[Callers] Need musical advice

[Masha Goodman Crawford via Callers]

Two days away?Give them the tempo, and call unphrased dances, or at least don't worry if the phrases of the dancedon't match the phrases of the tune.  Let them choose something they know & can have fun with at the right speed. Maybe you can choose something from their tune list -Jambalaya is great, and only 2 chords. Johnny B. Goode can work. They might know Turkey In The Straw or Cotton-Eyed Joe,but there's no guarantee anything will be 32-bars.I'd request NO vocals, though, or it's too hard for the dancers to focus on the calls.
Let them know approximately how long a dance will go, and make sure you agree on an Ending signal.Really.  Focus on the fun!
good luck -- masha
 
      From: Kalia Kliban via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net>
 To: Caller's discussion list <callers at sharedweight.net>; trad-dance-callers at yahoogroups.com; English Country Dance and related forms <ECD at bacds.org> 
 Sent: Monday, June 6, 2016 5:19 PM
 Subject: [Callers] Need musical advice
   
Hi all

I'm posting this to several different callers' lists (ECD, 
trad-dance-callers and shared weight) in hopes of some speedy advice. 
I'm heading off shortly (Weds. evening, 6/8) for an event that is not a 
dance event, but at which I've been asked to lead a short community 
dance session on "honky tonk night."  The band for this is _not_ a 
traditional dance band.  They're more of a garage band with bar-band 
aspirations.  I wrote to them several weeks ago to check in about music, 
and when I didn't hear back, wrote again about a week ago.  Then again, 
and finally heard back right as I was getting ready to leave for the 
airport for a weekend gig, from which I've just returned.

Their contact person tells me that sheet music would be useful, which 
puts me in the position of trying to figure out a very small assortment 
of tunes to send them.  We're doing about 1/2 hour of dancing, so at the 
most it'll be 3 dances.  With 2 jigs and 2 reels I can make this work. 
The question is "which ones?"  And that's where you all come in.  I'm 
looking for recommendations for a small assortment of simple, enjoyable 
tunes for community dancing.  As a non-musican, I have no idea which 
tunes are easy to pick up quickly and which aren't, so I'm hoping some 
of you can help me out.

Kalia Kliban

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