Classes
I've given the following classes:
Bardic Boot Camp 101: Meter Halfway
Soldiers go to boot camp to learn basic disciplines like marching and shooting straight, but too often Bards skip the step of knowing their essential tools. By contrasting passages from Shakespeare, Beowulf, and the Ballad of Gilligan's Island, and with in-class exercises, we'll explore the use of rhythm and sound patterns, and how they influence meaning. This is actually too large a subject to cover in a single class, but it's a beginning.
Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare
Some doubt that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works attributed to him. An examination of the evidence reveals not only that Shakespeare did indeed write Shakespeare but also many fascinating things about Elizabethan life, in court, in the theater, and in their everyday world. Skeptics welcome.
Speaking Shakespeare's Verse
Most of Shakespeare's dramatic verse is in a regular meter, iambic pentameter, which feels like "elevated" but natural English speech (of course, Shakespeare's vocabulary is another matter entirely). When Shakespeare varies that meter he reveals his "stage directions" for how to speak it.
Frighted Out of Fear
"To be furious is to be frighted out of fear." (Shakespeare) Performance anxiety - stage fright - is experienced by nearly all performers. We will discuss how to manage the discomfort and transform it into useful energy by examining the techniques used by master performers, athletes (including SCA combatants), public speakers, etc.
Seven Stranded Castaways
Seven lessons about songwriting from Shakespeare, Marlowe, Anonymous, and others.
The following classes are presently a bunch of notes, but they could be ready for your next event!
Bardic Boot Camp 102: It is the Yeast
If meter and sound patterns are the flour and water of the writing process, then imagery is the yeast which can make your work rise to greater heights. By contrasting works from period and non-period writers, and with in-class exercises, we'll explore imagery and how it influences meaning.
The Thee-Thou Theminar
"I want to write forsoothly. What should I do?" Don't. You'll just make yourself look foolish. But if you must, here are the basics of pre-modern grammar and usage that will keep you from the most dreadful errors. Don't worry, it'll be fun.