Around the World Bardic
Aug. 2nd, 2020 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaI have been enjoying the various on-line Bardic "Circles" (or "Sprawls" as at least one of them is called), so when I heard about the Around the Known World Bardic that was planned for the 24 hours which has just ended, I put it onto my calendar.
I might have joined from the beginning, since it was scheduled to start at 01:00 Saturday in my timezone, and normally that isn't too late for me on a weekend. However, on Thursday evening I was inspired and fell so deeply into doing data processing for my PhD project in progress that I wound up working till 05:00 on Friday morning (which meant that by the time I finished yoga and got to bed it was nearly 06:00). Friday morning I got up after three hours of sleep, and as soon as I had breakfast I hopped onto my trike and pedalled over to B's house (about 3.5 km away). She led me off on a half an hour walk, well into the woods near her home, and then we spent an hour picking blueberries, after which she felt she had enough, and wandered home. I had not yet picked enough to fill a yoghurt bucket (which will take 1.5 liters if full), and wanted more, so I stayed another hour and a half (including a break to eat the lunch I had brought with me), and then set off for the walk back to her house.
However, I had never been in this particular forest before, and took the wrong fork where the path split, and wound up with the one that ends at the field next to her house. Given that the field was full of cows, and there was a wide ditch between the forest and the field, full of quite a bit of running water, I decided to walk along the (much smaller) forest path that parallels the edge of the field, so that I could join up with the road we came in on, that runs between that field and the next. Soon I discovered the flaw in that plan--the trial ended at when the ditch to my right met another ditch in front of me, both of which were full of running water, deeper than the depth of the rubber boots I was wearing (since it had rained for several days before, I suspected that they would be a good idea, and I was correct), and wider than I could jump. So I turned back and looked for another option, and didn't find any thing that looked promising (but I did find some arctic raspberries, which are, by far, my favourite berry, and rare and hard to find). Eventually I decided that while I could try to backtrack and try to find the path we came in on, it would be much faster to just take off my rubber boots, wade across the creek in the ditch, and then put the boots back on and then just walk across the field.
This path worked well, and I reached B's home just as they were getting ready to head out, so we had a brief chat, and then I hopped on my trike home, where I spent one more hour berry picking--this time picking red currants and strawberries for the bucket, and eating all of the raspberries which were ripe. Then I had enough time to have dinner and read for a bit before my friend E called, and we talked till after 23:00. By the time I finished my yoga and got to bed it was just after midnight, but I was too tired to stay up till the Around the World Bardic was to start at 01:30.
So I got a good night's sleep (nine hours!), had breakfast, and then joined the bardic in progress at about 10:15. I had thought to just listen whilst working (since I hadn't done any work on Friday), but during my morning there were only about six bards taking turns, so I wound up joining in the queue. I did manage to accomplish some data processing in between my turns, till around 15:00, at which point I gave up all pretence of working, and got out my nålbindning project in progress to keep my hands busy as I just enjoyed the bardic.
We had a spreadsheet to keep track of whose turn it was, and who performed what, which also has a column for a link to the song (if there is one). Looking back at that list now, we did a total of 350 performances, over the 24 hours the bardic ran, of which I contributed 24, 11 of which are my own composition, 7 of which were written by bards I love in the West, and the others were other SCA songs or instrumental (hammer dulcimer) pieces. The bardic host changed every few hours, with a new host in a time-zone that was appropriate for the moment, and they did a wonderful job of keeping things going, with not more than a short bit of chatter after a song now and then (especially giving one or two people the chance to say something nice about the last performance) before calling on the next person on the list.
I really, really enjoyed the whole day, but the absolute highlight for me was when my SCA Identical Twin Sister, Amanda de Spenser, came in briefly and performed, along with her family Turning of the Seasons by Lisa Theriot. They did such an amazing job--beautiful voices, lovely harmonies, and they each took turns being the primary voice. I was very much in tears of joy for it--my favourite part of SCA bardics has always been the part where people sing together, but, of course, we can't do that over video calls due to the slight lag, which is different for every connection. Sure, I was able to sing along with most of the songs today, microphone muted, but that isn't the same as actually getting to hear everyone. While Amanda and her children aren't "everyone", they made enough beautiful music together with that song to count for rather a lot. Soon after they performed they had to step out to attend another event, and didn't return till late in the bardic, about an hour before it ended. She put her name on the list when she arrived, but I wanted to be certain we would have time to get to her, so when my turn next came up I asked her if she would take it, and she did, and shared one she has written herself, as an answer to the song "The Veil". Her's is called The Promise, and is written from the perspective of the the lady who gave her fighter the veil in the first song, and it is amazing. I was not the only person I could see who was crying as she sung it.
