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Went to a FABULOUS event over the weekend and had a great time.
Beautiful day, shot a nice round of archery (with a better than my average but still pretty crap score), and enjoyed a MARVELOUS feast. They did it buffet-style and still had enough to feed about 20 people on the table when everyone was stuffed to the gills. I felt kinda nauseous from eating so much meat and had to start handing it off to the dog. A perfectly cooked roast beef, pork, veggies, salads, fruit and like 6 different desserts. Yum, yum, yum. Apparently they are known for the quality of their feasts and some people who couldn't make it during the day still showed up in the evening for the feast 'cause it's just that good.
Anyway, the evening was where it really got interesting...
I entered their bardic competition. Mostly because I'd been watching (and feeling bad about) a bunch of poorly attended competitions earlier in the day (the A&S and Fencing champions both won because they were the only comers) and felt there is more honour in the winner being able to defeat a larger group. I never thought I'd win or even be in serious contention, I mean, I'm a singer, not a bard. Yeah, I have a great set of pipes and I'm not scared to admit that, but I can't write worth sh!t, and back home, that makes you a second-class bard. Yeah, you can sing, if none of the real bards show up ;)
There were two entrants with original pieces (one written on a napkin during feast no less), myself and two others singing stuff written by others, and a final entrant (a professional) doing opera (which was WAY cool by the way). Of the original writers, only one could carry a tune, but back home, as writing is more valuable than vocal ability, I figured he'd still come in ahead of me. The one that could carry a tune was okay vocally, but his song was FABULOUS, very rousing and I loved it! I figured he was the hands-down, opened a can of whup-ass champion. Anyway, after a long conferral during which we kept the circle going, the judges came back and asked for one more piece from the finalists, me and the in-tune original composition guy. Me? Me?!?!?! Hold the phone, you think *I* am a serious bard?!?!?! And, um, I've already done the only three pieces I know by heart! And of course no one has an Ealdormerean songbook, like, duh. So I did a chorus (I know choruses, I know ALL KINDS of choruses because as a singer, I am always part of that great "Ealdormerean choir" so all I have to know is choruses, I don't know no stinkin' verses!) though I at least picked a long chorus :) Or it might have been one verse and a chorus, I don't know. Em, want to send me the Little People words so I can see what exactly I was singing?
Anyway, the other guy won (phew, cause I would have felt REALLY bad winning when in my eyes he whipped me) and the judge came up to me after and said "it was CLOSE, we decided if you knew one more song, you would have won". To which I responded, "yeah, and there's the fact that he wrote his piece" and the judge answered "that doesn't matter". !?!?!?!?! Since when does that not matter????? I am sooo glad I didn't sing "My cup fell in the ice chest", as though I have that one memorized, I judged it not to be a competition piece. But isn't that the strangest thing?!?! Back home I would never have thought to enter in anything but a performance contest as back home, I'm not considered a "real" bard. But out here, they don't judge the same way and there seems to be classes in performance ability rather than writing ability - weirding me out still.
Anyway, the other weirdness I ran into around this fire was someone explaining why they hold and enter bardic challenges, because they hope to one day be on the same respect level as the fighters - wow, back home that's already the case, and I don't remember it being through competition. In fact I've only ever seen two competitions; the Leith competition between three story-tellers (Japanese, Norse and the third was German, French, I forget) as to who could tell the best story in their native style, and it had to include beets (that was SUCH a kick-ass competition) and the Baronial Bardic competition between Ivhon and Naga for Baronial Bard of Ramshaven (where it was decided they should share the title). We didn't compete, we just ALL sung together (like the whole damn kingdom) and if there was a bardic fire, everyone showed up, and there were never silences, at all, it was hard to jump in even. There were silent spots in this fire where people actively were asking who would go next and where people were racking their brains for repertiore! So exciting to be here at the inception (or reviving - I don't know which) of a bardic tradition!
I could get respected as a serious bard here!!!! The thought alone is blowing my mind...
Anyway, in honour of this kewlness, I am going to try a little something new. Instead of staying up all night sewing so I can have a new piece of garb for every event, I'm going to re-direct my energies into memorizing a new song for every event. So, where to start...
And why isn't "inspired" or "anticipatory" moods on this stupid thing? I keep having to settle for "close enough", and that is vexing me. Like do we really need the 10 different ways they've put "angry" in there?
