A topic for discussion -Reply

WARNING WARNING: THIS IS A
RANT I am very interested Karen's proposed
topic. First, just what were you
referring to as problems at Norwescon?

I am interested in filk but always feel
very unsure about how things are
supposed to work. Perhaps everyone
should first state what you think the
"rules" are and we can use that as a
starting point.
I have also read the reply from
Commander Claus. Apparently actually
there's more than one way of doing
things. I had no idea. Why are these
things never explained? Every time I go
to a filk I feel like I am trying to barge in on some mysterious arcane ceremony
the rules of which must be divined by
psychic means. This annoys the hell out
of me. I also wish people who sing
songs that are about some book or
movie or whatever universe would
bother to explain this first. In fact I think a little introduction to every song would go a long way. You can hardly expect
everyone who shows up to be familiar
with every universe of every author out
there, now can you? Why is everything
about filk so impenetrable?

Most of the filks I've been to have been dominated by a few people. I hear the
same songs over and over. (Steve
Dixon is great, but I'm getting little tired of every filk being half Steve Concert.) There seems to be a lot of "performing"
and not very much group singing. Group
singing is much less intimidating to new people and those of us who aren't too
confident about singing by ourselves in
front of a bunch of mostly total
strangers. I wish that people with
words would make more open efforts
to share them with anyone who might
be interested.

Endof rant.
Thank you for your attention Received on 05/02/96