[SCA-AE] AEthelmearc songs

[Ruth Morrisson]

Greetings from Myfanwy!
After my earlier post, I got thinking about the topic.
Back when I joined the SCA (in the East), there were lots of songs that 
everybody knew, from the completely mundane (like "The Moose Song" -- 
which I admit I'm actually kinda fond of) to SCA filk such as "Imperium 
Compound", and they were always sung at post revels and around 
campfires.  Alastar has complained, on more than one occasion, that 
nobody seems to sing at post revels anymore, and he really misses that.
I've been trying to put my finger on the problem.  I'm wondering 
whether it's just one more case of what I would call (for lack of a 
better term) "authenticity creep".  That is to say, as "standards" have 
improved, the old, less "authentic" practices have fallen by the 
wayside.
As an example, the Debatable Choir started out by singing lots of 
simple rounds and Ravenscroft pieces.  More recently, we've been 
discussing singing really tough material like Gesualdo (and whether we 
have the part coverage).  That's a big leap.  Likewise, I suspect that 
in the bardic community there may have been more of an emphasis on 
performing really period pieces, rather than the sort of singable filk 
that was "good enough" a quarter of a century ago.
I'm not sure I would even recognize "Scarlet" if I heard it, so I 
personally couldn't tell you whether it's good, bad, or over-used.  And 
I think that's part of the problem.  There doesn't seem to be a song 
(at least not since we were a principality, and Haakon wrote "The 
Æthelmearc Song") that hits the collective consciousness -- something 
that everybody knows, that gets routinely sung at post revels, that has 
leaked out of the bardic community to those of us in the general 
population, that really says "Æthelmearc" to me (and to complete 
non-singers and to drunks at bonfires, and to people who don't go to 
Opening Ceremonies at Pennsic for one reason or another).
On Sunday, January 21, 2007, at 11:21  AM, Caryl wrote:

> More AEthelmearc songs would be a good idea, considering the 10 year
> anniversary is coming up.... BARDIC CHALLENGE!!!!!!  (Has it really 
> been
> 10 years??)
Lady Myfanwy ferch Rhiannon
Ruth Morrisson
myfanwy at nauticom.net