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

[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.