Category: SCA

In discussions with friends following the Northshield Bardic Champion contest at Warriors and Warlords 2017 it was suggested that I should write a bit about how “When Northshield Sings of the Griffin” was written. What follows is a breakdown of the lyric and an explanation of the thought process that informed the writing and subsequent performance in court. The assignment was to write a piece that had three attributes.

This type of contest, where one is compelled to write a piece in a short amount of time based on a set of words or some broad criteria, is among my least favorite. I like to tune my lyrics phrase by phrase until they say exactly what I want them to say. More than that, I like to have time to practiced and polished the performance. There is no time for either in this type of challenge.

In “Abstract: The Art of Design[1]” Christoph Niemann relates a story of how, during his apprentice, he was told that “Inspiration is for armatures.” That idea made a big impact on my thinking leading into this challenge. I have, for most of my life, felt like I needed to wait for inspiration, for the muse to speak. But as I contemplated that phrase I resolved that I would no longer allow the stricture of inspiration to be a factor in my writing.

There is an old saying about writing “Write what you know.” When I’m casting around for a place to start I tend to focus on the things that I know something about, which in this case is the music of the West and Caid.

There are songs from the West that will thrill you
There are song from Caid that take flight

Those two lines, written as pure stream of consciousness, formed a starting place that I could build from. Now I know I’m talking about different types of songs across the Known World. By following that train of thought then I could add the next line.

There are songs from the East that will kindle your blood
For battle and honor to fight

That’s ok, but not great. “For battle and honor to fight” seems to me a bit clumsy, but I was working on a deadline so I elected not to worry about it at that moment. Besides, I had hit on a thing I really wanted to say.

Atlantia’s muse longs for beauty

I was very pleased with that line, because it reminded me of Efenwealt’s beautiful “Fair Lady Atlantia.”

Calontir’s will sings only of war

This is the humor in the first verse and is based on the old saw that “Calontir sings everything in the key of war.” I did not know at the time that the King of Calontir would be sitting behind me when I sang this at closing court. Of course, it wouldn’t have made a bit if difference if I had.

By now I knew this would be an eight-line stanza, so I knew I only had two lines left to bring this home. This is the point where the lyric must catch the listener, these finial two lines are where the resolution, the emotional payoff as it were, must be delivered to the audience and forms the first, and perhaps most important opportunity for the audience to buy in. What does Northshield care about?

One need look no further than the songs in Northshield’s informal “hymnal” for an answer. The North Star, the Griffin, the Three Words, Ice, and Snow. I dismissed the Three Words after very brief consideration as not a good fit for my opening. Next, I ruled out Ice and Snow as, to obvious and, given the long history of Northshield as a region, a Principality, and a Kingdom, overdone. For the North Star, I couldn’t come up with anything that hadn’t be tried, or become tired, a long time ago. All of which left me with only one good option.

But when Northshield sings of the Griffin
In the sound of the love in their soul

The quick reader will note that “soul” does not rhyme with “war.” Looking at the page I was not happy, and I knew it needed fixing. Worse, I had no tune, no idea where this narrative was leading, and a bardic workshop in the court pavilion that I needed to attend. I put the whole thing out of my mind went to meet my other obligation for the day.

I returned to my encampment feeling no better about my chance of completing this challenge in any credible way. I was looking at my eight lines, thinking that perhaps I should set them aside and try to find another approach when, on impulse, I showed my them to my wife. This is unusual, I almost never share works that are in progress with anyone.

Never, ever, underestimate the power of positive feedback. I was anything but in love with those eight lines but Angelina liked them, and because of that I chose to keep them and see what would follow. Ignoring the rhyme issues and took out my guitar to see what kind of melody and accompaniment I could come up with.

Some people write music and then fit words to it. Others write words and then fit music to them. I tend to do both at the same time. Sometimes a song starts with a turn of phrase in the lyric, sometimes with a turn of phrase on the guitar. In this case the melody turned out to be the part that brought everything else together.

I started by finger picking my way through the possibilities for the accompaniment while humming some possible melody lines. I think it’s worth noting that I’ve written many songs that use this chord progression (C, Am, F, G) but also worth noting that so has everyone else. At first I was trying to get away from this comfortable pattern but then I remembered that I had less than two and a half hours left. After a few minutes I realized that while the music was lovely it was not exactly “upbeat” so I switched to a flat pick and started working on a strumming pattern. Almost immediately I had the chorus.

They will sing you the song of the Griffin in war
And the song of the Griffin love
As they raise up their voice to the great Northern Star
That hangs in the heavens above

That chorus hits all the triggers I wanted to hit. It keeps the line of thought intact “these are the songs of these people” and added another Northshield icon, the North Star. Better still, it was a complete chorus in just four lines which is a thing I have learned is important. “I’m a Duke and You’re Not” has an eight-line chorus, which is the same length as the verses. This makes for a very long song and sometimes even I am board with it after we’ve done the first two or three verses. This is a mistake that I will not make again.

