Darkover

[cellio]

Friday Robert, Kathy, and I headed to Timonium (near Baltimore) for Darkover Grand Council, a con I've been going to for (cough) 20-some years now. I had a good time.

Some of the usual suspects weren't there this year; osewalrus and beckyfeld (and Aaron, who I presume does not have an LJ) spent the weekend elsewhere, and there didn't seem to be a visible Shabbat crowd this year. I noticed that this year they didn't bother to schedule one of the function rooms for a Shabbat evening service as has happened in past years.

That's actually fine with me; that service weirds me out a little. You see, this con has a strong pagan/wiccan presence (forgive my lack of specificity; I honestly don't know), and they have one room set aside for a track of programming on this theme. That's where they put the Shabbat service. But the first thing that happens in that room is something called "setting the wards", and that sems like it's consecrating the space for some other religion. I don't like to pray on other people's consecrated spaces. So if there were Jewish services in some neutral space I'd happily attend or even lead, but the population is small enough that I really wouldn't expect the convention to provide anyway. The people who care will all fit in a hotel room.

When we talked with Cliff (the person in charge of the music program) about scheduling, we declined a Friday-night concert because we thought Robert might have to come late. (When you've got relatives coming from overseas, you want to spend time with them.) But it turned uot he could go down Friday, so when we walked in Cliff spotted us and said "you're not supposed to be here!". So after a group huddle we offered to do a short set Friday night in addition to the one scheduled on Saturday. That was fun -- we had a few songs in our back pockets that we didn't put into the set but suspected might get requested, so we took some of those, a couple songs that were new this year, and one or two others and built a set in about ten minutes. The other constraint was that we wanted to do this one with as few large instruments as possible (easier on us and easier on the sound people); we ended up doing it with just guitar, some woodwinds, and some percussion (and singing, of course). We announced ourselves as "On the Mark Light".

We had a nearly-full house for our concert on Saturday, which was nice. And they even sang along on the choruses, even the ones they didn't previously know -- certainly a sign of a good audience. I think the performance went pretty well. One of our new songs, "Silly Slang Song" by Eric Bogle, got lots of laughs. (That's enough to google the lyrics; I'm unaware of an online recording, so think "perky music" when you read them.) "Rasputin's HMO" (Austin Lounge Lizards) got lots of laughs even though we've done it there a few times. And "The Goddess Done Left Me" was well-suited for this particular con; that went over well. (We did serious stuff too, including "Neptune Rex", written in response to Katrina, and "The Reeds at Runnymede", because it's good to think about the role of your country's rulers from time to time.)

I finally met kyleri after the concert, though alas, I didn't see her again. I also ran into dr_zrfq, pedropadrao, sister_devora, dglenn, gorgeousgary and his wife Sheryl (I don't know if she's on LJ), and probably some other LJ folks I'm blanking on right now. I also got to spend time chatting with Cyrstal Paul and Steve Brinoch, which was nice; I don't think I've seen them in two years, and it sounds like they've been busy. I also spent some time chatting with Dorigen -- and of course Cliff and assorted other people, but this started out as an LJ list before mutating so I'll stop trying to list people now.

Our concert was followed (in the same room) by an instrumental jam session, led by Bob Esty (of Clam Chowder). So we moved the instruments aside to form a circle and stayed for that. This was a lot of fun. I was worried that I wouldn't know the right sorts of music; I was imagining something like an Irish session, I think -- lots of jigs and reels and hornpipes from the 18th and 19th centuries ("traditional"). I enjoy it; I just don't know it. But we did a bunch of English country dances too, and some of the ones I didn't know were easy to do something compatable with on the dulcimer, and for the rest I had percussion. People were good about announcing keys.

At one point I found myself leading a medley (a specific one that Bob had suggested, knowing that On the Mark performs it). Now when you plan a performance you (or at least we) map it out -- N times through this, then switch and do M times through that, and so on. But jams/sessions are much more organic, and I either learned or noticed a clue at this one. (On reflection: noticed.) Shortly before I was going to call out a change in tune, I noticed another musician change instruments. This said to me "wants to experiment with this one a bit longer", so I didn't switch. When you're playing in a group it's not enough to notice whether there are tuning or pacing issues or whether a lot of people seem to be floundering or sitting out. You also have to pick up on the subtler stuff, if you want people to think of you favorably when it's your turn to lead. You can always tell, in something like this, which people think they're participants and which think they're performers with a back-up group; you never want to be the latter.

