Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

SATURDAY: I arrived; I was asked the question I got asked all weekend: "What happened to your arm?" "I have no idea; I woke up on Monday and my shoulder hurt like Hell." I was told to sit down because I looked wretched, and ice water was brought to me, for which I probably didn't show as much gratitude as I felt, because I was too tired to show much more than "tired". With help, I got my bags to the con suite, failed to register for the con, went to watch a couple of concerts, failed again to register for the con, followed folks out to dinner (Indian food -- yum), came back, failed to register, hung out in the con suite conversing, planned to get up and photograph the wenches at the auction then go to more concerts, realized I was rather on the tired side and stayed put instead, finally managed to register, showed off cat (and other) photos, tried to work up an idea I had for recorders with Nancy L., showed off the Homespun Ceilidh Band CD, went to the open filking later than I'd planned and kept getting distracted from it, camera-geeked after shooting some photos, and finally went up to bed when it was pointed out to me that everyone else in my room had already crashed.

I shot some photos of the two concerts I saw, but as others have noted, that room was surprisingly dark. And as usual, the positioning of microphone stands and music stands was a problem. I could've solved that problem by moving around and getting in front of people and being a pest, but, uh, that didn't seem like a very good idea. The photography was, after all, an "as long as I'm here" thing, and the listening by everyone there was the whole point. I did use flash after I saw other people doing so.

I didn't burn anywhere near as much film as I expected to over the weekend, because I got to so little of the programming. I did get to do some other shooting, though I really missed having the whole camera bag at hand. (And even if I'd had the whole bag with me, I would've missed a bunch of the gear that was in the bag that got stolen a couple of months ago.)

Are folks getting a little ... fancier? more adventerous? ... with their vocal technique lately, or was it just the two concerts I watched? It seemed that there was more attention paid to technique beyond the basics of pitch and tone; shaping the vocal style to the song and such.

Once I got past the arriving-dehydrated-and-exhausted thing (a side effect of sitting down for the concerts was that I also got a chance to gather my strength), Saturday was about good food (a nice assortment of tasty food was provided in the con suite as well) and good conversation, with a little bit of good music thrown in just to remind me that I was at a music convention. I was in the mental state I refer to as "con mode", and have lost track of how many people I talked to and the complete list of what all we talked about. I had fun. I also kept losing track of time. (Not uncommon when I'm tired. Also not uncommon when I'm in "con mode". Double whammy. I decided to enjoy the conversations and Just Not Stress about what else I was missing, 'cause worry sounded unfun.

Nancy remarked that there wasn't a whole lot for us to do on recorders at a filk convention (though I've tried to work the bass recorder in as accompaniment before) but that we should try to find time to just jam later. Then I had the idea to find a song that would work as well -- or better -- with a more organ-like accompaniment instead of a guitar accompaniment, and split the chords up among three or four woodwind players. And there in the program book was a likely candidate, I thought: "The Night of the Hunt" by FilkFerret. It even starts off describing wind. If one recorderist takes the root of each chord, another the third, and another the fifth, and a flutist grabs the octave (or the seventh, for the CM7 chords), each woodwind player will have deadly boring parts to play, but I bet the sound would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to polish it up, and found it a little difficult to keep the timing together without anyone singing the melody, but it remains something I want to try later.

A slightly drunk-seeming mundane came by while I was showing what tiny bit I know about slide guitar in the hall near the elevators, and tried to hire one of us to play music for his wife. Unfortunately I took a smidgen too long fetching my own guitar and tuning up, and when I knocked on their door there was no answer, so I guess they'd fallen asleep shortly after he spoke to me. Oh well. I could've used the extra cash.

When I did crash Saturday night, I was still feeling like I would be missing things by going to bed, and that I Hadn't Done Enough since arriving, but I forced myself to pay attention to my body to figure out how hard I was pushing myself, and realized that yes, it was time for me to try falling down for a spell. Cozy room with more friends.

And thus Saturday ended sometime in the wee hours of Sunday.