GaFilk

[mneme]

So, I went to GaFilk, with nrivkis

And it was a -lot- of fun.

Hilights:

Getting to spent a lot of time with nrivkis.
Getting, even with a croak on the harp that caused me to put her down gently and sing a capella, a very good reaction to my (with nrivkis's help) performance of Helen All Alone...to the point of having ladyat tell me she liked it the next day. Am still glowing from that.
Getting to see this Bob Asprin person for the first time.
Getting to meet kitanzi and autographedcat. And getting to help them in surprising nrivkis for a smallish birthday party.
Getting to hear Teri do a kick-ass Riddlemaster song...about the very scene that I've wanted to write a song about but not had the round tuits.
Getting to sing lots of songs.
Getting to hear lots of cool songs.
Actually getting to be more -there- in the filk, since I'd dumped the last addictive game off my Handera a couple of days before going to GaFilk. I feel...free. And occasionally obsessive for activities I can't actually accomplsh, but I'm hoping this will pass.
Getting to meet paprica, who is a very cool woman.
Meeting telynor's son, who's a great kid, and getting lured into a Nanofictionary game with him (and Nrivkis, and, IIRC, a steve). And realizing that I'd misread the published rules, and that a weakness I'd thought existed in Nanofictionary decidedly didn't.
Breakfast, Saturday morning, and all that that entails, including the company.

Lowlights (yeah, they happened, though not in anywhere -near- the numbers needed to diminish this experience):
Having my adictive activities end up accidentally making my pilot sound during someone's song. Ack. Oh, well.
Having my drum fall down a few times, noisily. I packed it better on Saturday night, but in any case...my bad.
figmo performing her "look how bad poetry would be were it done to muzak/lullabies" performance sequence, which has a very long intro, and a very meagre number of jokes in a very long sequence of what is, basically, a bad filk karioke. If the intro were stripped to the bone, and most of the sequences were either cut, or striped to -only- the funny bits (and the entire piece was under 2 minutes), it would probably be good. But as it is, it's a long, 15+ minute nightmare.
Having to run -3 more times-, as figmo proceeded to peform the same piece (or as like as never you mind) repeatedly Friday night, Saturday day, Saturday night, and Sunday day.
The Saturday night large chaos filk getting overly agressive (and unmoderated), with about three people (plus 3WS, which doesn't count largely because they -are- a three person band) dominating the filk, making it very hard for the dozen+ other performing filkers to break in. There's a word for this, but I somehow can't remember it right now.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Getting to meet paprika, who is a very cool woman.

ITYM paprica, n'est-ce pas?

[mneme]

Quite correct, thanks. I've corrected it.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I think the word you're looking for is 'filkhogging.' :->

In re the poetry song ... Lynn needs to work on performance skills, and timing, a whole lot. This is true in most of her compositions (having heard her do concerts repeatedly).

[mneme]

What word was that? I couldn't read it. :)

And yeah, performance skills and timing are important, though most of what I was seeing here was more a matter of "too long for the material, and inappropriate to the audience"...(and "repeated too often") which, I suppose, counts as "timing" for the most part, but is also a different, but very important filk skill: judgement.

This kind of judgement is similar, in many ways, to the "how can I tell if I'm doing that filkhogging thing" question that many of us (including YT) have had trouble with [which is one reason I tend to err on the side of singing too little rather than too much, in recent years]; it's too easy to guage yourself by those who are performing most [ie, either too, or by acclaim/request] often, producing the kind of "circle of five" dynamic I was complaining about above even if you're not actually doing every third song or anything -- it's too easy to lose track of the whole circle, only paying attention to the parts that favor your self-image.

It's something I know I used to be a lot worse at...and am certainly still not anywhere nere perfect with; low levels can lead to performances actively painful for most of the circle, or to filkhoggoing; the highest levels can let someone know when to cut short a performance that was clearly mistimed, or just isn't working, or even to change it on the fly so that it is working (the best I can usually manage is to cut madly, something that really needs to be done with potential pizza songs like my Martins one.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

Re: Doing the same piece 3x during the con, that was "Poetry's Greatest Hits, Volume I." The 2x10 was "Volume II." I did it the first night to set it up, then the 2nd night and at the dead dog by request.

As for either or both running long, specifics of what and where to cut would be nice, along with what I need to do to improve my performance skills there or elsewhere would help. I thought I was getting pretty good laughs, but obviously when multiple people are bothered there are problems. I'm also getting the feeling it's one of those bits folks either adore or can't stand, but I'm not sure.

I also don't know how the material was "inappropriate." Specifics would be nice.

[mneme]

From what I heard of part II, it seemed to be functionally identical to part I.

Which was, after all, most of the problem -- the original piece was largely the same joke, repeated ad infinum.

(re whether it's something that some people like and some people hate...I think it's something that most people find enjoyable in small quantities but painful in large...but that there are a few who have a near-infinite capacity for it [and suspect that they are far from the majority]).

If you want to send me a full listing of the text of either, I can probably try to figure out what I'd cut/keep.

A lot of the problem is that each piece was, itself, a seperate filksong/performance. Which means that any given one wouldn't be a scarring experience, though most of them were very much showstopper pieces, best in the one-verse/half verse format; get in, deliver the punchline, get out [of my pieces, Blacksmith of Hali is very much of this type, frex, and I try not to overdo it since it pretty only makes sense to those who know both songs].

