Filk Circles: Counting On Chaos

[billroper]

Following onto the previous discussion of filk circles, I want to look at a couple of issues that mostly impact chaos circles, but occasionally come up in a bardic circle as well.

A well-behaved chaos circle tends to function like a non-topological bardic circle; that is to say, all of the members of Group X in the circle, where Group X is the group of people who tend to sing approximately once per cycle, will tend to sing approximately the same number of songs in a given time period.

Damn near tautological, isn't it? :) On average, the people who sing once per cycle sing once per cycle.

The differences between chaos and a bardic circle are:

The order of singing is not imposed in chaos, so -- in theory -- flow can be improved.

In each case, the members of Group X are self-selected. In a bardic circle, a person may "pass"; in chaos, you just skip singing for a round or more.

In a bardic circle, you must (usually) affirmatively "pass", but in chaos, you may lose your turn by being insufficiently aggressive. So it turns out that Group X in chaos is only self-selected to the extent that you're willing to be as aggressive about getting to sing as the given circle requires.

Ooh, there's the rub. There are a lot of us who aren't particularly anxious to be aggressive about breaking in with a song. In a chaos circle that is being particularly large and/or impolite, you may not get in edgewise, even if you want to be a member of Group X.

Things in such a circle are even worse for members of Group Y, which I'll define as "wants to sing occasionally", or Group Z, which I'll define as "has one song to sing". Even in an aggressive chaos circle, there's likely to be someone watching for members of Group X who are getting stepped on. God help someone in Group Y or Group Z.

A bardic circle is an inherently safer environment for performers who don't want to be aggressive. You are, modulo bathroom breaks and occasional complete breakdowns of logic, guaranteed to get a chance to sing eventually, assuming that you give the least indication of actually wanting to sing.

(Once again, I'm differentiating the performers' circle bardic from Pick, Pass, or Play bardic and commenting on the former. PPP makes it very easy to guarantee that someone in Group Z will get to sing their song, but is hard on the case where -- well, let me quote from daisy_knotwise's song on the subject:

My turn passed, I missed it, the bathroom was crowded.
I have just one chance, although slim it may be:
You can sing out of turn if somebody requests it,
But I know just five songs and nobody knows me.

The big disadvantage of PPP is that very popular, well-known filkers can find themselves selected into a Supergroup X which sings this song, then that song, then the other song, while the other potential members of Group X find themselves on the Group W bench, playing with their pencils and filling out the forms while waiting for their turn to come around on the guitar. Some folks will argue that this is a desirable result, as it reflects the collective will of the circle; while that's true, it is a circle where I will usually vote with my feet and leave for more congenial and less democratic surroundings.)

In my opinion, the right not to sing when it's your turn in a bardic circle should be as closely guarded as the right to sing. If you don't have something that fits, if you're just not in the mood right now, or whatever, it's not the business of the rest of the circle to cajole you into singing. On the other hand, it's equally important to make sure that the person whose turn it is understands that it really is ok for them to sing. In most bardics, I see us err in the former direction more than the latter.

So if you're a member of Group Y or especially Group Z, how the heck do you get to sing in a chaos circle? If the circle's not being especially aggressive, it's not too hard. There tend to be gaps between songs, which allow you to strum on your guitar or stand up with your songbook, should you be planning to perform a capella, and announce "I've got a song". This usually works.

In more aggressive circles, it's more of a problem. If you're a member of Group Z, it's entirely possible that no one knows that you've got something that you want to sing. In that case, one useful tactic (which I've frequently been happy to facilitate) is finding someone who's busy being a member of Group X, quietly approaching him when he's not singing and letting him know that you've got something you'd like to sing -- can he help you get in? Most people in our self-selected Group X will be happy to help you out.

Group Y is trickier, because that's a case where you could use the Group Z approach above, but you're more likely to be being watched by one or more of the folks in Group X, because there's one or more someones there who know you and know that you want to get in periodically. (It's also possible that there's a moderator, as vixyish pointed out in response to the previous post. That's less common in the Midwest, where we tend to self-moderate, but it'll get you to the same point.)

An attentive member of Group X should notice that someone in Group Y (or someone else in Group X, for that matter) has paged through their songbook to a particular page, grabbed a capo, has their hand on the neck of their guitar -- all of those little signs that can be used to signal "I've got something to sing now". And if you want to be a good member of Group X, you'll be looking for these things and -- especially in that nasty, aggressive, impolite chaos circle that you find yourself in tonight -- you'll pipe up and say, "Hey, Filker F, have you got something up?"

