14 Jan
2007
14 Jan
'07
6:30 p.m.
Hello,
So most callers have dance cards, and all dances have to be ended at
some point. I have my ways of doing it, of course, and I've asked a lot
of callers about theirs, but haven't found anything I'm quite happy with.
Basically, how do you organize your box of dance cards and why do you
like it that way?
And,
How do you figure out when to end a dance? Of course finish with all
couples in, but how do you decide when it's about time to end it?
Some callers simply set a timer, or count a number of times through, or
end when couples have come back to where they started. What do you do?
Does anyone try to gauge the energy of the dancers on the floor and end
when it seems right?
Thank you very much,
David Giusti
14 Jan
14 Jan
7:25 p.m.
David Giusti wrote:
Hello,
So most callers have dance cards, and all dances have to be ended at
some point. I have my ways of doing it, of course, and I've asked a lot
of callers about theirs, but haven't found anything I'm quite happy with.
Basically, how do you organize your box of dance cards and why do you
like it that way?
Hi David
I am very happy with my database way of organizing dances. I do not
have dance cards. I do have a comfortable working knowledge of
using databases; I use them in all of my work as a freelance musician.
I use Panorama, but I would recommend anyone starting out to use
Filemaker Pro.
The short story is that I keep all of the dances on a database. The
actual dance is recorded in eight 8-beat fields:
A1a
A1b
A2a
A2b
B1a
B1b
B2a
B2b
Other fields, other than the obvious, include the date that I entered
the dance,
whether it is in my current repertoire, what the difficulty level is, whether
I've ever called it. Of course there are a lot of other fields you could make:
e.g. swings: how many and with whom, etc.
I can easily select out dances that I want to memorize to build my repertoire;
I export the dance instructions and a separate page that has just the
titles and
choreographers names. I drill and practice the dances until I can remember the
whole dance just from the title.
To prepare for an evening contra dance I might print out a big list
of dances from
which to choose from which to make the dance list for that night.
Once I have chosen and sequenced dances for that evening, I number
the dances I've chosen
in the database from, say, 1 - 11, put them in order, and export the
dances, the
choreographer's name, and instructions for the band (what kind of
tune - that is another
field I have in the database), and put it all on one sheet that I
print out and give to
the musicians ahead of time so they can more easily plan the evening.
I print, for
my own use, the instructions to all the dances I am calling that
night. They fit
on two sides of one sheet; I usually only use this if I am calling new dances
that are not yet ingrained in memory.
I also print out a list of a bunch of alternate dances I might call in case
I need to vary from the planned program. These dances are already memorized,
so I do not need to print out the dance instructions to these.
For a festival or dance weekend where I am calling a lot, I print out a couple
of booklets of my current dances. One page has all of the titles and
authors listed,
and I sort the dances into three categories of difficulty. The other
pages have
all of the dances' along with the dance instructions. Again, this is an easy
import from the database; I just choose which dances and fields to export and
then format the resultant text in MS Word.
Best,
Peter
--
Peter Amidon
peter(a)amidonmusic.com
20 Willow Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301
802-257-1006
cell: 917-922-5462
http://www.amidonmusic.com
http://www.dancingmasters.com
I have never been lost, but I will admit to
being confused for several weeks.
-Daniel Boone
15 Jan
15 Jan
8:35 p.m.
When a dance ends involves at least two things: 1. The dancers 2. The band.
1. Assuming you are calling at a "typical" modern contra dance, the dancers
will dance without the caller after a few rounds. After they have done this
for a while, there is a point at which the dancers will start making
mistakes. The dance is getting close to the end at that point. (An observant
caller will be watching for this and not asssume that once the dancers get
going they can be ignored.) Try not to end when folks are having trouble:
get them back on track, give them a couple more, and then go out. Note: this
is not an overt breakdown, but just more folks forgetting where they should
be or what comes next. It can be easy to miss from the stage.
2. The band will be working through a set of tunes and will be swapping
leads and energy and will have a sense of what they want to do with a tune.
I try to tap into that energy and end when it feels like the band is ready.
Hard to explain, but definitely do-able. Also, it is not courteous to your
musicians to end a dance if they have just switched tunes. Let them play any
new tune at least three times. Often that means, if I am about to say "twice
more" and I see them about to switch tunes, I will change it to four more
(in my own mind...everyone knows that musicians can't count higher than "two
more times" <BG>) and wait to go out.
When a dance ends will also vary with the dance itself. An imbalanced dance
will need to have shorter sets but run longer than an everyone equal dance.
A dance with everyone moving intensely will often want to run shorter than
one that is a bit more relaxed.
A lot of this is pretty subtle. Calling is, after all, an art.
About keeping your dances, it probably doesn't matter a whole lot how you
keep them, but I want to put in a vote for weeding out mediocre material
once in a while.
I just have a pile of cards. There's no order except I do have them color
coded for contra, squares and other. They get mixed up and sorted through
many different ways. And the more that happens, the better for my choices. I
don't keep cards for one-night-stand material. If a dance can't be
remembered from the title only, it's too complicated for a one-night-stand.
HTH,
Beth Parkes
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Giusti" <David.Giusti(a)oberlin.edu>
To: <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 1:30 PM
Subject: [Callers] Card boxes and Dance ending
Hello,
So most callers have dance cards, and all dances have to be ended at
some point. I have my ways of doing it, of course, and I've asked a lot
of callers about theirs, but haven't found anything I'm quite happy with.
Basically, how do you organize your box of dance cards and why do you
like it that way?
And,
How do you figure out when to end a dance? Of course finish with all
couples in, but how do you decide when it's about time to end it?
Some callers simply set a timer, or count a number of times through, or
end when couples have come back to where they started. What do you do?
Does anyone try to gauge the energy of the dancers on the floor and end
when it seems right?
6532
days inactive
6533
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
2 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Beth Parkes -
David Giusti -
Peter Amidon