Not Needed in Filk
It's been a few years since I tried to write for other people to listen; I stupidly entered a filk contest at a con dedicated to filking, wrote what I thought was a funny song about Persephone, using all of the words assigned by the judges, and was completely ignored. It was my first try, and it had taken me decades to come out of my shell enough to put myself onto a stage with a filk I'd written. It scanned, it rhymed, it had a funny twist -- but it wasn't what filkers wanted anymore. Filk's moved on -- people write their own tunes now and are pretty seriously unimpressed if you use a popular tune instead. It's funny, one of the judges (all famous filkers) said that she knew they'd be hearing more from me -- but that was it, that was my first shy emergence, and the lack of response just shut me down. I haven't written another one or played any original filk for anyone since. Might as well say so, I've been NOT saying so for years now.
I'm not out of music: I play Irish and sing trad all the way back to Medieval (plus BV for a soul group and a pop&country trio for a while), but that place that I had thought would be welcoming just... wasn't interested. And that's why despite occasionally gigging, I could never try to be a professional musician -- music means too much to me, so to feel rejected within it hurts much worse than in any other area of my life. So much that it took this many years to even say so. A little distance makes it at least possible to say that. Curious paradox, though, I do the second-most-interesting thing because the chance of failing at the first-most-interesting thing hurts too much to contemplate. I'm not proud of that -- some combat-boot-wearing side of me snarls that it's due to cowardice -- and I happen to enjoy the second-most-interesting thing very much, so in that sense that overwhelming vote of "meh" from filkdom was not really a tragedy, just... the feelings are complicated.
I guess I can still be "a filker" because I sing other people's stuff late at night with other filkers at cons. But I do know the difference.
I'm not out of music: I play Irish and sing trad all the way back to Medieval (plus BV for a soul group and a pop&country trio for a while), but that place that I had thought would be welcoming just... wasn't interested. And that's why despite occasionally gigging, I could never try to be a professional musician -- music means too much to me, so to feel rejected within it hurts much worse than in any other area of my life. So much that it took this many years to even say so. A little distance makes it at least possible to say that. Curious paradox, though, I do the second-most-interesting thing because the chance of failing at the first-most-interesting thing hurts too much to contemplate. I'm not proud of that -- some combat-boot-wearing side of me snarls that it's due to cowardice -- and I happen to enjoy the second-most-interesting thing very much, so in that sense that overwhelming vote of "meh" from filkdom was not really a tragedy, just... the feelings are complicated.
I guess I can still be "a filker" because I sing other people's stuff late at night with other filkers at cons. But I do know the difference.