On 9/11/2013 3:38 PM, Keith Tuxhorn wrote: I live at the north end of the California Bay Area. Between the two local CDS affiliates (BACDS and NBCDS) and a couple of independent groups we have over 15 regularly scheduled dances each month within a 2-hour drive of my place up in Sebastopol (about an hour north of SF). Most are within an hour's drive. Since I call both contra and English, things can really stack up. The good thing about having this many regular local dances is that there are lots of opportunities for new callers, or callers branching out into different styles like I did. But the down side is that you have to be careful with schedule management. It's a learning process :>) The way we book here is on a quarterly basis. The programmers (each venue has their own) request the available dates from callers and musicians partway through the previous quarter, and then assemble the next quarter's program from who's available. There's a sort of limbo period when you've sent out your dates to lots of different series, but don't yet know which ones are going to book you. Sometimes they all do, and you wind up with a quarter filled with insane 3-gig weekends. Sometimes none do. There's usually some flex, though, so if you find yourself overbooked on a given weekend you can often get the programmers to jiggle things around a little and rearrange the schedule. I'm also careful about repetition, and keep track not only of what I've called recently but what I've called before at any given venue. I suspect that's more of an issue for English country dance than for contra, since the same contra dance at 2 different venues with 2 different bands will feel really different, even with the same caller. English, not so much. Mr. Isaac's Maggot is going to feel an awful lot like Mr. Isaac's Maggot wherever you go, unless you're getting really radical (the Trash English session at American Week springs to mind). Kalia

My experience is similar. However, I note that the smaller dances in our area are the ones booking further out - they seem to establish their whole annual schedule in one go. On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Linda Leslie <laleslierjg(a)comcast.net>wrote;wrote:

On 9/11/2013 5:57 PM, Linda Leslie wrote: Eric Black and Alan Winston probably know a lot more about the evolution of our local calendering system than I do. Would either of you two like to pitch in here? Kalia

Jim responded to Linda's question (in part here): Yes, it does! I can see how publishing a quarterly calendar let to the natural choice to program on the same cycle. Except for special dances and weekends, my preference is definitely for the quarterly scheduling. But I do understand why organizers might have a longer view. I, like Kalia, find it challenging to predict what might be happening a year down the line. It will be interesting to see what others think. Linda

