20 Mar
2023
20 Mar
'23
11:43 p.m.
Hi Kat,
I’m a pretty inexperienced caller, but a very experienced psychologist so let me bring
that (latter) experience to the table.
Before we get to my suggested approach let me say it is absolutely not unreasonable to
want tunes that fit the dances (or dances to fit the tunes). That is essential. (I don’t
mean they have to match everything beautifully, but at least to be able to have a smooth
or driving or decent mood match if not a higher level one.) I’m not sure how you & the
band can make that happen without some coordination. A good contra band can do that on the
fly by looking at the caller’s card. But these musicians clearly aren’t there yet. So I
think there will have to be some sort of collaboration to make this work. It sounds like
the approach you’ve been taking felt icky to them for some reason. Maybe they don’t
understand at all that there has to be a match (in which case you came across to them as a
control freak (which you are NOT).. Might be they know they’re not good at this and so
they are defensive. Or might be that they don’t get it that this isn’t a concert, it’s a
dance, and so the musicians can’t just choose the music for its musical arc, they have to
also coordinate tune choices with dance program. Since they’re not dancers, they might not
even realize this, so you might have to do a bit of education/explanation before diving
into finding a solution.
I would recommend using what I refer to as the model of a healthy assertive conversation.
There are 4 steps:
1. Asking for a problem-solving talk (outside of the pressure of a dance evening—maybe a
cup of coffee or a zoom call far in advance of the next time they’re playing a dance.) By
way of setting it up, If you’re worried about more defensiveness on their part, you might
apologize for trying to solve the tune/dance matching problem without consulting with them
to find out what sort of collaboration would work best for them. (An apology up front
might soften the defensiveness I think I’m hearing from them.) But then say that the
approach of them choosing music and you choosing dances independently from each other
doesn’t work for contra dancing (explain why if needed), so you had been trying to find a
way to solve that problem, but their comment last time (I don’t appreciate…) made you
realize this approach isn’t working for them. So could we have a brainstorming
conversation to find a way to coordinate the tunes & dances that works better for
them? Once you’re in that meeting, explain you want to explain your needs and ask them to
say what their needs are, then figure out a way to meet everyone’s needs. Thus:
2. Explain what your needs are (including why it is central to the success of a dance to
have the music and dance match well), and
3. Ask what their needs are, then
4. Putting your heads together to try to find a solution.
If they’re not open to collaborating at all, then I don’t see how you can call contra with
them. If they don’t understand that there’s a difference between a concert and a dance,
they’ll never be any good as a contra band.
Good luck! If you need any more coaching from the psychology side feel free to message me
back channel.
Becky
On Mar 20, 2023, at 8:12 PM, Katherine Kitching via
Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hey I wanted to thank everyone so much, who replied about the general issue of
communicating with musicians and how important it is (or not) to match tunes to dances.
the comments that some of you have shared, including Jeff below, makes me realize a very
important difference between the bands I am working with and (at least some? all?) of the
bands you are working with.
the bands I work with do not choose music based on the walk-through. They have a
set-list already set for the evening when they come in the door.
When I am doing the walk through (which is more than a walk through in our community -
before each dance a new figure or two are taught in a big teaching circle so it can take
5-7 minutes depending on the dance), the band is often in the kitchen having a tea break,
or quietly talking amongst themselves. I am 99 percent sure they are not listening to me
at all, and certainly not thinking about the specific dance and what will go well with it.
So ....this is interesting! I think i'll reach out to the bands and ask if they are
interested in taking an active role in tune selection.
If you have any suggestions on how I should do this, let me know. Many of our musicians
are not contra dancers so..... will they even be able to do this? I am not sure. And/or
it might take some time?
For the folks who said it's best to let the band play what they want, I did want to
ask - would you be satisfied as a caller if you called every dance for the entire year, to
a tune that was selected by the band without them knowing what dance it was?
That is how i've been operating the past decade and i've found it so hit and
miss. personally I find sometimes having the wrong tune can really hamper the
dancers' enjoyment of a dance.
For a recent example - we have occasionally danced Citronella Morning in my group - or
some variant that includes the last half of the dance - -and it's always been a great
crowd pleaser. it's not an easy dance for our group - but when they get it, and they
sink into the rhythm of the balances and turns, the joyous energy in the room is palpable.
I love calling it.
In my experience it works better with a jig - and that is the level the bands are
currently at -they often (though not always) ask me if I want a reel or a jig for each
dance. So the most recent time I called it, I requested a jig - but as the music started
I realized it was not at all the bouncy feel I was looking for.
I soldiered on and called the dance, and the dancers did dance it -- but it never got
easy for them - they never really sank in to the rhythm of the balances and petronellas,
and we never got that feeling of joy in the room.
As the caller I tried so hard to use the cadence of my voice to get people to feel the
rhythm of the balances and turns (in my group I call for the whole dance! Ppl complain if
I don't).... but I just felt like I was fighting the music the whole time.
that was one of those moments that made me feel like I want more from my relationship
with the band, than them simply playing a random tune of their choosing.
I am curious if this is a reasonable desire to have.
