This summer starts my descent into fandom, or more specifically, filkdom. As a bit of background, I’m a musicologist who has done some work on parody song (contrafacta) in the French eighteenth century, a practice dubbed vaudeville. At the time, it was a common hobby to match self-written lyrics with folk songs or especially catchy dance tunes by well-known composers (such as Lully). This diversion spanned all social classes and was an important part of the establishment of French comic opera—opéra comique. Opéra Comique was a very distant forerunner of what we now call American Vaudeville.
Spending so much time studying historical parodic practices piqued my interest in contemporary contrafacta, and as I started to google “musical parody,” the term “filk” caught my eye.
Filk is a genre of music in which lyrics celebrating Science Fiction and Fantasy fan culture are set to existing tunes. It is the musical folk practice of creative fandom, parallel in many ways to fan fiction and fan art, birthed over half a century ago at science fiction conventions around the US. For a clear, basic introduction to this art, see M.A.S.S.F.I.L.C.’s definition.
So here I am, delighted to begin a new branch of study on my never ending quest to enjoy music making and to become a more knowledgeable musicologist. I hope that the writings that I post in the future, whether directly related to filk or to music and musicology in general, find use in both the fan community and the musical community.
My musicological shorts will be cross-posted at my WordPress site and my LiveJournal site.
Look for my first thoughts in the next few days.
Best to all,
jg
