ConSunday

[howeird]

A good day with much diverse entertainment.

Skipped breakfast and made it to the two-fers. Heard one very young diva (middle school age, is my guess) who sang something which sounded like it was from an obscure modern musical, complete with props. Her voice and stage presence are better than average but she's not as good as she thinks she is. In a couple-six years maybe she will be. lemmozine did a couple of numbers, on guitar again.

Juried one-shots included the young diva, followed by her brother. She was not as good the second time around, IMHO, her song rambled and she wandered a bit. She sang a capella, brother accompanied himself on guitar. Judges Mark & Mary gave lots of good advice to all the participants, some of which would apply to me had I taken that leap.

Song contest was next. I liked  Andy Ross's, figmo's and Creede Lambard's entries best, but the judges went for craftsmanship and gave the award to Char McKay. The winning song was only barely technically on topic, and while I agree is was the best piece of writing, and superbly sung, I don't think it was quite in the spirit of the contest.

Lunch break. I ate downstairs in the hotel. Slow service, okay food except for the cold coffee and flat soft drink.  It was too @!#$%^& cold to go outside.

Next up was Interfilk guest Ben Newman's sci-fi musical A Walk In The Day. Mostly tuneless songs, no romance. Ben played guitar throughout, and though he played one of the characters, he mouthed every single word in the script. This was a concert version, everyone had a script. Nobody had music, except maybe Ben. Good sized cast for a community theater production (~ 10 people), good basic idea. Humans land on a planet where the intelligent species is nocturnal, and light can blind/kill them. One human is as a pacifist Quaker, one is a Marine. The plot was mostly pretty easy to follow, but when they were done with Act II, I was needing an Act III to wrap things up. There isn't one.

Band scramble next, entirely too much time between sets for audio setup. Clue: keep your mikes at the back of the stage, bring the ones you need forward as needed. Don't break down the entire set each time. The bands were mildly entertaining. I left toward the end when one of the guitar audio connections achieved ~ 1000% modulation. It hurt. The leader of that band was livid.

I had somewhere to be, anyway. Went back to my room, did the necessaries, got my coat and hat and braved the chill (42F, wind chill factor about -12) and walked the three blocks to 13 Coins, where my Poulsbo sister and her husband joined me for a delicious dinner. Very posh place, worth it for a special dinner.Both of them are acoustical engineers, so I told them all abot the Conflikt audio foo. We got all caught up, and the early start meant they were able to get home at a reasonable hour and I made it to the early stages of the Smoked Salmon filk.  Left after half an hour went it took a turn for the morose, back again after catching up on CNN's campaign to oust Mubarak.

Lots of enjoyable filk, Kathy Mar, Creede, Dr. Mary, Andy, Kanef and lots of others sang out. I had something I kinda wanted to sing, but chickened out.

Back to my room, got packed (about 90%), wrote this.

Plans for tomorrow:
Up at 7
Check out by 9
Light rail to Amtrak
Amtrak south towards CA.

Comments

[skydancer.livejournal.com]

Hi Howierd,

Just wanted to clarify a couple of things about the Songwriting Contest: I think one of the ones you liked (I did too) was by Andrew Ross...I don't think there as an Andy Rosen in the contestants. Also, the winner was Char McKay, not Shawna (our head of Programming).

Sorry about the audio mishaps. The one you mentioned in the band scramble was actually tracked down (later) to a bad battery in a guitar. It worked OK when she was doing very light strumming during the very abbreviated sound check...none of the three instrument performers played anywhere near to performance level during that sound check. Once she started playing normally, the pickup failed her.

I think if you actually talked to the lead in that group, I would be surprised if she was livid. We were already trying to troubleshoot the issue--trying to track down the source. Both of the other instruments were hot and those were brought under control very quickly. The problem instrument was hardly registering on the meters at that point--thus making it difficult to isolate. When they stopped playing and we determined the problem we very quickly switched to a mic and they continued.

There were some other issues that occurred on Saturday that appear to have been failing compressors. I have not had a chance to spend the time to thoroughly troubleshoot that, but I pulled three compressors out of service during the con--the first problem I've had with them in three years and it took a while to figure out what the intermittent problem was.

[howeird]

Thanks for the song winner corrections, I've updated the post. And thanks for the update on what was wrong with the guitar audio. I was 3 feet away from the band and believe me, livid is the word. By the time she stopped the music I'm sure you were busy trying to isolate the problem and were not watching the performers.

Intermittent problems are a bitch to troubleshoot. The usual temporary fix is taking the mike, its cable, and the port they are plugged into out of service until there is time to nail down the culprit. It is not uncommon for it to be more than one of those.

[sheistheweather]

I have to disagree with you on many points in your paragraph regarding the musical.

It is true that the break between Acts 2 and 3 were not distinguished, which was an oversight on our part, and that the story does not resolve. This isn't the only story in that world, I suspect (although that's a guess), and this is the first one.

Not every story needs romance. The point of this musical seems to be rights of passage and transformation.

As for tunelessness? Admittedly, several of the performers didn't have as good a grasp of the some of the intended melodies as possible (myself included), but since we had a grand total of 2-3 hours of rehearsal time between us all, that's not surprising. There was a decent amount of tunefulness present, and I honestly feel that this review was harsh given what we had to work with.

The filk convention is a place where people are allowed to be brave, take risks, and try new things. This is one such piece of courage, risk, and innovation. Please bear that in mind.

[howeird]

Thanks for the comments, and for participating in the musical. One of the unfortunate things about my writing style is it comes across harsher than I mean it too, especially when I write a review.

Where I am coming from is ~50 years of experience as an actor/singer/musician in school and community theater musicals, and this has included many staged readings and even a couple of sessions in composer/lyricist livingrooms trying out brand new numbers for a to-be-written show. I know exactly what it is like to be in a cast which has had minimal time to rehearse, and is presenting a "proof of concept" performance. My review was my opinion of how well the concept was proved. YMMV, and I don't expect anyone to agree with me.

There were a couple of tunes in the show, but on a scale of zero to Rogers and Hammerstein, most of the music has a ways to go yet. Maybe a thoroughly rehearsed presentation would change my mind.

I think you misunderstood my comment about the ending. At the end of the performance I wanted more. I wanted one more act. The plot had brought us to the point of a fork in the road - the choice between non-violence and military defense, and I wanted to see which won out. We're left with our Terrans in the middle of a war, with the possible power to stop the war or change its outcome, and we're just left hanging. Of course this planet has more stories, but this particular story was not finished.

And yes, I take it for granted that the presentation was an act of courage - every performance of a new work is. Just as reading the reviews afterward is. :-)

[(Anonymous)]

I was not a part of this performance, but it's refreshing to see someone in the filk community give genuine criticism and feedback. All too often, it seems like no one is willing to do anything other than blindly praise the performers, and they can't grow as musicians if no one ever tells them how to improve.