From: jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: What's a filk?
Date: 27 Jul 92 20:04:58 GMT
Followup-To: rec.org.sca
Organization: SCA

Greetings to all, especially Lord Godfrey, from Angharad.  Godfrey quotes 
me (actually my attempt to deliver a second-hand message), and asks some 
good questions:

>>      (1)  Filks detract from the quality of our events.
>>      (2)  Writing filks diverts creative energy from other efforts
>>           that enrich our events.

>I've been to one or two A&S competitions where there were but two
>categories for musical performance:  `Period' and `Filk,' where
>`Period' consisted of music actually written in period, and `Filk'
>was everything else -- even if it was written by the performer in
>an authentically period style (id est, not based on a modern tune).

>Is this common usage?  (I was surprised, for I had never before
>heard of period-style pieces being referred to as filks...)

Common usage seems to vary a lot.  What you describe seems to be the
terminological policy of the Trimaris A&S office, as I picked it up
at Sea Wars, but I don't know the origin of the usage in that office.

I've seen the term used this way a few other places.  Often it occurs
in environments where modernly-composed period-style songs are extremely 
rare, and no one has a clue what to call them, but the term "filk" is 
around; so it gets borrowed.  

The term "filk" originated in science fiction convention circles, where 
there is (understandably!) absolutely no reason to try to sound medieval.  
There are a few artists (Leslie Fish is best known) who write really 
lovely music for a specialized audience.  The SCA equivalent would be 
period-style words to period-style melodies and arrangements, a practice 
we see, I fear, all too little of.  (I would _not_ call those filks.  
If the melody is actually a period melody, I would call them by the 
period term: contrefait.  If the melody is modern, I would call them 
songs. ;^)

But the largest class of filks, and the ones I was trying to refer to, 
though I should have been more careful, are combinations of new modern 
words with familiar modern tunes, where the original lyric has been 
replaced by a new one, and the intended result is humor.  In almost all 
cases, the humor derives at least in part from some interaction between the 
original lyrics and the new ones -- often dissonance in content combined 
with similarity of sound.  Outside the SCA, the current king of this art 
is Weird Al Yankovic.  The hallmark of the category is that appreciating
the filk depends, at least up to a point, on knowing the original song.

>Is a filk only a filk if it is a modern (or, shall we say, OOP)
>tune to which altered words have been substituted?  Any piece not
>written in a period style?  Any piece not actually written *in*
>period?

Depends on who's doing the calling.  If it's me, the first.  If it's
someone else, your mileage will vary.

>Would altered words to a period song be a filk?  Would it be viewed
>as similarly reprehensible?  (Let us forget for a moment the twelve
>billion and seventeen adaptations of `Greensleeves'...  As an example,
>let's use `The Song of the Ass' -- would putting different words to
>*that* song be considered as loathsome as doing the same to, say,
>`Old Time Rock & Roll'?)

From my point of view, what you are suggesting is not only not loathsome, 
but highly desirable.  But again, that may just be me.  -- But I have 
never heard any of the people who are arguing against filks argue against 
what you describe here.  In fact, I've never heard any of them argue 
against 18th C folk, so long as a relatively untrained ear can't tell it 
from the original article.  In fact, I don't think I've heard _anyone_ 
argue against this on general principles, though I have heard of cases 
where someone has said, "Please, not right here and right now."

I don't know of anyone who opposes filks at post-revels or other
essentially mundane gatherings, though I know several who would as
soon give it a pass, thanks.  The issue is performances at events.

For those who dislike filk at events, it's blue jeans again.  It's 
not merely difficult but _impossible_ to maintain a medieval mood 
while hearing the stuff.  I love Weird Al, but I absolutely don't want 
to listen to his stuff _at events_.  I don't even want to listen to 
19th C folk songs, that me ear infallibly identifies as 19th C (it's
even worse when -- as most often happens -- I know the song), whether 
or not the words are the original.  I don't want to listen to these 
things for the same reason that I don't want to listen to a Bach 
cantata at Jazzfest.  I love Bach; but if I pay to go to Jazzfest, 
I've paid to listen to jazz, and that's what I want to hear.  Is 
this really so difficult to understand?

For those who dislike filk at events, the issue is neither whether
the people who are writing them are creative nor whether the songs
are funny.  To put this at a sort of rock-bottom level: few events
are free.  We pay money to be there.  For some of us, medieval atmosphere
is as much what we are paying for as food.  I don't know anyone who 
would not be outraged if someone came up and poisoned his/her food at
feast, or otherwise rendered it inedible on purpose.  I don't know 
anyone who would consider a protest at that behavior rude.  But when 
someone takes actions which, as predictably as night follows day, 
_will_ destroy the medieval atmosphere, we are all to laugh good-
humoredly, as anything else would hurt someone's feelings.

Some of us are finding our good humor strained.

I am not really sure what is at issue in those who find criticism
of mundane intrusions unacceptable.  I am absolutely certain that 
whatever is at issue in the difference between remonstrating with 
someone who destroys the dinner I paid for and remonstrating with 
someone who destroys the atmosphere I equally paid for, it is _not_ 
courtesy, and it is not tolerance either -- else at least every once 
in a while, those who want what they paid for would be yielded a 
little tolerance in our turn.

In Service to the Society,

-- Angharad/Terry