(no subject)

From: Catherine Faber <faberc at ohsu.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 13:47:47 -0800

replyMickey Phoenix wrote:

>On Tue, 12 Nov 1996, c4winds at teleport.com (Clan of the Four Winds) wrote:
>> Just some short comments, since I wasn't there much, just MHO, YMMV :)
>
>I'll respond with mine, then--although I was only there for one night, I
>was there for about 6 hours...:-)
>
>> Pros:
>> Spliting up the rooms into chaos and bardic, some people feel very strongly
>> either way. Perhaps next year a small sheet explaining the two styles could
>> be on hand for newbies...

        Hmmm. I couldn't help but notice that the chaos filk came with a "user beware" type warning that I don't really feel it deserved. I replywas in the chaos all Friday night, and while we did have a couple of "doorway jams" (Cat's term for those times when there is more than one possible follow-up song available, but only one can be sung at a time), replythey all seemed to be resolved amicably and with consideration. We stopped a couple of times to remind people that everyone was welcome to sing, and nobody that I saw tried to start a song and found it trampled by another would-be performer.

reply        I realize that a chaos circle *can* be a bard-battle-bard kind of place, but it doesn't *have* to be.

reply:> The 1/2 hour mini concerts. We've all heard the complaint that certain
:> people get to play more than others, or that you don't get to hear some
:> really good people as much as you'd like to. I think this was a *really
:> good* idea, and I'd like to see it continue. A sign up sheet would be nice.
:
:I'm really not clear on how these "1/2 hour mini concerts" were run, so my  
:comments may appear to range from the random to the absurd, but...
:...one thing I'd really like to see is an opportunity for random filkers to  
:reserve concert space and get themselves better known. 

	There was a sign-up sheet for the mini-concerts, but it wasn't

heavily publicized. I was lucky enough to hear about it in time to sign up. I don't know if it would have been feasable to have more concerts than we did--they ran until almost 1:00 in the morning, as I recall.

reply        If-I-ran-the-world, I'd like to have all day, or even all-con concerts, with a filk room dedicated for that purpose, so that filk concerts, instead of competing against the filk circe, were competing against the other programming (so filkers don't have such hard choices :-). replyThat would also provide plenty of concert time, so that lots of people could play short concerts, instead of 4 or 5 groups, the way it was this time.

        Mind you, I was glad for the mini-concerts we *did* have-- don't think me ungrateful :-)

        (Sitting before or after the "turn" in the bardic)

reply>I'm not sure if there *are* any "fair" or "comfortable" ways to introduce
>someone to a bardic circle--but personally, I'd go for something like "Hey,
>you who just came in--the cookie is here, so we suggest you sit about five
>people to the clockwise of it, to give you time to fit into the circle but
>so you don't have to wait forever to sing."

        But the opposite problem is what I've seen in some bardic or pokerchip bardic setups--you're waiting for your turn; you've been there, patiently, for an hour, and walk-ins fresh off the street keep lengthening the line before you get to go. Boy, talk about replyfrustrating! I think there is just a point where the performance to listening ratio gets too low to be fun for would-be performers, no matter how you slice it. That's why I liked the two-room setup-- it made the circles smaller. Received on 11/12/96