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Back from Conflikt 6. I had a bit of a realization about filk. On the one hand, I truly loathe badfilk, but at the same time, if it weren't around, I wouldn't get nearly as much out of the filk circle experience. The filk circle that closed the con contained an unusual number of Real Musicians™. I am a very good singer, and my songwriting has
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That said, my advice was much more "learn to mitigate out of tune singing and make it more tolerable" rather than "learn to be able to stand it better." (also: learn to behave well in a stronger circle without bringing down the level of the circle -or- simply staying silent).
Functionally, one can deal with the presence of weaker performers in filk by any combination of:
1. Don't spend time in a circle that has weaker performers (this might mean only going to/giving concerts, being out-of-circle social and thus has a lot of drawbacks).
2. Learn to be able to stand the occasional weaker performer. This may involve having a computer or book (or musical insturment).
3. Encourage stronger performers and (gracefully) discourage weaker performers, so you don't have to listen to as many, as often.
4. Do things to help the weaker performers be less weak (some weaker performers can be pulled onto the melody with some help; some mind the help, some don't; again there is some knowledge that's required here. There were a couple of times at the Conflikt dead dog that I explicitly acted to soften a weak performance -- but my approach was different in each case based on what I knew (or didn't know) about the performer.
I usually use a combination, myself -- I prefer small circles in principle, but won't go into one if I think it's too weak for me (bigger circles tend to be dominated by stronger performers for a variety of reasons, but if one is going south I will generally do likewise).
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