Attention

 

I have recently had the opportunity to start up “Bardic Workshops” within my local Barony. Mostly the idea is just to get the bards in the area together to create a sort of support group for writing, performing, creating, and developing our skills all the way around.

One of the things that I have a real desire to focus on is the idea of “attention.” Of course for me this means things like ‘managing attention’ or ‘misdirection’ because as a magician it is very important to me to be able to do that. Otherwise I’m not as entertaining as I should be.

But the concept of attention is one that is valuable to every kind of performer. If we can’t keep the audience on us than we just aren’t doing what we should be doing. The job of Bard (in this Kingdom it’s generally Bard of The West, Bard of The Mists, Bard of Cynagua and then a number of more local bardic positions depending on where you are) is to entertain.

We have a number of challenges when it comes to that however. Often we have a crowded feast hall to compete with, even when it’s an official presentation. Around a bardic circle we have tons of things to deal with that can get in the way of any particular performance ranging from environment to talking to outside noises.

I’m not going to elaborate on those challenges and what to do about them in this post (I do that in my paper on Theatrical Skills for Bards), but I am going to suggest one thing –

Watch this video (it’s interesting in and of itself), and all though it is mostly geared towards what magicians might do, it’s the final question asked that I think is most important.

So, as a bard, as an entertainer of any kind, what’s your answer to his question?