch of performances, perhaps in different areas throughout the hall, over the entire course of dinner, which would not require silence from the populace.  Breaks for the musicians and bards to eat, of course.
• Set-up/Tear-down, especially if there's good work music to be had.
• Kitchen, only with permission of feastocrat
• Newcomer's Point, MOL table, or any other place where other volunteers are sitting for long stretches of time and could use some music to lift their spirits.

Learning from Cooks

I joined the SCA in 1994, in the East Kingdom.  If I recall correctly, this was at the beginning of a push towards more period feasts.

It was bloody awful.

I mean no disrespect to the hard-working cooks who labored to serve us that... stuff.  They had newly researched recipes and I suppose they must have thought they were tasty.  In their enthusiasm, they laded down the tables with odd flavors and textures, with barely a friendly chunk of bread to ease the hunger of the less culinarily adventurous.  I distinctly recall the kindness of a stranger at one of my first feasts, where of all the foods I tried, the only thing I could stomach was a single soft-boiled egg and some ham.  He shared his orange with me.

In the intervening years, either the cooks have reformed their menu planning or my palate has grown more tolerant - but I think it's both.  I sincerely doubt we will ever see an eel-based dish at a feast table, for instance.  Even if one could find a good eel supply, that's just too far outside most people's comfort zone.  It would go largely uneaten and the cooks know this.  On the other hand, those wily cooks have been slowly feeding us more and more period food - and we like it!  Maybe they serve the sauces on the side, so the timid can try them bit by bit.  Usually, every remove has something that seems more or less "normal" to a modern.  Oh, and they always try to accommodate the growing number of vegetarians among us.

How?  I think, in their super-secret Cooks' Guild HQ, they realized that there's a lot of medieval and Renaissance recipes out there.  Some of them appeal to modern American tastes; some challenge them a little; some seem to fit best on Fear Factor.  No matter how authentic the baked eel is, an equally authentic chicken dish will go over better.  And each remove gives several opportunities for serving dishes which are easy pleasers and a few which will challenge and inform the tastebuds of the populace.

I look at the cooks because they've achieved what I hear is impossible in the bardic arena: served up period tastes to a modern crowd, and to great acclaim.  Bards perform traditional music "because that's what the audience wants to hear, and our job is to entertain." 

After some of those early feasts, I suspect I would have gladly told the cooks, "No, please, forget the period food. It's nasty.  Cook me some beef stew, please, because in my imagination that's what medieval people ate anyway."  But now, I'm glad that we're having more tasty and period food.   There were, in my local area anyway, some missteps early on.  That's research and learning; it happens.  And then we got past that and now have all manner of  sauced meats, lentil and rice dishes, seasoned vegetables and that awesome pistachio cream they make here in Storvik.

I have a CD of  a historically-informed performance of troubadour chansons d'amour.  And you know what?  Even I find them boring after the first three minutes of a seven-minute song, in a language I don't speak.  The music's nice, but languid.  That's a baked eel performance, right there.  The populace won't eat it.

But something like "Non Sofre"?  It's a 13th century Cantiga de Santa Maria about a miraculous pork chop, with a jaunty tune and a decent helping of silliness.  All it needs to be is not-in-Spanish, which I admit is a problem, but hardly an insurmountable one.  (In fact, I hope to surmount it once the maypole project is done.)  There is music out there which is both period and fun to listen to.  It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.