[Callers] Re: Resources to turn musicians into dance musicians? - length of a typical dance?

Seth, has anyone mentioned Noah Van Nordstrom's recent publication available from CDSS? Sorry if it's already been mentioned. This thread is getting a lot of replies! New in the store! - Country Dance & Song Society <https://cdss.org/about/whats-new/new-in-the-store/> New in the store! - Country Dance & Song Society Anne Campbell A Musician’s Guide to Contra Choreography Andrew VanNorstrand, guitarist and fiddler from the beloved contra dan... <https://cdss.org/about/whats-new/new-in-the-store/> Vicki Morrison TCFOOTD Tallahassee, FL On Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 11:53:42 AM EDT, Katherine Kitching via Contra Callers &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: I think Rich's point about the tempo signals is worth highlighting!! Before I realized that I needed to specifically discuss this with the band in advance, I had a few mishaps where my enthusiastic raising-and-re-raising of my hands was taken to mean that I wanted to the band to play LOUDER, and my calming-lowering-of-my-hands gestures were taken to mean I wanted them to play quieter :) And-- Just for anyone else who wasn't in the know, I wrote to Rich and he explained to me that "piece count" means the number of figures in the dance. I did not know that :) Kat K Hfx Rich Goss &lt;rich(a)richgoss.com&gt; Thursday, September 5, 2024 10:02 AM Just to add a couple of thoughts Katherine triggered. The piece count of a dance has a bearing on the tempo. Higher the piece count, generally the slower the tempo and vice versa. Also, I like to make clear up front my signals for speeding up or slowing down. Rich Katherine Kitching via Contra Callers &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; Thursday, September 5, 2024 9:43 AM Hi John (and everyone), just catching up on the listserv and went to your "Callers and Music" page-- very helpful info there! I wish I had found it last year when I was looking for resources for this caller-and-musician workshop that we did. In particular, I had searched all over the internet last year for some clue as to how many times through a typical improper duple contra dance would run, and had a real hard time finding that info. I had concluded that with 5 duples in a set (our usual), we might dance through up to 17 times, which would take about 9 minutes at 117bpm..... so that those who started at the top would get back to the top. Do you think that's too long? I was under the impression that in the US the lines are often longer than 5 duples, and that the convention was to dance long enough to let everyone travel up and down the line the whole way....so I was thinking that in a seasoned contra dance group the dance might go on 15 minutes or more? Very curious about this now! Kat Kitching in Halifax NS Sep 4, 2024 3:16:24 PM John Sweeney via Contra Callers &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; &lt;contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt;et>: _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net