Of course, you probably can't see everyone in the circle, but there's probably two or three members of Group X who can see any given person and deduce that they might like to sing sometime soon. We just -- collectively! -- have to pay attention to what's going on around us.

Now I admit to usually being a member of that self-selected Group X -- I'd like to sing about once every time that the circle goes around. And I don't want to be a filkhog. So I start mentally tagging other people in the circle who I think are also interested in being in Group X for tonight and I keep track of how often they're singing. And so I may discover that I've sung twice, and Filker A has sung twice, as have Filkers B-D, but Filker E has sung five times.

If you're Filker E, you just might be a filkhog. :)

In general, no one should be singing more often than anyone else in the circle who intends to sing once per cycle. This is why, on occasion, someone will ask me if I can sing a song and I'll respond that I've sung just recently, but I'll try to get to it later in the evening.

There are exceptions to this rule though, and it turns out that we're looking at the same problem in a chaos circle as in a bardic circle. What actually constitutes a person-turn -- that is, one "person" taking one "turn" in the circle?

There are three members of Urban Tapestry. Do they get three turns per cycle or one? I've noticed that they usually take one -- if we can get them to sing at all some nights. They're really, really polite. :)

What about me and Gretchen? Usually, if Gretchen and I do a duet, I'll count that as my turn, not hers. Gretchen hasn't brought her guitar to a circle in a long time and tends not to perform her own material frequently, so it would feel wrong (in the filkhoggish sense) for me to say, "Well, that was Gretchen's turn -- now I'll sing this."

In other cases, I just try to figure out what they've got in mind on any given night. Once I understand that, I can keep count. :)

The rest of you who want to self-select yourselves into Group X should be counting too. And you should keep an eye on what's going on around you and listen to what everyone else is saying, because if you do that, you're less likely to step on someone else -- and the less that you step on someone else, the less likely you are to be stepped on in return. Politeness breeds politeness, but in order to be polite, it really helps to be paying attention.

Here's an example: catalana and I occasionally perform a couple of songs in sequence from the musical that I've been working on sporadically. I play the guitar for her to sing Behind the Mask, then I follow up by playing and singing Illusions, where Erica sings the harmony line. If we're planning on doing this, I generally announce that Erica's going to sing a song and I'm going to follow it. If someone tries to interpose between the two songs, I will step on them, because they've simply managed to not pay attention -- possibly by accident, but I said I was going to sing next for a very specific reason and I intend to do so.

Look, I know that I'm quite capable of being impolite enough to get a song in at any time that I really want to. (I'm also pretty much capable of being louder than any unamplified instrument or performer in the room -- not everyone has this advantage. :) ) I normally choose to be polite, because life is just more pleasant that way for everyone.

And if we all choose to be polite, well, then they may think it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Chaos Circle Anti-Massacre Movement. And all you've got to do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar here...

Comments

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

*giggle* You can sing anything you want, at Roper's Restaurant!

Er, wait. ;)

The members-of-a-group thing in bardic circles is something I try to be aware of. Once upon a time when nobody knew who Fishy and I were, it wasn't really an issue, and we *might* use it as a chance to do two of our things in a row, because that might be all we did that night. But even back then, we wouldn't always do that (especially if there was someone else present who we were excited about hearing, and wanted to use our turn to request something of them.)

Now that I've been lucky enough to be in a position where people know who Tony and I are, I try to pay more attention to that. Most bardic circles I've found myself in still give Tony and me each our own turn. Sometimes Tony will have something he wants us to do, and sometimes not; either way, I'll usually use my turn to request something from someone else, because I know we'll probably get requests from others anyway. And either way it feels like sort of a little present; I get to request things that I hardly ever (or never!) get the chance to hear otherwise.

I'll usually look around for someone I don't get to share a circle with or hear a concert from very often, or haven't in a long time. It's sort of like a treat. :)

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

There's also the question, at that point, of 'actual groups' versus 'perceived groups'. I'm not currently formally in any musical group other than Lady Mondegreen, but as I tend to perform with Paul Kwinn, or with you and Tony, people who don't actually know us may make assumptions.

If Merav's on the other side of the circle and calls for an LMG assembly, is that my turn, even though their material is entirely different from mine? If I sing something with you and Tony accompanying, was that your turn, even though we're not a musical group, and my material isn't yours? And so on.

