jtthomas | Entries tagged with filk

Finally just finished what I'm pretty sure are the last edits to Trinities, the winter-themed Threes I wrote at the December 1st MASSFILC meeting. This song got funnier as the weather got more ridiculous this winter.

Current Mood: mischievous
Current Music: the actual original Threes, Julia Ecklar if Youtube is correct (I think so??)

Started a practice livestream. Yep. Link here.

Edit: Done, super long, stories intermingled with music on three instruments. Meet my dog toward the beginning; migraine she warned me on is just starting to hit now. Ends with me demonstrating the fact that humans can, in fact, purr both inward and outward -- was that

technoshaman I saw wondering about that one time? Not sure if the audio actually worked on that section (maybe?). Lots of me just fooling around on various instruments, especially my fife. Also, this thing's unlisted because family talk, but nothing much.

Finals week produced quite a few half-baked filks.

The ship that rescued the Titanic, the Carpathia, effectively pulled a steampunk stunt to do so. That one’s a verse along but sounds good so far.
I forgot the lyrics to Toast for Unsung Heroes but remembered that one part rhymed with “also”, and that another line ended in “ before”. This resulted in my brain insisting it was “to boldly go” in the first verse, with “where no man’s gone before” at the end. The fact that “Here’s a health to Gene Roddenberry” scans to it didn’t help.
Got further along in what I will only call Elevenses for now, which has been going since July. Some people may have heard me mention this one before; I know I’ve seen facepalms when I mention how it’s written.
There’s now a theatrical superstition song going as well.

Most notably, ttto When A Felon’s Not Engaged in his Employment and entirely due to Ellen Kranzer’s “sitting in the hallway filking” story, which was stuck in my head at ten at night a week back:
( Read more... )

This song was written last night during the MASSFILC meeting, totaling 3 hours and 7 minutes of writing while singing along with stuff and eating dinner. I've edited it a bit since, cleaned it up and all, but otherwise it remains the same.

Mostly inspired by the sheer number of Christmas songs with filk lyrics, and the comparatively lower number of filks further filked for the winter season.

( Trinities )

Current Mood: mischievous
Current Music: Trans-Siberian Orchestra (gorramnit, it's December)

As I listen to more and more filk and start to become slightly more involved, I can't help but laugh at the sheer number of coincidences in my life, if one can even call them that when they pile up quite this high. Probably more things I haven't thought of, but the point is.

ASL as a first language as my mother's research project.
Writing music and performing it comes from my dad's side of the family (and he accidentally filked and flat-out parodied church songs with the help of friends starting in his teenage years, including Donuts No Peas Parchment / Dona Nobis Pacem. One of said friends may or may not be / have been involved in the Star Trek fan community, no guarantees but he's about that dedicated).
Writing my own music and arranging pieces since middle school (and ran across ABC notation, fiddle stuff, while researching Christmas songs ... about six years before I actually started to play fiddle).
Currently owner and player of a 50-year-old guitar from my dad's friend, my sister's old fiddle, possibly my sister's old flute given a bit more practice, my brother's drum pad, a travel keyboard that can't play more than two notes at a time, and whatever other instruments we've got scattered around the house that I can scrounge up. Probably getting more for the holidays.
Theatre kid since kindergarten, Shakespeare fiend since sixth grade, and Gilbert and Sullivan fanatic since early in high school. Tom Lehrer's music followed G&S about two months later.
Reading and writing SFF prose and poetry, both fanfiction and original, for quite literally half my life.
Brother taught me to code around age nine and I taught myself astronomy and basic physics around the same time, with more since then.
Found filk through a chain of events that I believe started with ffn, progressed to AO3, which in turn led me to Livejournal and Dreamwidth around age 16, and then I got bored enough to go exploring on the site and found filk in five seconds flat.

Basically, filk was bound to happen and the real question was when.

...there's a song in there somewhere. (It'll have to happen after the Scottish play ends in just over a week, probably. No free time at current.)

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: in bed, failing to go to sleep and having to get up in six and a half hours

...but finally got the parody done. Thanks to

madfilkentist for the initial idea (and a tad of inspiration) and

mdlbear for tune and permission.

