However, the practice of filking, of taking an existing melody and providing new, usually topical and/or satirical, lyrics, is in fact the direct counterpart of the Medieval practice of writing contrafacta.
He has recently started to accompany himself on the piano, and created such wonderful songs as The Soul (filk of The Ship) and Internal Knight.
Music can be very important in fan texts and activities. Fans write and perform songs at gatherings about characters from television shows, not unlike the way that folk songs are sung in folk clubs. This can be seen in the name of this fan form: filk song. According to Jenkins , filk songs take their cue from commercial culture. They are about the characters from commercial television series, but ‘Filk turns commercial culture back into folk culture, existing as a mediator between two musical traditions. Its raw materials come from commercial culture; its logic is from folk culture’ (1992: 270).
I’m also involved in what is called filk music. This is music for and by fans of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Filk is nearly as big a part of my creative life as comics, and I have similarly made many friends among the creative people in that community.