Another, related problem, is that there was a sort of intermitability to the sequence -- there was no real progression aside from "this sequence ended when Lynn ran out of ideas". Now, obviously, you can have no-progression pieces that work -- Argo is one, as is Old Time Religon and my own "What's a Filk?" (or "Martin Said to Dianne", as you will). The key to these it to have a very different joke in every segment, and to keep the segments short...-and- to, by an act of will, avoid letting things run on too long; my pattern with "What's a Filk" is that I'll do my own verses until and unless people start contributing their own verses, then alternate until things seem to be going long (which doesn't happen mostly because there aren't enough people who have alternative verses yet; less than half a dozen than I know of, I think); even if nobody has their own verses I'll always cut at least two of the original 8 verses)...and to have enough new humor for every segment to keep things hopping.

That brings me to the question of humor -- with the form you've chosen, there's basically two appeals, really -- the first is the surprise of "what did you scan to -that-?", and the second is anticipation (which works best in The Raven piece, from what I remember) of known lines in a funny setting. The thing is, you've got a lot of material that doesn't hit either appeal -- after the first line, it's clear what the scansion is...and until you get to the anticipated punchline (Which in many pieces, is several verses away), the only humor is repetition of the existing joke, which works as well as it usually does (badly). For the most part, the magic number is four, though for certain poems, other numbers in that range may work better, like 1 or 5...which is to say that if you either start four lines away from the punch line...or [if your punch line is the first line] start with the first line and continue 1-4 lines in, then stop.

For any given line, you really need to say "why is this line -here-?" -- if the answer isn't either "it's a joke, a new one" or "it's making a smallish be necessary space for the next joke", it probably shouldn't.

And, of course, the entire sequence shouldn't be more than 3 minutes -- given that you're starting with a sequence of very short jokes, you should be able to come up with pieces that deliver whatever their payload is, then retire before anyone gets tired of it.

The next issue is that of quality -- given that the primary joke is "X scans to Y" (much like the Gilligan's Island scans-to variations, though those usually restrict themselves to the length of either the original song or GI, which helps a lot), if X -doesn't- scan to Y -- if the scansion seems forced, as it was in a largish number of your pieces, it totally undercuts the joke, and turns it into "Lynn thinks X scans to Y, which it actually doesn't"...which isn't the kind of humor you probably want even if people -do- find it funny. (obviously).

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I'll try to send you a file with the complete shtick. What formats can you read?

I can't see getting it down to three minutes. Cutting a couple more stanzas out of "The Raven" in Volume I, yes, but I felt "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" worked okay in its entirety because it went so fast and I had lots of shtick between each bit.

Likewise, in the first one I kept the entirety of the song "The Rose," but I heavily abridged "Casey At The Bat" to what I thought were the three crucial stanzas.

In the second one, I can't cut "The Cremation of Sam McGee" any tighter; that's the first AND last stanza rolled into one. The scansion may seem off, but Willie Nelson really does futz around with "Always On My Mind" that much.

One thing I kept in because I found it hysterically funny but I notice the audiences don't seem to find funny is that the entire "How Do I Love Thee" sonnet scans soooo perfectly to "I Can See Clearly Now" in its entirety. I'm toying with cutting parts of that out to shorten it, although I want to keep the bridge because the fact that the thing scans there does seem to garner laughs.

As far as the "Achey Breaky" part, I think I can cut that down a bit more. I rushed that part in and it shows. I really have problems timing it when the background music drops out, and I've practiced that part a lot; I attribute it to "stage jitters."

I also think I need to transpose the "Peg of My Heart" MIDI. That one is forced after the first two lines, but I thought those lines were worth it, which is why I tried to get in and out of that one fast.

Re: limits, I've been keeping each segment to five poems. I figure after that it's a bit much. I ended the first with the Edgar Allen Poe because IMHO it was the most outrageous of the bunch. The rest of the order was put together by what I thought was most outrageous.

In the second one I opened with the Robert Service snippet because it seemed to ease in the best. I have been trying to redo the MIDI to "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" but the system keeps crashing. I'll keep trying. I'm wondering whether I need to cut a stanza or two more out (I've cut it down to three of the five in the original poem).

The next one is the Browning to "I Can See Clearly." Again, cut point suggestions gleefully accepted. I like the way the next one, the Frost to "Limbo Rock" is because it goes fast and I have the limbo gags built in, including the patter.

The final part was of course the "Achey Breaky Gunga Din." Should I perhaps just cut out all but the end of the second stanza I use (the one that ends with "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din") and most of the repeats?

[mneme]

Re "inappropriate to the audience", I mean that while you can get away with a medly of about 4-10 near-full-length pieces in a concert slot, even a 2x10 [since it's ok to do multiple pieces there in any case], it's not really appropriate to do the same in circle, where it amounts to taking multiple turns in a row, [something that the common trick of doing a short-short piece and a longer piece is on the borderline of]. And yes, that if a substantial portion of the audience finds it painful, it's inappropriate to said audience -- there is a time to repeat a piece by request...and a time to quietly take the requester off in a corner to give them, and anyone else who wants one, a private performance of the piece rather than risk trying people's patience by performing it pubically again (two is often ok, especially if one of the audiences was very small or there's simply very little overlap, but 3?)

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Point taken.

I did the one in the 2x10 because IMHO it doesn't work in a circle partly for the reasons you mention and partly because it is a "performance piece."

You're also pointing out to me something Lee Gold mentioned years ago: I need to rotate my material so people don't get sick of it. That's one of the hazards of doing primarily humorous material. Lee is really good at knowing when the west coast hasn't heard something of mine long enough that it's safe to drag it out again, and she's been known to make requests during my concerts.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I just noticed something....

I did not ever perform either of those pieces pubically. I did them from the other set of lips.