I've wandered around the edges of filk, without jumping in, as I've never been to a Scifi Con(vention), but I read the books, and have friends who go. I even know someone who is a very well thought of filksinger who in the rest of her life is a damnfine singersongwriter, singer and performer, and keeper of cats. Threre is a wonderful bit in Sharyn McCrumb's hysterical mystery/comedy "Bimbos of the Death Sun" that gives a good feel for the filk process, as it were. It details how a Scottish traditional perfomer finds himself in the same hotel as a scifi convention and hears the filksing & sets about telling them "yer not singing it right, laddie.. it goes like THIS."

It's really a tiny niche of the folksong continuum, to my way of thinking. Remember Venn Diagrams from grade school? You'd have one circle representing one group of something, and another circle that was of something else, and perhaps a third, etc. Then you'd overlap 'em.

I see a big pool of folks who like Science fiction - Set 1
I see a big pool of folks who like traditional folk music - Set 2
I see a good sized group of folks who like to pursue their passions in the company of other like minded souls - Set 3

Overlap these three sets to form a triangle, and the smallest section in the middle that holds all three groups are the filkers. Of that group, some fewer still write and perform the songs. Then you winnow those down to those who do it very well, and you have a select group that's perhaps larger than the number of competent bombarde players in the US, but less numerous than those who are compentent fingerstyle guitarists. A good deal of the songs use a traditonal tune, or even plotline, as the basis for something that might be dismissed as parody, but is "filk" instead. Some entirely new songs with fresh tunes show up in this venue, likely because these are the people who are most receptive to them. I'm minded of a Peggy Seeger space-going shanty romance in that vein.

I find the entire concept delightful, even if there are "filk police" and the same sort of folks who'll tell ya "Yer not singing it like Joan Baez does!" in trad circles.   

Joanne In Cleveland