minstrel: Periodness of Performing Ar

[CAB]

                      Periodness of Performing Arts                9/28/98

Over the weekend, there was a lot of discussion about whether we can "prove"
that Childs Ballads are period.  And that we can prove that other pieces are
period. As well as comments as to whether we can say that an "original" piece
is "period".

Let me give an analogy that I heard referring to period cooking - the topic of
discussion was about making period food. The first arguement brought up said
that as long as you could document all the ingredients as being period, that
you could extapolate that the dish was period.  The counter arguement went
like this - if I send you as an american cook into a "chinese" grocery store
which only sells "chinese" products and have you buy and prepare a meal with
no further guidance.  Will your meal be "chinese" becuase you used all
"chinese" ingredients? Or will your meal end up being an american meal  
prepared with chinese ingredients?  

Personally I think that the meal will be an american meal (or it will be an
american's idea of a chinese meal).  I think the only way you could say for
sure that it was a chinese meal would be to start with the chinese ingredients
and follow specific preparation instructions from a true chinese cook on how
to process the ingredients.  And preferrably, you will have actually sampled
the dish you are trying to make, so that you will know if you have succeeded
in following the directions. I think anyone that does any cooking will know
that sometimes, no matter how closely you follow directions, food just doesn't
turn out the way it is suppose to.  If you haven't actually sampled the
correct result, how do you know if you have succeeded in creating an authentic
end product?

Okay - how does this relate to music.  We don't know what period pieces
sounded/looked like in the performing arts.  Because we weren't there and
their are no recorded visual/audio versions that we can study.  At the very
best, we have sheet music, or some person's description of period
pieces/performance.  If we are talking about stories or poems, if I perform
them, how do I know that I am performing them the way a period bard would
perform them. How would a period bard speak, move, emphasize parts, etc.   If
we are talking about music it allows even more room for interpretation. 
Consider this - have you ever heard a classical piece of music performed by
two different orchestras and the two versions sounded wildly different, even
though you knew it was the same piece.  I hear this all the time in the SCA. 
Bards in the SCA do what I think of as "Bardic Licence" meaning they change
tempo, tune, keys, words, deleting and adding whole verses - to make a piece
"better".  When I hear another bard perform a piece that I know, sometimes, it
is so wildly different, that I may have problems performing it.  Even piece
that I perform, I find that I change my performance over time, sometimes
deliberately, and sometimes sub-consciously.  

If performing arts allow so much interpretation how do we know how a period
bard would interpret/performa  piece?  

Not just on this list, but on-going debates in the SCA in general about
documention of performing arts (including bardic, but also including other
performing arts).  Seem to me to be a kind of a "futile" point.  I think that
at best, we can be "american's shopping in chinese markets" for tunes, words,
story elements, etc trying to create "period-like" performances.

Don't get me wrong.  I do think that we should "try" to make our performances
as "period" as possible.  But I think that in many discussions that the
"period-ness" of a piece is given way to much emphasis since there is no way
any of us would know what a period performance is like.  In the static arts
such as costuming or armoring, we have not only painting from period times of
the items in question, but we have actual items that were contructed in period
which we can examine.  Can you imagine how hard it would be to create a period
outfit if all the costumers had to go by was a text description?

Okay, enough rambling on my part.  Do you (the bardic community) think that we
can actually call any performance truely "period" or am I just way off base on
this?

Crystal

ps -I have to say that I really like the post I have that emphasize the
primary importance for bards of "entertaining" people.  I think that very
often SCA'dians get side tracked with documentation and forget the importance
of the performance to the performing arts.



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