It was generally agreed that the experiment was a success, and that it would be very much worth doing such a 24-hour bardic again, and I can heartily recommend joining in when they do.
I might have joined from the beginning, since it was scheduled to start at 01:00 Saturday in my timezone, and normally that isn't too late for me on a weekend. However, on Thursday evening I was inspired and fell so deeply into doing data processing for my PhD project in progress that I wound up working till 05:00 on Friday morning (which meant that by the time I finished yoga and got to bed it was nearly 06:00). Friday morning I got up after three hours of sleep, and as soon as I had breakfast I hopped onto my trike and pedalled over to B's house (about 3.5 km away). She led me off on a half an hour walk, well into the woods near her home, and then we spent an hour picking blueberries, after which she felt she had enough, and wandered home. I had not yet picked enough to fill a yoghurt bucket (which will take 1.5 liters if full), and wanted more, so I stayed another hour and a half (including a break to eat the lunch I had brought with me), and then set off for the walk back to her house.
However, I had never been in this particular forest before, and took the wrong fork where the path split, and wound up with the one that ends at the field next to her house. Given that the field was full of cows, and there was a wide ditch between the forest and the field, full of quite a bit of running water, I decided to walk along the (much smaller) forest path that parallels the edge of the field, so that I could join up with the road we came in on, that runs between that field and the next. Soon I discovered the flaw in that plan--the trial ended at when the ditch to my right met another ditch in front of me, both of which were full of running water, deeper than the depth of the rubber boots I was wearing (since it had rained for several days before, I suspected that they would be a good idea, and I was correct), and wider than I could jump. So I turned back and looked for another option, and didn't find any thing that looked promising (but I did find some arctic raspberries, which are, by far, my favourite berry, and rare and hard to find). Eventually I decided that while I could try to backtrack and try to find the path we came in on, it would be much faster to just take off my rubber boots, wade across the creek in the ditch, and then put the boots back on and then just walk across the field.
This path worked well, and I reached B's home just as they were getting ready to head out, so we had a brief chat, and then I hopped on my trike home, where I spent one more hour berry picking--this time picking red currants and strawberries for the bucket, and eating all of the raspberries which were ripe. Then I had enough time to have dinner and read for a bit before my friend E called, and we talked till after 23:00. By the time I finished my yoga and got to bed it was just after midnight, but I was too tired to stay up till the Around the World Bardic was to start at 01:30.
So I got a good night's sleep (nine hours!), had breakfast, and then joined the bardic in progress at about 10:15. I had thought to just listen whilst working (since I hadn't done any work on Friday), but during my morning there were only about six bards taking turns, so I wound up joining in the queue. I did manage to accomplish some data processing in between my turns, till around 15:00, at which point I gave up all pretence of working, and got out my nålbindning project in progress to keep my hands busy as I just enjoyed the bardic.
We had a spreadsheet to keep track of whose turn it was, and who performed what, which also has a column for a link to the song (if there is one). Looking back at that list now, we did a total of 350 performances, over the 24 hours the bardic ran, of which I contributed 24, 11 of which are my own composition, 7 of which were written by bards I love in the West, and the others were other SCA songs or instrumental (hammer dulcimer) pieces. The bardic host changed every few hours, with a new host in a time-zone that was appropriate for the moment, and they did a wonderful job of keeping things going, with not more than a short bit of chatter after a song now and then (especially giving one or two people the chance to say something nice about the last performance) before calling on the next person on the list.
I really, really enjoyed the whole day, but the absolute highlight for me was when my SCA Identical Twin Sister, Amanda de Spenser, came in briefly and performed, along with her family Turning of the Seasons by Lisa Theriot. They did such an amazing job--beautiful voices, lovely harmonies, and they each took turns being the primary voice. I was very much in tears of joy for it--my favourite part of SCA bardics has always been the part where people sing together, but, of course, we can't do that over video calls due to the slight lag, which is different for every connection. Sure, I was able to sing along with most of the songs today, microphone muted, but that isn't the same as actually getting to hear everyone. While Amanda and her children aren't "everyone", they made enough beautiful music together with that song to count for rather a lot. Soon after they performed they had to step out to attend another event, and didn't return till late in the bardic, about an hour before it ended. She put her name on the list when she arrived, but I wanted to be certain we would have time to get to her, so when my turn next came up I asked her if she would take it, and she did, and shared one she has written herself, as an answer to the song "The Veil". Her's is called The Promise, and is written from the perspective of the the lady who gave her fighter the veil in the first song, and it is amazing. I was not the only person I could see who was crying as she sung it.
It was generally agreed that the experiment was a success, and that it would be very much worth doing such a 24-hour bardic again, and I can heartily recommend joining in when they do.