29 May
2007
29 May
'07
5:05 p.m.
Chris wrote:
Had an interesting gig this weekend (a good one, just
interesting).
Things were going along smoothly, I thought. The fiddler had made a
comment earlier that I had a high ratio of playing time to down time,
but I didn't think much of it. Before we started the 2nd to last dance
of the first half, and I was waiting for the band to be ready to start
the music, the fiddler snaps at me that I'm teaching too fast and it's
much to stressful for choosing tunes! I looked him straight in the eye,
apologized, and then promised to slow down. I spent the next bit of time
trying to figure out how to slow down. Couldn't think of too many ways.
I slowed my pace of teaching down. I made sure to take a minute and talk
to the band before even requesting that people line up. I introduced the
band before the next dance (although this probably didn't add any time
for the fiddler to think about tune selection).
I've read the other responses to this, which were generally great, but I wanted
to explicitly add something that may have been implicit in other answers. I
think you fell into the trap of trying to give this fiddler what he was asking
for (slower teaching) rather than what he needed. There may have been stuff he
needed that you couldn't give him - less stress in his life overall, say - but
in the most simplistic analysis he needs more time to choose tunes so he isn't
feeling stressed and out of control.
One thing you could try - which would work for some fiddlers and not at all for
others - is to, just as soon as the applause dies down for the last dance, hand
him the card you're going to call the next dance from. (Or, as someone else
suggested, start discussing the character of the tune you want.) Then the band
can work on tune choices even before you start teaching. You can give the
dancers their 72.5 seconds of social time, and then do high-quality efficient
teaching, while the band gets 150 seconds to sort out their tune set. (Your
numbers may vary.)
But don't waste the dancers' time with deliberately slow teaching!
(I typically make up a whole program for an evening, cutting-and-pasting the
text files for the dances that I have on disk into a single document and
printing out multiple copies of the document. I reserve the right to change on
the fly, but I can hand the band a copy of the program and dance notes at the
beginning of the evening and then they really feel like they know what's going
on. That's just confusing on split evenings, and then there are times when you
can't be tied down to programs, but with a relatively well-defined gig - a
contra that always gets at least 30 people, say - you can do it. Some bands
really like it; others can't be bothered to look at it.)
-- Alan
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Alan Winston --- WINSTON(a)SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056
Paper mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 99, 2575 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025
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