Housefilk and engagements

Tom and Sue at Stonehenge, where Tom proposed!

Thanks to Jane and Phil for hosting a fun housefilk yesterday.



For those not familiar with the concept of a housefilk: it's basically a music party. Some housefilks are more about hanging out and chatting, with some casual music thrown in here and there. The housefilk at Jane's and Phil's was more structured: for most of the afternoon, the circle was strict "Song Sequitur," a system recently popular in some West Coast music circles.

You go around the circle, and each person can only sing a song if it connects with the previous song somehow, but you can't use the same type of connection as the previous person. I'm not a huge fan of bardic though I can see some of the advantages (see my explanation of the difference between "bardic" and "chaos" circles).



One advantage of bardic circles, for example, is that everyone gets a turn; it's easier for filkers who are more shy or less confident to break in. My only quibble with the Song Sequitur system is that the "must have a connection" aspect means you can't really pick a song until AFTER you've heard the person before you perform their song. Which usually means that (1) you're mighty distracted while that person is performing because you're trying to figure out what to play next OR (2) there's a long gap after the song while you try to figure out what to play next.



Happily, Jane was very easygoing about the connection rule, so some of us were picking the songs we WANTED to play and then finding SOME connection, no matter how tenuous ("oh! that song used a C chord! so does the song I'm going to play!"). :-)

Anyway, it was a fun experiment. Though I'm still more of a fan of casual / unstructured housefilks, I'm glad I went this time to see what the whole Song Sequitur thing was about. Especially since I found out that TOM JEFFERS AND SUE POSTERARO are engaged to be married!!!! He proposed to her at Stonehenge during their UK trip; we toasted the happy couple with champagne. For those that don't know, Tom recently moved to Toronto from Winnipeg to be with Sue, whom he met at filk conventions.



Another highlight of the day for me: seeing Karen Linsley sing "Road To Roswell" and "I Am Stardust" (with Judith accompanying). Both are gorgeous songs; you can hear a soundclip from "Road To Roswell" on Karen's CDBaby page (if you listen to the "Nobody Knows (That I'm Really An Alien)" soundclip on that page, by the way, you'll hear my flute. :-)

"I Am Stardust" has always been one of my favourite filk songs ever. Unfortunately I couldn't find a soundclip online of Karen & Lloyd performing the song, but you can hear a sample of my music group performing it in concert here (track 11). It was written by our friend Lloyd Landa, who died in 2000, and the music and lyrics are heartbreakingly beautiful:

I'm every mote of dust
in a ray of summer sun,
Every shining point of light
in the winter night above
I'm inside the very heart of you
Yet galaxies away
I am stardust, stardust
Looking for a home.



You can see more of the photos I took at the housefilk in my Flickr set. And thanks again, Jane and Phil!