Phwew.. OK,... a slightly different point of view from out here in the wilderness I guess. 

Maybe 30 (35?) or so years ago, I was still pretty much a beginner caller. I was a dance musician as well and also did sound for the 4th Friday North Whitefield dance here in Maine. This was my mentor Ted Sannella's home dance and he called most of the evenings. Ted always used cards but it was clear he really didn't need to. One night when Ted was out of town, Susan Kevra was supposed to call but she had car issues and couldn't make it. We found out maybe 10 minutes before the dance was to start. I was asked to call, and of course didn't have any cards, but managed to piece together a program from memory. Not saying it was a brilliant program but I didn't have to use the same dance twice and everyone had fun. Since that moment I decided it would be a good idea not to be tied down to cards. One of my other mentors, David Kaynor, never used cards and he was playing fiddle at the same time! I kept thinking, shoot a fiddle player can play 100's of tunes from memory. How can a dance which typically only has 6-8 figures in the whole dance be any harder to remember than a tune? The trick is sort of remembering the "hook" in the dance. Similar to how a fiddler is fine as long as they can remember the first few notes of the tune. Once you have the hook, the dance becomes pretty clear, to me anyway. Plus you have the walk-through to maybe fumble through and make sure you have it all right.

Back in the day when I was calling a lot, I probably had 50-100 dances I could call from memory. If I wanted something different, I'd study a dance beforehand and memorize it, only occasionally making a few notes. Since I was often playing in the band at the same time, I found it very freeing not being tied down to looking at cards and being able to completely pay attention to the dancers was good both from the caller's and musician's point of view. The phone ain't ringing that much anymore and I'm mostly calling local dances, often with a LOT of beginners. So a lot of the programs look similar and my "memory cache" has shrunk quite a bit. Use it or lose it I guess. Still, I don't find the need for cards.

I'm not saying everyone should throw away their cards, but it's pretty clear from reading this email thread that having a few dances or maybe 10 that one can call from memory ain't a bad idea. Try it, you might be surprised. In fact just sit down and write down some dances. They are in there. Having the courage to be up on stage in front of 100 dancers without the card, well that's another story!  - just sayin'

bill in Maine

(on a couple related notes, I remember Rick Mohr showing me a business card sized card he had in his wallet. He developed a shorthand for the calls and in very small type had 100 dances, 50 on each side of one card that he kept with him all the time. That was before smartphones (hah maybe before cellphones) and "aps" which can now do the same thing, but I thought that was pretty clever. Also, Larry Unger always kept a bunch of dance cards in his guitar case. Probably still does. They were there to help out a caller in need when he was playing for a dance)
From: barrie bullimore via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 2:06 PM
To: Jon Greene <greeneneerg@gmail.com>
Cc: Abbie Sorg <absorg@gmail.com>; Callers Contra <contracallers@sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: Caller nightmare
 
Some years ago now, I was the caller for a dance weekend.  I had sent my programmes for the workshops and dance sessions to the band but I forgot to take my dance cards with me.  To my surprise, I was able to call the whole programme, English, Scottish, contras and squares without my cards. I made sure it never happened again!

Barrie Bullimore (UK)



On Wed, Jan 22, 2025 at 12:02 PM Jon Greene via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I always bring my cards to a dance. That ensures that the caller will show up. If I don’t bring them, they might not.

   - Jon
      Great Barrington, MA

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 21, 2025, at 3:14 PM, Abbie Sorg via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:


I had that exact same nightmare when I was a brand new caller, probably before I even called my first full evening. I nearly always bring my box of dance cards anytime I go to a local dance as a dancer, because of the memory of that nightmare. Nice to know I'm not the only one!

Abbie
Tucson, AZ

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 12:48 PM Amy Wimmer via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

My spouse and I are both callers who run a weekly dance. In the 20+ years we've been doing this I can only think of 2 times the caller was a no-show. The first time it happened there were 3 callers in the hall. While I drove home to get my dance collection the others called dances they had memorized. Since that time my spouse has brought his dance collection to every dance, just in case. But sometimes we're not there. What a great idea to leave a collection, even a whole program, at the dance! Gonna do it! Thanks for the tip!


On Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 10:48 AM sdgola--- via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I was greeted at the door once by Organizers telling me that the scheduled caller was a no-show.  This was 5 minutes before the start of the dance (I was attending with the expectation of being a dancer).  The money box had a few scraps of paper with dances written on them, so we started with those.  I asked a couple of dancers to sit out and use their phones to look up dance figures while I got the dance going.  The originally booked caller had forgotten, so I became the caller for the full evening.

Now I carry a couple of printed programs with me.

Sue Gola
Princeton/Mt Airy

On Tuesday, January 21, 2025 at 01:21:01 PM EST, Colin Hume via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:


On Tue, 21 Jan 2025 10:11:33 -0800, Gary Shapiro via Contra Callers wrote:
> I haven't been a contra caller for many years, but last night I dreamt I was at a dance and the caller did not show
> up. There were no other callers in attendance. So I got up there wondering what dances I knew by heart. I think I
> knew how A Nice Combination went. Then I woke up and thought about it some more. I decided that every dance venue
> should keep a dance program, with instructions, somewhere.

I've been in that situation at a Festival - the caller was delayed on the motorway - and I realised I only knew two
contras by heart, neither of which was a good one to start with.  I actually had my lap-top with all my dances on it,
but it was at the other venue.  I managed to remember Bob Dalsemer's "Maggie's Hobby".  I now have some cards
for a few contras and squares in my shoulder bag along with the other vital stuff like Mars Bars and cough medicine!

And yet I can remember lots of quite complicated English dances!

Colin Hume


_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net