The use of the word “they” is important. “They” is separate, and distinct from the speaker. As soon as I saw that I knew that the final chorus would trade “they” for “we,” and once I understood that I knew that the second verse would tell the listener about the “they” who are lifting their voices.

They can paint you a picture in black and in gold
Filled with snowflakes and fishes and light

In these two lines I’m alluding to the baronies of Nordskogen and Jararvellir, as well as Northshield over all, not by name but by heraldry.

Or spin you a tale of the Great Inner Sea
Or Rockhaven that sparkles so bright

It’s easy to call out large groups in the SCA. Kingdoms and Principalities, even events, get a lot of love but smaller groups get very little. I happen to know that the group in Inner Sea are in the process of reforming and starting to get out to things and I wanted to give them a bit of notice. The Shire of Rockhaven is also smaller group, located to the west of the 800-pound gorilla that is Nordskogen. They had invited me earlier in the year to their “Heads Will Role!” event and I wanted to give them a little love.  Making “Rockhaven” fit in that space took a little bit of practice.

They can tell you the sound that a cow makes (moo BOOM!)[2]
And they’ll laugh with delight and surprise

This happened long before I came to Northshield and I heard about it one the way back from Mid-Realm Bardic Madness in November of 2016. This line does two things. First, it provides the humor in the second verse. Second, and more important, it recalls an event that still lives in the memory of many of the longer-term residents in the kingdom.

Getting to this joke I knew I was going to need to prep some members of the audience. To that end I had spoken to a couple of friends who were here at that time and told them that when they heard the line “They can tell you the sound that a cow makes…” I needed them to yell “moo BOOM!” However, chance offered me another way to accomplish that. I realized that our current Prince has been a part of Northshield for a long time, and would undoubtedly know the joke. Approaching the stage, I said “Excuse me your Highness, but can you answer a question for me?” He nodded “Can you tell me” I asked, “What sound does a cow make?” He thought about it for no more than a second… “Moo BOOM!” Better yet, he got the audience involved by having them join him in a few more refrains. “Moo BOOM!” indeed.

Why? Because this single joke is a defining moment for some of the older members of the Kingdom. By invoking it I recalled for them a moment from their past. Doing so helps to create a connection between a song and an audience. The hall was at that point divided into two groups. Those laughing because they knew the joke, and those who wanted to know why the first group was laughing. Either way it was a good way of insuring that the entire audience would be engaged and wondering what I was going to do next. We’ve had our funny, now it’s time to refocus on the love story

But it’s the song of the Griffin the stirs them
With a love you can see in their eyes

Verse three is where everything must come together. It’s the place where the emotional payload gets detonated. By now I know my theme, and it is the Transformation of The Other.

There are days when I wonder where this road will end
Will I say here or journey again
There are time I remember my distant homeland
Like the face of a long absent friend

The experience of moving, to a new school, or a new house, or a job, or a new town, is all but universal. I have now given the “Other” a story that the audience can relate to. In fact, at this point the last four lines have all but written themselves in the imagination of the audience, because we all know how the story ends. It ends exactly as we want it to end.

But when I hear the song of the Griffin
Filled with courage and love that’s so strong
I know that I’ve not traveled far from my home
But back to the place I belong

If you can deliver on that emotional resolution there is no possibility that the audience will not respond. We cement that emotional connection in the finial chorus

And we’ll sing you the song of the Griffin in war
And the song of the Griffin in love
As we raise up our voice to the Great Northing Star
That hangs in the heavens above

Yes, we’ll sing you the song of the Griffin in war
And the song of the Griffin in love
As we raise up our voice to the Great Northern Star
That hangs from the heavens above

The “Yes” in “Yes, we’ll sing….” is also important. It invites the audience to confirm the conclusion, to endorse the transformation and extend the membership of “us” to the speaker. Every act of inclusion brings the performer and the audience closer together. The art, indeed the magic, of performance is in taking them from “I’m the audience” to “this is our story.”

One thing about Northshield that I’ve always been amazed by is how well our populace does harmony. I knew that by this point the audience would be singing along with the chorus (after all that’s kind of the point of writing a chorus) and I knew that a fair number of them would be singing the harmony. Knowing this had given me an idea. At the start of the finial chorus I stopped playing and looked at the audience “Bring me the harmony Northshield,” and they did.

A few days later I sat down in my office and fixed all the broken rhymes and misremembered names. I fiddled with the music, tried out some variations and polished things up a bit. It is, in my estimation, a better song now than it was on the day it was first performed.

The live performance: http://bit.ly/2vyseq1
The revised recording: http://bit.ly/2u2QEIB

The finial lyrics with chords: http://bit.ly/2vynfWo

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[1] Abstract: The Art of Design. Radical Media, Tremolo Productions . Christoph Niemann: Illustration. Netflix https://www.netflix.com/watch/80093803?trackId=200257859

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SigS3JvgrF0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HSrZNOBKbE