Message-Id: <199810042111.RAA29957@xkey.com>
Subject: Re: minstrel: Bardic, Period, and assorted rantings...
To: rdeaver@swbell.net (Rex Deaver)
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 17:11:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Greg Lindahl" <lindahl@pbm.com>
Cc: minstrel@pbm.com
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19981004120111.00ae18a8@mail.swbell.net> from "Rex Deaver" at Oct 4, 98 12:01:11 pm
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> >Historically, there were many minstrels who were
> >neither poets nor composers. 
> 
> But none of note.  Creativity has always been the mark of, and often
> reserved to, the mastery of an art.

I disagree, and I challenge you to prove your point. Only the people
that _you_ note may be composers, but there were many celebrated
non-composing instrumentalists throughout history, considered masters
of performance. And there were masters of composition who couldn't
perform their way out of a paper bag.

> Each aspect -- the bards, the skalds, the troubadours, etc. -- had it's
> time and place, and each rose and fell.  And each covered but a fraction of
> Period, this is true.  But collectively they represent a *major* fraction,
> not a minor one as you seem to imply.

And in the troubadour era, especially, there were many people
celebrated for their performance, and not their composition. There
were also celebrated composers who sang very poorly.

If you want to compose, great.

> This is a welcome statement, and has not been apparent from your earlier
> postings.  Glad we have found at least one point of commonality. :-)

Given that I have a lot of web resources oriented around period filk,
and I talk about it on this list all the time, I would beseech you to
talk with ME instead of someone you've made up and assigned opinions
to. It's very hard to hold a discussion when we aren't talking to or
about each other's actual ideas.

> >So even though I have not
> >composed, I have done much original work. 
> 
> I see your point.  Let us then add "arrangement" to the previous list, and
> apply all statements to this aspect equally.

No, ornamentation and other innovations in playing is not usually
called "arrangement". But I mostly object to the idea that people
doing some thing are not doing something of worth because they are not
creating. I can tell a story that someone else wrote and imitate
their style and be incredibly entertaining. This is not a bad thing.

> >I hope
> >you don't want to apply that to everyone else.
> 
> I apply these standards to no one.  I apply them to the art.

Uh, I don't get the difference; you're saying that if people don't
live up to your idea of the art, then they aren't a minstrel?
So you are applying your vision of the art to everyone else.

> >And, historically speaking, there was lots of background
> >music and it was highly valued.
> 
> Yes it was, but I don't think many, then or now, would confuse it with
> "performance" in the sense we have been using the word.

I think you're presuming a lot when you say "in the sense we have been
using the word". Over the years, the subject of background music and
quieting the hall during feasts has come up on this list many times.
In all that discussion, there was never a question that background
music was still performance. Perhaps you should examine your
assumptions a bit more closely.

-- gb

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