A few folks on this thread have said "let the band play what they want, any dance
will go with any tune" - but-- is this really ok 100 percent of the time? Or is this
an approach to take once in a while if you feel friction with a particular band?
It just feels like a terrible waste of potential for me - where having a good match of
tune and dance can create magic in the air.... and without that good match an otherwise
good dance seems to fall quite flat sometimes....
thank you some more, for your thoughts :)
Kat
Mar 19, 2023 8:11:57 PM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>et>:
Hi Kat,
As someone not in the bands you were working with in this is a bit of speculative reply,
but here's a try anyway. Thinking about how I'd feel as the band in the first
situation, being asked to give previews of the tunes we intended to play after which the
caller would tell us which tune to play when, heres why I wouldn't be thrilled:
* We usually don't know what tunes or sets we're going to play. We have a bunch
of sets we like, but we normally select a specific one right before it's time to play
based on a range of things: what dance has the caller chosen, what role does the caller
see this dance filling, what was the last dance like, maybe what is the next dance like,
how does the hall feel, how tired we are, etc.
* Hearing each tune once through doesn't tell you that much about what it will feel
like to dance to. For example, in one of my bands we play Trip to Moscow as a trancy
peaceful march, while in another we play it as a very energetic set to end a half with.
* If the caller chooses the tunes for us they might pick ones that we don't think fit
musically with what we're playing before or after, or with this spot in the evening.
* It's normally the caller's role to choose the dances and decide the general
feeling for each slot, and the musicians' role to pick the tunes to match.
Sometimes we'll work together in advance with a caller to decide which tunes to play
when, usually back and forth over email, but generally only for unusual events: a short
festival slot, medley, etc. And we both understand that this may need to be changed on
the fly based on what's happening in the hall.
With the second situation you're describing, it's very hard to say what was going
wrong without hearing how this particular band plays that tune, and which sorts of dances
you were trying to pair with it.
Jeff
On Sun, Mar 19, 2023 at 5:54 PM Katherine Kitching via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote:
Hello from Halifax!
I will preface this by saying that I consider myself a relatively "beginner"
caller. I have been working on it for about 15 years now and I think I've become
somewhat proficient at calling a very beginner-friendly sequence of dances at our monthly
beginner-friendly dances here in Halifax - but that is about the extent of what I do.
And we rarely ever dance anything as involved as a Hey, here :)
One area where I definitely lack skill is communicating to our bands (we have 4-5 groups
who play for us regularly), in a succinct manner that doesn't ruffle their feathers,
about what sort of a tune I want for each dance.
This task is made more difficult by the fact that I write (or heavily modify) pretty much
all our dances, so I can't look online to find recommendations or videos of tunes that
fit.
As far as I know, I am a polite and caring human who never sets out to put anyone down or
show them that I know better. I try to be humble about the fact that i'm just learning
and doing the best I can. For example, last month, with apologies, I asked the band if
they would mind quickly going through their planned tunes for the evening, so I could run
through my dance program and try to assign a dance to each tune.
Because I lack the vocabulary and experience to tell a band "for this dance, I
need a tune with characteristics X and Y" - having them play the tune one time
through (sometimes even just half of it!) is so far the most effective method i've
found to get a tune that works for each dance. It's also worth mentioning that our
bands are not experienced contra bands - since we are the only contra group they work with
- and most have limited sets to offer us - for example the last band came with 8 sets of
tunes, to match up with the 8 dances I had planned.... so when I found one or two that
weren't an ideal fit for anything, I did have to work quite hard rearrange things a
few times to slot everything in!
Anyhow it took about 7 minutes to do this, and I thanked them profusely, and the
dance-tune meld went well! I thanked them again after. But still, the lead musician told
me after the event that she "didn't really appreciate being told which tune to
play when" . And that deflated me for sure :(
Anyhow, I welcome any grains of wisdom on this process generally (and/or a link if one
exists to this amazing cdss online workshop I took years ago on matching tunes to
dances/communicating with bands)....
but my specific question is this:
A *different* band - the one whose feathers I most often seem to ruffle haha - has always
played a tune set somewhere in the evening, the past few times they've played for us,
that no matter which dance I called to it, I felt it was always a really bad fit.
I never said anything bad about it, to be clear!! But after a few dances where it bummed
me out every single time, I finally asked the lead musician via email (as politely as I
could, putting all the blame on myself: "I just can't seem to find a dance that
i'm able to call to this tune, would you mind leaving it out in the future?" ).
I got this response:
"The Queteux Pomerleau set that you are quoting can be removed - the speed of the
dancers never gets up to a level to make that set effective. They are Quebecois tunes that
we learned from Sue, but in Quebec they are danced to quite fast."
(This refers to Sue Songer who came as part of an amazing week-long workshop CDSS blessed
us with about 8 years ago.)
Anyhow I was curious if anyone knows of this set, and could suggest some simple contra
dances that would go well with it.
I confess I am not a fan of the feel of the tune for the context in which I call - most
of the east-coasty jigs and reels that this band and our other bands play really get all
the dancers cheering and stomping their feet, and this one never does....
But I want to be open minded about it :)
thanks!
Kat K in Halifax
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