Later in the day was a regency ball (this is a Darkover tradition). This year I played for it, but having recently played for more than two hours (concert + jam) and then shlepped the dulcimer upstairs, I decided to do percussion. (They had enough melodic instruments, else I would have fetched the dulcimer.) That turned out to be a good call on two counts. First, the temperature in the room was wacky, and the dulcimer probably would have been out of tune within half an hour anyway. And second, I got to do a nice variety of things with "just" percussion, and some people noticed. You can do a lot with a tambourine, for instance; you've got the head, you've got jingles (which you can mute or let go), and you've got the edge. And that's without getting into the different things you can do with your hand (or a stick) when beating the head. Fun stuff. (I also had a small drum, which I used when it didn't seem to be colliding with other instruments in the same pitch range, and finger cymbals.)

A people-watching note: men dressed in regency-era clothing look really elegant while danicng. I don't know whether the effect is less pronounced for women or if there just weren't any women there in proper regency garb. (I don't know what proper regency women's clothing looks like.) But at least for the men, the clothing makes a huge difference. And when they also know how to dance... nice.

The Clam Chowder concert Saturday night was a lot of fun. They've got a bunch of new material since last I heard them. They also do charity fundraising every year (for the local children's hospital), through a combination of auctions and direct donations, and this year they raised over $5000. Not bad for a con with probably under 400 people, many of whom are probably un(der)-employed! The fans have also set a goal for next year; during the concert the subject of John Huff singing "Sweet Transvestite" in fishnet stockings and a mini-skirt came up, and he said it'd cost $10k. This was before this year's total was announced, and it was pretty clear he didn't think people could do it. But with a year's warning, who knows?

One of the things they auction off is "Clam Chowder karaoke"; the winning bidder gets to perform one song with them. I thought about bidding because that would be a lot of fun, but I didn't this year. Maybe next year, though. While on the one hand I've got stage time at Darkover and I should defer to others, I'd also love to be able to perform with Clam Chowder -- and I think the sound folks would pull their hair out if we proposed a joint Clam/OTM concert. :-) (But hmm, that could be fun... I wonder how the Clams would feel about it.)

I noticed that the members of Clam Chowder had headset-style mikes; this allowed them to move around on the stage, rather than being tied to mike stands. I must find out whether those are available to us when we're on the main stage; that would help a lot. (I don't know if they belong to the soundman or to the Clams.) We've been asked to do two concerts next year, one on the main stage, so I should ask.

This hotel has, err, HVAC issues. The room where most of the performances happen is very bad in this regard; it sometimes seems you can freeze or cook but nothing in between. During some concerts the audience was cold while the performers had hot air blowing on them. I commented that the hotel has issues with climate variation and Bob Esty responded that this hotel has climate zones and seasons. True!

The hotel (Holiday Inn Select) has gone more upscale since last I was there. Not in the function space, but in the rooms. Two years ago the rooms on the top floor were more upscale with fancier furniture, etc; this year all the rooms I saw had gotten that treatment. And the hotel no longer permits pets at all, though in the past they've allowed cats and small dogs.

We learned the secret of getting a thermostat instead of one of those knobs with "colder" at one end and "warmer" at the other: the inside (lobby-ward) rooms have thermostats, while the outside (parking-lot-ward) rooms have the knobs. Now we know what to ask for in the future.

We made good time both to and from the con. Robert has the knack of maintaining speed in medium-heavy traffic. This is a skill I lack, so I appreciate it in others -- particularly when they're willing to drive me places.

Comments

[kyleri]

It was good to finally meet you! I'm glad I hung around for the jam, too, though it quickly became clear that I'd have been totally out of my depth with my recorder - thank you for lending me the drum! I hope I didn't do anything dumb with it.

[cellio]

I didn't hear anything dumb. Besides, the whole point of a jam session is to let people play along and experiment with new things.

[kyleri]

Well, good.

I'll admit I'm still a little paranoid about the concept of playing along with other people, but I'm not as scared about it as I was before this weekend...

[cellio]

I'm glad to hear it. It does get easier. Do you have SCA music opportunities locally?

[kyleri]

Closest that I know of is the Bhakaili Branslers down in Philly...probably an hour and more each way, but I'm thinking about showing up to their practices sometimes. I know some of them already, which makes me less wussy.