Ah! the trials and tribulations of what some of us call The One Night Stand Dance. Many of us have learned that, when calling to a group of beginners, hands-four dances come way late in the evening, if at all. Right & left thru, women chain, progressing, are all big challenges for beginners. Even understanding the line is a challenge.

You might want to purchase a book or two on the subject. Dudley's Traditional Barn Dances with Calls, is a great one, as are Marian Rose's Step Lively books, and The New England Dancing Masters books.

And, of course, I could use this for unsolicited self promotion, as I wrote a book called Old-Time Dance Calling for Weddings, Parties, and One-Night Stands. ($18 to be mailed to you, $15 if you come get it...).

~erik hoffman


On 3/27/2015 7:47 AM, Brooks Hart via Callers wrote:
So, as the original poster, I am reporting back.

The dance with the solo fiddler was a mixed bag.  The music was very nice, but because I am new to calling, and our dancers are 99% beginners, way too much time was spent on walk-throughs and teaching. The fiddler sat out for long stretches of time, which seemed like a waste of his time and the money spent on live music.

I thought I had picked easy dances, but you wouldn't believe how confounded so many of the people were at "right and left through",  and that falls on me and my lack of experience with teaching and crowd wrangling.

A special moment for everyone, though, was doing a circle waltz dance with the fiddler playing, unplugged, in the center of the circle. 

So, thanks again for everyone's input and encouragement,
Brooks




> Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 03:50:51 -0700
> To: callers@lists.sharedweight.net
> Subject: Re: [Callers] Solo fiddler or recorded music?
> From: callers@lists.sharedweight.net
>
> [resting up before the CALLERLAB convention, catching up on some older
> messages]
>
> On Thu, Mar 05, 2015, Neal Schlein via Callers wrote:
> >
> > So, the moral of the story is that if a caller isn't USED to working with a
> > band, live music isn't necessarily going to result in the best experience
> > for the dancers.
>
> My experience as a relatively new caller is that it also depends on the
> caller's experience as a dancer. My hearing makes it a bit difficult to
> tune into the phrasing of a live band to call at the correct times, but
> because I've been contra dancing for so many years (almost exclusively to
> live music) I can roughly manage it -- and I know what it's supposed to
> sound like.
> --
> Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
> <*> <*> <*>
> Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
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