Why I still don't really consider myself a "filker"
Alot of people who like my music are in the SF fan community and musicians there are generally classed as filkers. Sometimes I don't mind being placed in that community, but I often *don't* think that the label really accurately reflects what I do.
There are some fine musicians in the filk community, and so I've come to realise that simply calling myself a "musician" can be off putting, because it could imply a kind of false dichotomy; an implication that filkers are not musicians. Saying so makes me sound like a snob. I get that.
One of my problems is being pigeonholed at all. The portion of my repertoire that I might play at cons represents maybe 5% (and that's generous) of what I do. And even calling me a "folksinger" sells me short, as the portion of my repertoire I'd play at Pennsic, or a Renfest gig or even an Irish bar is less than half of what I do. And we're talking about over a thousand songs. Really.
Calling myself "eclectic" though will get people saying things like "Oh, sort of like They Might Be Giants?" and that's not it either. You won't find TMBG covering Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot, Yes, David Bowie, The Clancy Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and Child Ballads in the course of one set.
This brings me to the next part of what I'm trying to say. TMBG and Weird Al are supremely popular among the filk community and they deserve high honours and respect for what they do. They are masterful musicians and very adept writers. And they make what they do look effortless. But in my music collection and my listening history they are both side notes, and barely represented. They're not really my thing, and here's why: both of them focus on what I would call "postmodernistic deconstruction". Weird Al does this through a very adroit, spot on imitation that he turns into silly, yet sardonic parody. TMBG does this by writing songs that kick the stays out of any box pop music would come packaged in, without resorting to the snarly anti-social monster voice or atonality that you'd find in other music that rejects pop conventions. I *like* both of those things, but I don't have a transcendental LOVE of those things.
When I find a song I really dig, yes, I often want to do a version of it that has not been done before (otherwise, what's the point in ME doing it? IMHO), to find that musical place where the song speaks to me and to play *that* for people. So, sometimes, I'll find some "different" way of doing that song. Sometimes that way is within the box, and sometimes it's not within the box. But there's usually some sense behind it. One of the most popular of my originals is "Party With The Elder Ones" or "That Cthulhu reggae song" as many of you call it. The borrowing of the reggae beat, and musical style was deliberate, not because it was "wrong", but because I'm projecting Lovecraft's xenophobia onto Rastafarianism, which, I think would have been right up his alley. It, is, as I've said, a song I'm well known for in "filk" circles, but it's appeal is tangential to my actual approach to music. I don't set *out* to parodise musical genres or lyric, even though it's *part* of what I do. The same goes for my "sonnet" version of "Freebird", which will likely be loved by many of the same people who love "Party With The Elder Ones". My motivation for writing that was not to create a parody of a song, but to create a song that allows me to shoot a zinger back at the drunks and smartasses who request "Freebird", even at a Renaissance Festival.
And that brings me to what inspired this post. Among many of my concurrent projects, I'm in the planning stages for a CD/Album project that will entirely feature songs where people die. I'm sure it's going to be enormously popular. My audiences have a proven, reliable, (and often annoying) palpable lust for tales of death and bloodshed. I do a lot of those songs, and within that topic, a deliciously wide variety of styles, genres, sounds, and outcomes emerges. The album will be surprising in it's breadth, which I'm greatly looking forward to, because, while it seems to be a pigeon hole, it will actually be more fairly representative of my style(s) than some of my other releases to date. And THAT is why, when I was reminded of the song "My Way" a few weeks ago, I realised that a deathbed song in first person from a character who remembers best that he did things "his way", would be the perfect final song on this album- especially if I can do an original take on it.
My first thought was to do a banjo arrangement. It would be unusual and attention grabbing and unique. But as I started the work to piece that together, I realised that it would also wind up being it's own cliche' and not much more than a novelty, really. And here's where the avid filkers, and filk fans in my peer group and audience (IMHO) would start to avidly disagree with me. I can hear them already. They'd want the banjo *because* it would be so "wrong". And that's what I mean by "postmodernistic deconstruction". "My Way" is a hell of a song. I'm not saying that gives it some sort of sanctity that must not be violated (and I find it equally annoying to hear that Sinatra's version, while iconic, must now be the standard to which all versions must adhere, lest they be "wrong"- really? A *wrong* way to play "My Way"?). But I don't do original takes on a song just to break or poke fun at the original. I'm not trying to create the next "This Is Not A Pipe" (google Alfred Jarry for the reference). I LOVE singing songs and I LOVE music. And I always want to create something that means something to me, and I discovered how I want to do that: just the way I often do.
I was checking out chord progressions, and started to fingerpick them (which helps me find the 'flow points' for making an arrangement that 'flows' through my fingers rather than 'chugs'- chord[chug] chord[chug] etc) and really liked how that worked. It would have been that way on the banjo, of course, but it's in my guitar arrangements where I really live the fullest, where I really (to me) sound the most like me. So I started to go with that, and am winding up with a very Maugie-like, very sweet, kinda peppy, slightly bouncy guitar counterpoint to the melody, which I kept at it's stately pace. It's going to be a great arrangement that I'm going to LOVE playing, and it's going to be, very ME, which is how it should be. People who listen to my music with any discernment will actually hear ME in the way I do it- the chord voicings, the progressions, the fingerpicking style, everything. It will truly be MY way!
Sure, a banjo arrangement would get the cheap laughs, but I'm going to love playing this and even tweaking it, for the rest of my career. And it will be the perfect final cut for an album where people die in all kinds of ways. The last word will be a final *dignity* instead of a final snark. And that, in a very strange way, that I don't think I've fully explained, is part of why I still don't really consider myself a filker.
There are some fine musicians in the filk community, and so I've come to realise that simply calling myself a "musician" can be off putting, because it could imply a kind of false dichotomy; an implication that filkers are not musicians. Saying so makes me sound like a snob. I get that.
One of my problems is being pigeonholed at all. The portion of my repertoire that I might play at cons represents maybe 5% (and that's generous) of what I do. And even calling me a "folksinger" sells me short, as the portion of my repertoire I'd play at Pennsic, or a Renfest gig or even an Irish bar is less than half of what I do. And we're talking about over a thousand songs. Really.
Calling myself "eclectic" though will get people saying things like "Oh, sort of like They Might Be Giants?" and that's not it either. You won't find TMBG covering Judy Collins, Gordon Lightfoot, Yes, David Bowie, The Clancy Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and Child Ballads in the course of one set.
This brings me to the next part of what I'm trying to say. TMBG and Weird Al are supremely popular among the filk community and they deserve high honours and respect for what they do. They are masterful musicians and very adept writers. And they make what they do look effortless. But in my music collection and my listening history they are both side notes, and barely represented. They're not really my thing, and here's why: both of them focus on what I would call "postmodernistic deconstruction". Weird Al does this through a very adroit, spot on imitation that he turns into silly, yet sardonic parody. TMBG does this by writing songs that kick the stays out of any box pop music would come packaged in, without resorting to the snarly anti-social monster voice or atonality that you'd find in other music that rejects pop conventions. I *like* both of those things, but I don't have a transcendental LOVE of those things.
When I find a song I really dig, yes, I often want to do a version of it that has not been done before (otherwise, what's the point in ME doing it? IMHO), to find that musical place where the song speaks to me and to play *that* for people. So, sometimes, I'll find some "different" way of doing that song. Sometimes that way is within the box, and sometimes it's not within the box. But there's usually some sense behind it. One of the most popular of my originals is "Party With The Elder Ones" or "That Cthulhu reggae song" as many of you call it. The borrowing of the reggae beat, and musical style was deliberate, not because it was "wrong", but because I'm projecting Lovecraft's xenophobia onto Rastafarianism, which, I think would have been right up his alley. It, is, as I've said, a song I'm well known for in "filk" circles, but it's appeal is tangential to my actual approach to music. I don't set *out* to parodise musical genres or lyric, even though it's *part* of what I do. The same goes for my "sonnet" version of "Freebird", which will likely be loved by many of the same people who love "Party With The Elder Ones". My motivation for writing that was not to create a parody of a song, but to create a song that allows me to shoot a zinger back at the drunks and smartasses who request "Freebird", even at a Renaissance Festival.
And that brings me to what inspired this post. Among many of my concurrent projects, I'm in the planning stages for a CD/Album project that will entirely feature songs where people die. I'm sure it's going to be enormously popular. My audiences have a proven, reliable, (and often annoying) palpable lust for tales of death and bloodshed. I do a lot of those songs, and within that topic, a deliciously wide variety of styles, genres, sounds, and outcomes emerges. The album will be surprising in it's breadth, which I'm greatly looking forward to, because, while it seems to be a pigeon hole, it will actually be more fairly representative of my style(s) than some of my other releases to date. And THAT is why, when I was reminded of the song "My Way" a few weeks ago, I realised that a deathbed song in first person from a character who remembers best that he did things "his way", would be the perfect final song on this album- especially if I can do an original take on it.
My first thought was to do a banjo arrangement. It would be unusual and attention grabbing and unique. But as I started the work to piece that together, I realised that it would also wind up being it's own cliche' and not much more than a novelty, really. And here's where the avid filkers, and filk fans in my peer group and audience (IMHO) would start to avidly disagree with me. I can hear them already. They'd want the banjo *because* it would be so "wrong". And that's what I mean by "postmodernistic deconstruction". "My Way" is a hell of a song. I'm not saying that gives it some sort of sanctity that must not be violated (and I find it equally annoying to hear that Sinatra's version, while iconic, must now be the standard to which all versions must adhere, lest they be "wrong"- really? A *wrong* way to play "My Way"?). But I don't do original takes on a song just to break or poke fun at the original. I'm not trying to create the next "This Is Not A Pipe" (google Alfred Jarry for the reference). I LOVE singing songs and I LOVE music. And I always want to create something that means something to me, and I discovered how I want to do that: just the way I often do.
I was checking out chord progressions, and started to fingerpick them (which helps me find the 'flow points' for making an arrangement that 'flows' through my fingers rather than 'chugs'- chord[chug] chord[chug] etc) and really liked how that worked. It would have been that way on the banjo, of course, but it's in my guitar arrangements where I really live the fullest, where I really (to me) sound the most like me. So I started to go with that, and am winding up with a very Maugie-like, very sweet, kinda peppy, slightly bouncy guitar counterpoint to the melody, which I kept at it's stately pace. It's going to be a great arrangement that I'm going to LOVE playing, and it's going to be, very ME, which is how it should be. People who listen to my music with any discernment will actually hear ME in the way I do it- the chord voicings, the progressions, the fingerpicking style, everything. It will truly be MY way!
Sure, a banjo arrangement would get the cheap laughs, but I'm going to love playing this and even tweaking it, for the rest of my career. And it will be the perfect final cut for an album where people die in all kinds of ways. The last word will be a final *dignity* instead of a final snark. And that, in a very strange way, that I don't think I've fully explained, is part of why I still don't really consider myself a filker.