Joshua Kronengold

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.