30 Jul
2010
30 Jul
'10
7:26 p.m.
I call many events with recorded music. There are advantages to using recorded music. The
advantage is that you can pick exactly what music you will use for a given piece. It's
especially great for novelty dances that would be difficult to do with most contra dance
bands, but which are awesome for a one night stand. Things like the Bunny Hop or getting
just the right music for singing calls or Cumberland Square. While live music is usually
best, recorded music can be great for private parties.
As David says, if you call squares (which are better for one night stands than duple-minor
contra dances) you may know how long the dance is and can fit it to the music. And there
is nothing wrong with simply turning off the piece. As long as you do it at the end of the
phrase, while you are calling, the dancers won't notice it wasn't the end of the
piece.
HTH,
Beth
-----Original Message-----
Tina Fields
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 12:21 PM
Subject: [Callers] Calling without a band?
Have any of you called for a dance without a band? I've gotten a query about
calling a barn dance, but their budget is teeny tiny, so they asked if I could call
to CDs. I know this is quite possible; my dad used to call square dances to
records, but those records were specifically made for dancing to. Most contra
music tracks I have only last at most ~3 minutes. I could theoretically splice
the tracks together to make a repeating loop, but this is a lot of time
investment and also, how would you know when the music would stop, in
order to go out? Would you try to guess, or just unceremoniously turn the
thing off, or do the "mood fade?" (And no, sadly, I'm not like Alan Furth
or
Erik Hoffmann, folks who can call and play guitar/fiddle/banjo//etc. well at
the same time.)