Katherine Kitching wrote:

> the bands I work with do not choose music based on the walk-through.  They have a set-list already set for the evening when they come in the door.
When I am doing the walk through (which is more than a walk through in our community - before each dance a new figure or two are taught in a big teaching circle so it can take 5-7 minutes depending on the dance), the band is often in the kitchen having a tea break, or quietly talking amongst themselves.  I am 99 percent sure they are not listening to me at all, and certainly not thinking about the specific dance and what will go well with it.

Kat, I hesitated to jump into this discussion until I saw the paragraph above (part of your response to the responses). I hesitated because I realize I’m one of the most privileged callers out there, living in the Boston area with access to dozens of skilled musicians, many of whom have played for dancing for decades and pride themselves on prioritizing dancers’ needs. It obviously won’t help you to tell you that you should insist on certain behavior from your local bands.

But. I do feel that any band that chooses to play for group dancing (square, contra, ECD…) should be willing to meet the caller halfway. I would have trouble taking seriously a band that presented me with only 8 tunes or medleys, insisted on choosing the order of play, and opted out of watching the walkthroughs.

You say you work with bands, plural. Would it be possible in your community to get the bands to agree to participate more in the process if they wish to continue playing for dances?

Called forms of dance are weird in that they’re the only performing art I can think of where artists are routinely expected to collaborate onstage with other artists they don’t necessarily practice with and may not even have met. Again, I’m aware of my privilege – my area is rich in musicians and I’m not desperate for contra gigs – but after a recent negative experience, I insist on approving the organizers’ choice of band before I agree to have my name used in publicity. If I’ve worked with or listened/danced to key members of the band, that’s usually enough to satisfy me. But I want to give the dancers the best evening possible, and I can’t do that with insensitive music.

Tony Parkes

Billerica, Mass.

www.hands4.com

New book! Square Dance Calling: An Old Art for a New Century

(available now)

From: Katherine Kitching via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2023 8:13 PM
To: Jeff Kaufman <jeff@alum.swarthmore.edu>; Shared Weight Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: Curious about a tune - what dance would go with it? - with longish pre-amble

Hey I wanted to thank everyone so much, who replied about the general issue of communicating with musicians and how important it is (or not) to match tunes to dances.

the comments that some of you have shared, including Jeff below, makes me realize a very important difference between the bands I am working with and (at least some?  all?) of the bands you are working with.

the bands I work with do not choose music based on the walk-through.  They have a set-list already set for the evening when they come in the door.
When I am doing the walk through (which is more than a walk through in our community - before each dance a new figure or two are taught in a big teaching circle so it can take 5-7 minutes depending on the dance), the band is often in the kitchen having a tea break, or quietly talking amongst themselves.  I am 99 percent sure they are not listening to me at all, and certainly not thinking about the specific dance and what will go well with it.

So ....this is interesting! I think i'll reach out to the bands and ask if they are interested in taking an active role in tune selection.
If you have any suggestions on how I should do this, let me know.  Many of our musicians are not contra dancers so..... will they even be able to do this? I am not sure.  And/or it might take some time?

For the folks who said it's best to let the band play what they want, I did want to ask - would you be satisfied as a caller if you called every dance for the entire year, to a tune that was selected by the band without them knowing what dance it was?

That is how i've been operating the past decade and i've found it so hit and miss.  personally I find sometimes having the wrong tune can really hamper the dancers' enjoyment of a dance.

For a recent example - we have occasionally danced Citronella Morning in my group - or some variant that includes the last half of the dance - -and it's always been a great crowd pleaser.  it's not an easy dance for our group - but when they get it, and they sink into the rhythm of the balances and turns, the joyous energy in the room is palpable.
I love calling it.
In my experience it works better with a jig - and that is the level the bands are currently at -they often (though not always) ask me if I want a reel or a jig for each dance.  So the most recent time I called it, I requested a jig - but as the music started I realized it was not at all the bouncy feel I was looking for.

I soldiered on and called the dance, and the dancers did dance it -- but it never got easy for them - they never really sank in to the rhythm of the balances and petronellas, and we never got that feeling of joy in the room.
As the caller I tried so hard to use the cadence of my voice to get people to feel the rhythm of the balances and turns (in my group I call for the whole dance! Ppl complain if I don't).... but I just felt like I was fighting the music the whole time.

that was one of those moments that made me feel like I want more from my relationship with the band, than them simply playing a random tune of their choosing.

I am curious if this is a reasonable desire to have.
A few folks on this thread have said "let the band play what they want, any dance will go with any tune" - but-- is this really ok 100 percent of the time? Or is this an approach to take once in a while if you feel friction with a particular band?

It just feels like a terrible waste of potential for me - where having a good match of tune and dance can create magic in the air.... and without that good match an otherwise good dance seems to fall quite flat sometimes....

thank you some more, for your thoughts :)

Kat

Mar 19, 2023 8:11:57 PM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>:

Hi Kat,

As someone not in the bands you were working with in this is a bit of speculative reply, but here's a try anyway.  Thinking about how I'd feel as the band in the first situation, being asked to give previews of the tunes we intended to play after which the caller would tell us which tune to play when, heres why I wouldn't be thrilled:

* We usually don't know what tunes or sets we're going to play.  We have a bunch of sets we like, but we normally select a specific one right before it's time to play based on a range of things: what dance has the caller chosen, what role does the caller see this dance filling, what was the last dance like, maybe what is the next dance like, how does the hall feel, how tired we are, etc.

* Hearing each tune once through doesn't tell you that much about what it will feel like to dance to.  For example, in one of my bands we play Trip to Moscow as a trancy peaceful march, while in another we play it as a very energetic set to end a half with.

* If the caller chooses the tunes for us they might pick ones that we don't think fit musically with what we're playing before or after, or with this spot in the evening.

* It's normally the caller's role to choose the dances and decide the general feeling for each slot, and the musicians' role to pick the tunes to match.

Sometimes we'll work together in advance with a caller to decide which tunes to play when, usually back and forth over email, but generally only for unusual events: a short festival slot, medley, etc.  And we both understand that this may need to be changed on the fly based on what's happening in the hall.

With the second situation you're describing, it's very hard to say what was going wrong without hearing how this particular band plays that tune, and which sorts of dances you were trying to pair with it.

Jeff

On Sun, Mar 19, 2023 at 5:54 PM Katherine Kitching via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Hello from Halifax!

I will preface this by saying that I consider myself a relatively "beginner" caller. I have been working on it for about 15 years now and I think I've become somewhat proficient at calling a very beginner-friendly sequence of dances at our monthly beginner-friendly dances here in Halifax - but that is about the extent of what I do.
And we rarely ever dance anything as involved as a Hey, here :)

One area where I definitely lack skill is communicating to our bands (we have 4-5 groups who play for us regularly), in a succinct manner that doesn't ruffle their feathers, about what sort of a tune I want for each dance.

This task is made more difficult by the fact that I write (or heavily modify) pretty much all our dances, so I can't look online to find recommendations or videos of tunes that fit.

As far as I know, I am a polite and caring human who never sets out to put anyone down or show them that I know better. I try to be humble about the fact that i'm just learning and doing the best I can.  For example, last month, with apologies, I asked the band if they would mind quickly going through their planned tunes for the evening, so I could run through my dance program and try to assign a dance to each tune.

  Because I lack the vocabulary and experience to tell a band "for this dance, I need a tune with characteristics X and Y" - having them play the tune one time through (sometimes even just half of it!) is so far the most effective method i've found to get a tune that works for each dance.  It's also worth mentioning that our bands are not experienced contra bands - since we are the only contra group they work with - and most have limited sets to offer us - for example the last band came with 8 sets of tunes, to match up with the 8 dances I had planned.... so when I found one or two that weren't an ideal fit for anything, I did have to work quite hard  rearrange things a few times to slot everything in!

Anyhow it took about 7 minutes to do this, and I thanked them profusely, and the dance-tune meld went well! I thanked them again after.  But still, the lead musician told me after the event that she "didn't really appreciate being told which tune to play when" .  And that deflated me for sure :(

Anyhow, I welcome any grains of wisdom on this process generally (and/or a link if one exists to this amazing cdss online workshop I took years ago on matching tunes to dances/communicating with bands)....

but my specific question is this:

A *different* band - the one whose feathers I most often seem to ruffle haha - has always played a tune set somewhere in the evening, the past few times they've played for us, that no matter which dance I called to it, I felt it was always a really bad fit.

I never said anything bad about it, to be clear!! But after a few dances where it bummed me out every single time, I finally asked the lead musician via email (as politely as I could, putting all the blame on myself: "I just can't seem to find a dance that i'm able to call to this tune, would you mind leaving it out in the future?" ).

I got this response:
"The Queteux Pomerleau set that you are quoting can be removed - the speed of the dancers never gets up to a level to make that set effective. They are Quebecois tunes that we learned from Sue, but in Quebec they are danced to quite fast."

(This refers to Sue Songer who came as part of an amazing week-long workshop CDSS blessed us with about 8 years ago.)

Anyhow I was curious if anyone knows of this set, and could suggest some simple contra dances that would go well with it.

I confess I am not a fan of the feel of the tune for the context in which I call - most of the east-coasty jigs and reels that this band and our other bands play really get all the dancers cheering and stomping their feet, and this one never does....

But I want to be open minded about it :)

thanks!
Kat K in Halifax

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