( Famished Feline's Prayer )

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: Rocket Rider's Prayer

Seeting up a YouTube livestream for some practice. Also known as the moment I realize how much of a mess my dorm room is and say screw it, because I need practice. Think I'll throw in the current draft of my Kiple and fantasy songs. Link is here, provided it actually works. I'll update the link if needed after the stream's done.

Edit: stream failed first time, link replaced.

Edit two: stream split because of microphone failure. Second link here.

Final edit: links are good. First stream failed at 27:15, but I didn't know right away.
Full practice list (with credit according to the internet and my apologies for incorrectness) was:
Stream one: Shadow Stalker (lyrics Mercedes Lackey, music Heather Alexander), Rocket Rider's Prayer (Steve Savitzky,

mdlbear ), Threes Take Two (lyrics Mercedes Lackey, music Leslie Fish), and There's Always a Reason (Mercedes Lackey) ((in which the audio failed majorly)).
Stream two: didn't bother to try There's Always a Reason again because I have a cold and it's cutting my range off, but did Battle Dawn (Mercedes Lackey), Dawson's Christian (Duane Elms), Greensleeves-ish (Michael Longcor / Moonwulf Starkaaderson), first part of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Heather Dale), a couple tries at Hymn to Breaking Strain (words Rudyard Kipling, music Leslie Fish), first part of Midsummer (Heather Alexander), an attempt at Herald's Creed (Mercedes Lackey) that started off sounding suspiciously like Web of Light (oops), Gloria in excelsis deo, Wassail, and my two current WIP filks (Prepare to Die and Law of the Jungle).

My fingers are still hurting. That's a good sign. I think.

Practice went well.

Link to transcript on YouTube~~; currently finishing it~~ it is now complete. The audio isn't the best, because the setup is a work in progress. An earlier attempt was actually interrupted by the garbage truck.

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: in bed

and I filmed it.

Currently uploading to YouTube. Dawson's Christian was definitely the highlight.

Little Bear's original owner couldn't make it last night; she may come over in a few weeks. Still, I brought Little Bear to the party my dad had, and played not only the one song I had in my repertoire when I first picked him up but also two songs I learned yesterday. I knew Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, one of my dad's favorites, since it has only a few chords.

Yesterday, I managed to teach myself Dawson's Christian, using the same chords as Hallelujah with only a couple of modifications. I know it's still got some flaws in it, but I may end up recording it at some point, maybe posting it on YouTube if I think it's decent. Then, right before the party, my dad taught me the two chords for Horse With No Name.

Up until yesterday, my time limit for practice was about ten minutes before my thumb was too painful to do anything more for the entire day. (This still holds true for my fiddling, which is only at a minimum right now due to hypermobility posing a problem.) With Little Bear? Five half-hour sessions, plus the actual party. I'll take it.

So far today, no absolute temptation to grab Little Bear for a round of practice. Not that I'm not tempted; on the contrary, the thrill is just going down and I'm getting into a consistent pattern of longer-without-means-more-time-with next time I pick him up. I'll probably have half an hour or so in a little while ... or as soon as I post this.

Having fallen into this connection, I don't know how to do this very well yet. But I'm going to figure this out, somehow, because I've got focusing abilities I haven't had in years as soon as I pick Little Bear up.

(Visual reference at this link. Little Bear is on the far right, a dark reddish guitar which cost $150 in 1968. The original catalog reports a solid wood top; Little Bear is weighted weirdly enough that I'm pretty confident this is the precise model, though the lighter one to its left stands a chance.)

Filk is seeming to happen more often. (AKA I can't drive and I live in a rural area so I can't get literally anywhere for a circle, but I'll listen to YouTube recordings until the day comes.)

To the tune of Johnny Cash's Thunderball, a song yet unnamed.

There's a rumble through the earth and all the earth can hear the sound
As inch by inch then foot by foot the rocket leaves the ground.
The power held within, tamed reaction at her core
Leaves us to wonder how soon we could lose just one ship more.

CHORUS
The Challenger, Apollo One, the Soyuz capsules too,
Because once they're up, before they're down, there's little we can do.

With our eyes glued to the launch pad and the brontide in our ears,
Our noses fill with smoke but no fires confirm our fears.
The courage of the few should stop the panic of it all,
But death's on the horizon should the capsule break and fall.

Money hungry militaries sit around and scheme,
But through it all they can't stop us from holding tight this dream.
Cannot this war-torn world find the peace in where they go?
They offered us their lives without knowing what we know.