Re: [Callers] Questions for traveling and/or busy callers

Some thoughts on the questions that have come up on this thread. BOOKING SEASON: As mentioned, here in the the Bay Area we have a couple groups, and they book in different ways: BACDS: The Bay Area Country Dance Society (BACDS) tends to book on the quarter. And within each dance series there are different methods. Of course, with itinerant bands and callers, we are willing to book far ahead. The quarter system works pretty well this way, for two reasons: 1) Far away dates aren't booked for local talent and it's easy to work with travelers who need to set up travel, and 2) Local musicians and callers are less likely to call up and say, "I'd like to bow out because I got an offer for a high-paying private gig," since these, too, are usually set up in advance. Within each series (contra anyway, I'm not so aware of the ECD habits), there is the "book a band / caller for a date" or the "matrix method". As Jim Saxe points out the "matrix method" is a way to strive to make sure you're letting everyone get a chance. I book the Wednesday Berkeley Dance, and do it the other way. As a band member and caller, it's hard when Booking Season arrives, and you have the Sacramento, Monterey, and Bay Area Dances all looking for talent on 2nd & 4th Saturdays. Sending info to one and then booking with another, then forgetting to let the matrix organizer know you've eliminated that date is confusing, to say the least, and slightly troubling when you get the call that the date you're given is the one you just booked... I do it the ask the band "What date do you want." And, occasionally I ask them to switch. Of course, booking a mid week dance is somewhat less challenging, since it usually doesn't compete with lots of other gigs. NBCDS: Tends to book a littler farther down the road. Queer Contra: Tends to book 6 months ahead. Used to do a year. I'm not completely sure, but I think they do some long-term booking ahead, too. Monterey: Tends to book on the quarter Sacramento: Tends to book on the quarter, but I think they're sort of on the quarter, but sometimes on 4 and 6 month cycles. I think, sometime the booker goes traveling, and books ahead. All of this is from the kinds of calls & emails I get, so take it with a grain of salt. PROGRAMMING: I've never been good at keeping track of dances I call. I was bad at it then, I'd get home, or wherever I was staying, and try to reconstruct the program. Then I never reviewed it. I tend to program spur of the moment. Sometimes I start having an idea of what I want to cover, or maybe one dance I want us to do, with a particular challenge, then see what I can do to get there. But the sense of the hall always bends me in different ways, and I don't think I've ever done a program that I've stuck with, except at weekends where we're doing Chestnuts, or "Surf Squares" (Squares from Sets in Order with Surf names like "Riptide"). As far as not repeating myself in a certain area: I don't think dancers notice as much as callers, and, dancers often like the same dances. Dudley has mentioned doing the Virginia Reel at the beginning of a night and at the end of the evening. I've been at music camps where they want to dance the Virginia Reel every night. I know that's not our sophisticated contra crowd, but many of us would love to do Chorus Jig at every other dance. When I started dancing at the once a month Santa Barbara Dance, if you had danced there 6 months, you'd danced every dance David Woodsfellow called. Well, yes, he'd throw in one or two new ones he learned, but the accumulation of dances was slow. And, it was exciting! I knew the dances, and, if I danced with someone new I could help lead them through. There were few surprises, and it was a blast. When David Left, and Jim X. Borzym left, and two of us locals, Carl Managnosc and myself became the local Santa Barbara callers, we used to meet and decide which dances we wanted to make sure stayed in the local repertoire by making sure we included them. So I don't worry too much about not calling the same dances. If it's a day apart, and mostly the same people, I try not to, and, usually, don't. If it's a week apart, I try not to, and trust my sense of inspiration to guide me. If it's more than a week apart, I worry not at all -- though I still trust that I'm going guided to calling mostly different dances, with perhaps a few repeats. And I no longer keep track of programming, even though part of me wishes I would. I'm just a horrible bookkeeper. (Which reminds me, October 15 is tax day for me: the second extension time is running out, I shouldn't be writing this right now...) MANY NIGHTS: I love calling and/or playing, and would do it every night, if possible. It enlivens me. I recall back when I could get the time to go on tour, and we'd book 4 to 6 dances a week for three weeks. There was a stride we got into being out every night. When we missed a night, it broke the rhythm a bit. It's a lot of fun driving to a new place, checking it out for a while, calling or playing for a dance, staying at someone's house. I'd like to do that more again. And, even here, I love doing this and can easily do it every day. Luckily, my other work is teaching, so, I'm lucky, I put instruments in my hands and get to make a lot of noise... Getting up and calling never makes me nervous. I recall being full of stage fright and stumbling over my words at a city council meeting where I wanted to make my three minute point. And, I always get worried about what I'm going to do as a solo musician at Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle School, when I'm supposed to do something in the Staff Concert. I mean, I get hired to run sound and call the evening party dances, not stand alone in front of virtuoso musicians and play. But calling or playing for dancers never makes me nervous, so I guess I'm lucky that way. All for now, ~erik hoffman oakland, ca On 9/11/2013 12:50 PM, Kalia Kliban wrote: I've just finished a full summer camp season, with 4 week-long camps in just under 8 weeks and some home-town gigs in between. I feel pretty wrung out. I've also had seasons when I overbooked and had a big concentration of local gigs (11 gigs and a weekend, plus a pile of performance rehearsals, in 8 weeks) that left me similarly pooped. I've carefully booked the upcoming season to leave myself more down time, and it's helping a lot. No more than one gig a weekend, with occasion weeknights. My question is for the other callers who call a lot, especially if you travel to do it. What sorts of things to you do to take care of yourself when your schedule is really intense? How do you keep your calling fresh, and your attitude good? Do you have any personal routines that help you focus? Aside from the fact that what we're doing is mountains of fun, it's also a lot of work and takes careful concentration and preparation. There's a local square dance caller who does something like 320 gigs a year. I need to ask him sometime how he does it, but he's always moving too fast to engage in conversation. Maybe this is one of those questions that falls too far toward the "advanced" end of the discussion spectrum. I don't know. But it's one I'd love to hear from other hard-working callers about. Kalia _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers