Tir Righ A&S/Bardic recap

So! Tir Righ A&S/Bardic happened, and it was wonderful!

I ended up being the last to perform, instead of second as songstress1973 had said I would be, though I knew that it was possible for the schedule to be rearranged before the event so I wasn't counting on going second. My days of piano recitals has ingrained in me a desire to go as close to the start as possible, just because it gets the nervousness out of the way. Didn't happen, but oh well - as it turned out I was far too busy during the day to be much in the way of nervous anyways!

I am pleased with how my performance went. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but all of the comments I got from non-judges said that they really enjoyed my performance. To me, THAT is what counts, and that made me very happy.




I handed my camera over to Ian, and he got shots of me from all sorts of angles. Here's the only one I have access to at the moment, as I'd cropped it for Facebook on Sunday. I'll post more once I get them edited sometime soon. My comments from the judges were excellent as well. I got lots of constructive feedback, which was exactly what I was looking for. My judges were Mistress Alisaundre ni Feidhlimidh dal gCais, who is songstress1973's laurel (and therefore sort of my grand-laurel, since I'm student to songstress1973, even though I'm apprenticed to someone else. (Sionann used to be apprenticed to the same laurel as I am, but as my laurel doesn't really play much anymore, they parted ways amiably and remain good friends, but Sionann moved on so she could learn from someone active. I may eventually do the same.)); Aleyn of Wickingham (who MAKES period instruments, including harps), and Master Stephen of Hunmanby, who is also a music laurel.

As far as score goes, I haven't even added it up. My comment sheets didn't come with the numbers added, and really, it doesn't matter. The comments mean FAR more to me than the numbers. I actually got bonus points for picking such a difficult song, and was told I did really well considering I've only been playing the harp for 6-8 months. :)

Because my performance and question period didn't use up all the time allotted, the judges asked me to play it again, but then Little Miss Peanut Gallery (aka the loud mouth, aka Sionann) piped up with "beer song?" so I ended up playing Beer is for Girls, which everybody LOVED.

I've now cemented my decision to compete for Baronial Bardic Champion in February. I'm going to use the same piece I used on Saturday (which I'm obviously going to keep practicing and improving). I've also started working on a couple songs from the early music book I have, which won't take that long to get practiced up as they're considerably easier than the Frog Galliard. I obviously have Beer is for Girls as a backup for that as well, and I'm seriously considering finding a story to learn or a song I can sing, just to expand my repertoire and be able to do more than one type of thing. :)

Also, here's a pic of most of the beads I made for site tokens:

I didn't get a chance to take a pic before some of them were handed out as the morning was a bit rushed, but this is most of them.