Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 22:19:03 -0500 (CDT)
From: "J. Michael Shew" <jshewkc@cyclops.pei.edu>
To: Joshua Badgley <fsjlb4@aurora.alaska.edu>
Cc: minstrel@pbm.com
Subject: RE: minstrel: Bardic, Period, and assorted rantings...
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	Sorry, my RE line will probably offend most of you.  It is my bent
humor.
	I perform period and non-period pieces.  I judge a few contests,
(Hey, it's Calontir.  Nobody wants to be ignorant, but we also wanna have
fun.)  I have done massive, (okay massive for me,) research on the Norse
Saga and on Norse Skaldic work.  I can do pieces in Norse.  I can do stuff
so period it sings in the soul and makes grown men cry.  I can also create
that kind of very authentic stuff.
	I also do folk, write "modern" SCA stuff, tell tales aimed at
drunk "Ren-fest" types, and have decended to the level of the Moose song.
So having set a little of my credits on the table, can I say a few words?
	One: a contest is not a feast, or a campfire, or a bardic circle.
I would have no problem performing a full-blown saga with fifteen pages of
research indicating the hundred or so I have at home, followed by a two
page summary.  In contest, I am showing what I have learned as well as
what I can do.  
	Of course, if the contest is for PERFORMANCE, (no, I am not
shouting.  I got a flyer like that recently.  :)   )  I would skip about
ten of the pages, condense the info, and keep it for those who wanna read
it.  Then I would give the same performance I had in the first one.
	In period, (and I hate to say that, cause in my case we have no
real idea for sure!) a bard/jonglure/minstrel/minnesinger/whatever would
have to prove they have learned something.  What I am doing in contest is
showing the "teacher" I don't have how I remembered his lessons.  This is
not that more unusual than fighting with ratan, really.
	Now in feast, I am singing/working for my supper.  What is gonna
motivate these folks to feed me?  My brilliance?  Sometimes...My ability
to make them laugh?  Often...My voice?  (Okay, you got me there...)  I am
playing for the entertainment value.  If The period piece will work, I
have educated my audience!  The Bardic gods will be pleased.  This is how
I chose my material.  The contest mindset is different from the
performance mindset.  In a perfect world, there might not be a conflict.
However, I am sure everyone can agree, sometimes, despite the best of
intentions, the period stuff will not fly.
	The campfire?  Ah, heaven.  Here I can sing the period things, do
the period tales, recite, or if I feel like it, do the stuff I write,
bothe the re-enactment and the modern. Here I can find audiences for both
mindsets.
	The Bardic circle?  What am I teaching?  If the circle has a lot
of new faces, new to the kingdom, I use a few traditional SCA tunes, an
historical, (read modern version of period,) tale, and a period piece to
introduce them to the real stuff.  Once again, it may take any kind of
entertainment.
	I find this argument about period/non-period confusing.  If you
are only doing contests, or only doing feasts, I could understand it.  But
in order to grow, you have to do both.
	The view from my field,
	Mikal Hrafspa

_______________________________________________________________________________
           Mikal the Ram, an annoying bard of no redeeming qualities
______________________________jshewkc@cyclops.pei.edu__________________________

		"The knowlege that you freely share
		You never really lose
		For Mistress and Apprentice
		Are just titles that we use
		When wisdom passes from your hand
		It travels back around again
		And the pupil gives more knowlege back to you"
			(The Mistress' Song, composed for Lucianna)


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