And another thing, the spellchecker is hella-annoying when you write about SCA things or use Canadian spelling. >grrrr
Beautiful day, shot a nice round of archery (with a better than my average but still pretty crap score), and enjoyed a MARVELOUS feast. They did it buffet-style and still had enough to feed about 20 people on the table when everyone was stuffed to the gills. I felt kinda nauseous from eating so much meat and had to start handing it off to the dog. A perfectly cooked roast beef, pork, veggies, salads, fruit and like 6 different desserts. Yum, yum, yum. Apparently they are known for the quality of their feasts and some people who couldn't make it during the day still showed up in the evening for the feast 'cause it's just that good.
Anyway, the evening was where it really got interesting...
I entered their bardic competition. Mostly because I'd been watching (and feeling bad about) a bunch of poorly attended competitions earlier in the day (the A&S and Fencing champions both won because they were the only comers) and felt there is more honour in the winner being able to defeat a larger group. I never thought I'd win or even be in serious contention, I mean, I'm a singer, not a bard. Yeah, I have a great set of pipes and I'm not scared to admit that, but I can't write worth sh!t, and back home, that makes you a second-class bard. Yeah, you can sing, if none of the real bards show up ;)
There were two entrants with original pieces (one written on a napkin during feast no less), myself and two others singing stuff written by others, and a final entrant (a professional) doing opera (which was WAY cool by the way). Of the original writers, only one could carry a tune, but back home, as writing is more valuable than vocal ability, I figured he'd still come in ahead of me. The one that could carry a tune was okay vocally, but his song was FABULOUS, very rousing and I loved it! I figured he was the hands-down, opened a can of whup-ass champion. Anyway, after a long conferral during which we kept the circle going, the judges came back and asked for one more piece from the finalists, me and the in-tune original composition guy. Me? Me?!?!?! Hold the phone, you think *I* am a serious bard?!?!?! And, um, I've already done the only three pieces I know by heart! And of course no one has an Ealdormerean songbook, like, duh. So I did a chorus (I know choruses, I know ALL KINDS of choruses because as a singer, I am always part of that great "Ealdormerean choir" so all I have to know is choruses, I don't know no stinkin' verses!) though I at least picked a long chorus :) Or it might have been one verse and a chorus, I don't know. Em, want to send me the Little People words so I can see what exactly I was singing?
Anyway, the other guy won (phew, cause I would have felt REALLY bad winning when in my eyes he whipped me) and the judge came up to me after and said "it was CLOSE, we decided if you knew one more song, you would have won". To which I responded, "yeah, and there's the fact that he wrote his piece" and the judge answered "that doesn't matter". !?!?!?!?! Since when does that not matter????? I am sooo glad I didn't sing "My cup fell in the ice chest", as though I have that one memorized, I judged it not to be a competition piece. But isn't that the strangest thing?!?! Back home I would never have thought to enter in anything but a performance contest as back home, I'm not considered a "real" bard. But out here, they don't judge the same way and there seems to be classes in performance ability rather than writing ability - weirding me out still.
Anyway, the other weirdness I ran into around this fire was someone explaining why they hold and enter bardic challenges, because they hope to one day be on the same respect level as the fighters - wow, back home that's already the case, and I don't remember it being through competition. In fact I've only ever seen two competitions; the Leith competition between three story-tellers (Japanese, Norse and the third was German, French, I forget) as to who could tell the best story in their native style, and it had to include beets (that was SUCH a kick-ass competition) and the Baronial Bardic competition between Ivhon and Naga for Baronial Bard of Ramshaven (where it was decided they should share the title). We didn't compete, we just ALL sung together (like the whole damn kingdom) and if there was a bardic fire, everyone showed up, and there were never silences, at all, it was hard to jump in even. There were silent spots in this fire where people actively were asking who would go next and where people were racking their brains for repertiore! So exciting to be here at the inception (or reviving - I don't know which) of a bardic tradition!
I could get respected as a serious bard here!!!! The thought alone is blowing my mind...
Anyway, in honour of this kewlness, I am going to try a little something new. Instead of staying up all night sewing so I can have a new piece of garb for every event, I'm going to re-direct my energies into memorizing a new song for every event. So, where to start...
And why isn't "inspired" or "anticipatory" moods on this stupid thing? I keep having to settle for "close enough", and that is vexing me. Like do we really need the 10 different ways they've put "angry" in there?
And another thing, the spellchecker is hella-annoying when you write about SCA things or use Canadian spelling. >grrrr