The nuances make my head hurt.

[allisona.livejournal.com]

Such nuances do make the head hurt :), but I do like what you say about an "actual" group (say, like UT) as opposed to more casual combinations. I don't think we can say we get to sing together three times in a chaos or bardic circle in close order because there are three of us if we are always singing together- we are then one group. But I would see no problem with Jodi joining up with Mary Crowell to do a jazz song as a separate entity from UT and any of us doing instrumental or vocal backgrounds for another filker shouldn't count as a turn.

And I don't get to hear you sing nearly often enough in circles in any combination. Wrong coast, I'm afraid :).

[billroper]

Yup. If Jodi does a non-UT jazz thing with Mary Crowell, I wouldn't count that as a UT turn, because it's a different thing than UT does.

In fact, that might be the key: too much closely-spaced repetition of the same "performer" tends to make the circle stale. So three UT songs in a row are a bad thing for the circle, just like a PPP circle that wants to devolve into a by-request concert for a particular member of the group.

But a UT song, then a bit later a Jodi song, and an LMG song and a bit later a Seanan song -- not a problem, because they're different things.

And that would be why I feel ok about performing the pair of songs from the musical as a pair -- because one of them has Erica on lead, one has me on lead and they sound quite different. (You'd hope so, wouldn't you?)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

If one or more of the performers in a group "move easily" for instance because they don't play a large bulky instrument, it would be perfectly possible for them to sit opposite each other in the circle. Would it then be okay for them to do one song per person per cycle rather than one song per group per cycle?

I'm wondering if the objection to groups getting "one turn per group" vs "one turn per person" is an objection to groups taking up too much of the total time, or too much time consecutively.

[billroper]

I'd be tempted to say that the LMG assembly shouldn't count against your turns, but that we shouldn't see multiple LMG assemblies per round in the circle. (Ok, maybe two...) My good buddy Clif once was part of a six-part a capella group in the Midwest, but they didn't take six turns per round.

In general, I'd say that -- for "non-groups" of friends supporting each other -- I usually key off of the lead vocalist for counting, so if you sing lead on one of your songs and Vixy and Tony do backup, that's a turn for you, but not for them; then if Vixy sings lead and you and Tony do backup, that was Vixy's turn.

I then expect to hear Tony sing lead on something. :)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-) But what if you have a melody-countermelody situation in which more than one performer sings lead? Or a choral situation in which "nobody" sings lead?

[billroper]

Good questions.

The melody-countermelody situation is similar to the duets that Gretchen and I perform. In our case, I count a duet as my turn, because Gretchen isn't usually taking turns in the circle. For other people, that might not be correct.

The choral situation is similar to Clif's six-person a capella group. For purposes of diversity, I don't think they should necessarily get six turns per cycle, but neither is it entirely reasonable for me to count them as one, unless they're also singing as solo performers in which case they're using up additional turns and maybe the group shouldn't be taking multiple turns because there are multiple members...

So the situation is extremely fluid, depending on the exact circumstances. Fluid, there's a good word.

[carolf.livejournal.com]

Another eddy in the fluidity:

What about composer vs performer when they are not necessarily the same, or where the main contribution is one rather than the other?

I see a scenario like this:

R1, F1, F2, F3 and L1 all perform F1's arrangement of "Tales of Brave Ulysses." It's F1's turn; he is the origin of the piece; the arranger-cum-composer. The "lead" is F2; it's the only part with words. The other voices are all mimicking different instruments accompanying the "lead;" and the "lead" is only about 1/3 of the song, anyway.

So far, so good. Each of these individual performers have their own material and/or material they do with the aid of any combination of this grouping, or with individuals not part of this grouping. I say groupING because this is not normally identified as a single "group" entity, a la UT.

So far, "Tales" has only been done in concert. Since it's a long piece, I'd say that's probably appropriate. On the other hand, if F1 doesn't have a concert slot, and/or the only time he can snag all the others is at open filk, then I can see this happening. Other such things come to mind - doesn't S2 have an multi-voiced opera bit?

What if two normally-individual performers cover material on behalf of a non-performing composer?

It's easy to define when any one of the group has "hogged." If the throat is tired, you've hogged. (Or it's time to go do bed.)

Defining anything under the extreme is tricky to define in a write-it-down rule.