Some thoughts on the questions that have come up on this thread. BOOKING SEASON: As mentioned, here in the the Bay Area we have a couple groups, and they book in different ways: BACDS: The Bay Area Country Dance Society (BACDS) tends to book on the quarter. And within each dance series there are different methods. Of course, with itinerant bands and callers, we are willing to book far ahead. The quarter system works pretty well this way, for two reasons: 1) Far away dates aren't booked for local talent and it's easy to work with travelers who need to set up travel, and 2) Local musicians and callers are less likely to call up and say, "I'd like to bow out because I got an offer for a high-paying private gig," since these, too, are usually set up in advance. Within each series (contra anyway, I'm not so aware of the ECD habits), there is the "book a band / caller for a date" or the "matrix method". As Jim Saxe points out the "matrix method" is a way to strive to make sure you're letting everyone get a chance. I book the Wednesday Berkeley Dance, and do it the other way. As a band member and caller, it's hard when Booking Season arrives, and you have the Sacramento, Monterey, and Bay Area Dances all looking for talent on 2nd & 4th Saturdays. Sending info to one and then booking with another, then forgetting to let the matrix organizer know you've eliminated that date is confusing, to say the least, and slightly troubling when you get the call that the date you're given is the one you just booked... I do it the ask the band "What date do you want." And, occasionally I ask them to switch. Of course, booking a mid week dance is somewhat less challenging, since it usually doesn't compete with lots of other gigs. NBCDS: Tends to book a littler farther down the road. Queer Contra: Tends to book 6 months ahead. Used to do a year. I'm not completely sure, but I think they do some long-term booking ahead, too. Monterey: Tends to book on the quarter Sacramento: Tends to book on the quarter, but I think they're sort of on the quarter, but sometimes on 4 and 6 month cycles. I think, sometime the booker goes traveling, and books ahead. All of this is from the kinds of calls & emails I get, so take it with a grain of salt. PROGRAMMING: I've never been good at keeping track of dances I call. I was bad at it then, I'd get home, or wherever I was staying, and try to reconstruct the program. Then I never reviewed it. I tend to program spur of the moment. Sometimes I start having an idea of what I want to cover, or maybe one dance I want us to do, with a particular challenge, then see what I can do to get there. But the sense of the hall always bends me in different ways, and I don't think I've ever done a program that I've stuck with, except at weekends where we're doing Chestnuts, or "Surf Squares" (Squares from Sets in Order with Surf names like "Riptide"). As far as not repeating myself in a certain area: I don't think dancers notice as much as callers, and, dancers often like the same dances. Dudley has mentioned doing the Virginia Reel at the beginning of a night and at the end of the evening. I've been at music camps where they want to dance the Virginia Reel every night. I know that's not our sophisticated contra crowd, but many of us would love to do Chorus Jig at every other dance. When I started dancing at the once a month Santa Barbara Dance, if you had danced there 6 months, you'd danced every dance David Woodsfellow called. Well, yes, he'd throw in one or two new ones he learned, but the accumulation of dances was slow. And, it was exciting! I knew the dances, and, if I danced with someone new I could help lead them through. There were few surprises, and it was a blast. When David Left, and Jim X. Borzym left, and two of us locals, Carl Managnosc and myself became the local Santa Barbara callers, we used to meet and decide which dances we wanted to make sure stayed in the local repertoire by making sure we included them. So I don't worry too much about not calling the same dances. If it's a day apart, and mostly the same people, I try not to, and, usually, don't. If it's a week apart, I try not to, and trust my sense of inspiration to guide me. If it's more than a week apart, I worry not at all -- though I still trust that I'm going guided to calling mostly different dances, with perhaps a few repeats. And I no longer keep track of programming, even though part of me wishes I would. I'm just a horrible bookkeeper. (Which reminds me, October 15 is tax day for me: the second extension time is running out, I shouldn't be writing this right now...) MANY NIGHTS: I love calling and/or playing, and would do it every night, if possible. It enlivens me. I recall back when I could get the time to go on tour, and we'd book 4 to 6 dances a week for three weeks. There was a stride we got into being out every night. When we missed a night, it broke the rhythm a bit. It's a lot of fun driving to a new place, checking it out for a while, calling or playing for a dance, staying at someone's house. I'd like to do that more again. And, even here, I love doing this and can easily do it every day. Luckily, my other work is teaching, so, I'm lucky, I put instruments in my hands and get to make a lot of noise... Getting up and calling never makes me nervous. I recall being full of stage fright and stumbling over my words at a city council meeting where I wanted to make my three minute point. And, I always get worried about what I'm going to do as a solo musician at Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle School, when I'm supposed to do something in the Staff Concert. I mean, I get hired to run sound and call the evening party dances, not stand alone in front of virtuoso musicians and play. But calling or playing for dancers never makes me nervous, so I guess I'm lucky that way. All for now, ~erik hoffman oakland, ca On 9/11/2013 12:50 PM, Kalia Kliban wrote: I've just finished a full summer camp season, with 4 week-long camps in just under 8 weeks and some home-town gigs in between. I feel pretty wrung out. I've also had seasons when I overbooked and had a big concentration of local gigs (11 gigs and a weekend, plus a pile of performance rehearsals, in 8 weeks) that left me similarly pooped. I've carefully booked the upcoming season to leave myself more down time, and it's helping a lot. No more than one gig a weekend, with occasion weeknights. My question is for the other callers who call a lot, especially if you travel to do it. What sorts of things to you do to take care of yourself when your schedule is really intense? How do you keep your calling fresh, and your attitude good? Do you have any personal routines that help you focus? Aside from the fact that what we're doing is mountains of fun, it's also a lot of work and takes careful concentration and preparation. There's a local square dance caller who does something like 320 gigs a year. I need to ask him sometime how he does it, but he's always moving too fast to engage in conversation. Maybe this is one of those questions that falls too far toward the "advanced" end of the discussion spectrum. I don't know. But it's one I'd love to hear from other hard-working callers about. Kalia _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

On Wed, 11 Sep 2013 20:57:04 -0400, Linda Leslie wrote: Groups in England book bands and callers much further ahead. I have 12 bookings for 2014 (it would often be more by this time of the year) and 3 for 2015. Colin Hume

On Thu, 26 Sep 2013 07:39:24 -0700, Aahz Maruch wrote: The grass-roots organisations are the Dance Clubs, which usually meet once a week. Often they will encourage budding callers to call an evening, or part of an evening. Once you get known you hope that other clubs in your area will book you for their club nights. Then if things go well you start getting booked for Saturday night dances with a live band, which will spread your name further afield. The final step is to be booked at festivals, usually a weekend or a whole week. http://www.colinhume.com/clubs.htm Colin Hume

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 07:42:41 -0700, Aahz Maruch wrote: I imagine a lot of callers are happier to start the way I've described, gradually building up confidence. Would you expect to do a Saturday evening dance in your first year of calling? Colin Hume

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 11:36:58 -0400, Jeff Kaufman wrote: OK, I take your point. I agree that there are many differences between calling in The States and calling in England! Colin Hume

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Colin Hume <colin(a)colinhume.com> wrote: In many places in the USA, the options for a caller are: 1. Calling for friends 2. One-night-stand dances 3. Local recurring dance series (often on Friday or Saturday night) 4. Dance festivals The weekly club dances are much less common in the US contra dance scene, although I believe that they're still the staple for modern western square dancing. Given that, the starting point for many new callers is the local big recurring dance series, as part of a new-callers' night, or as a special guest during some other caller's program, or simply on his or her own, hopefully with a receptive and helpful (and forgiving!) dance community. -Grant- -- Grant Goodyear web: http://www.grantgoodyear.org e-mail: grant(a)grantgoodyear.org

Several MWSD clubs host an "Amateur Callers Night".  That is how I got started.  I local contra dances did the same, new callers would have opportunities to get stated and to gain exposure.  It would be a great service to both the calling and dancing communities. Although some dancers may skip that night,  aspiring callers would may up with partners/friends and pay admission.  Rich Sbardella With lots of appreciation to Lori Morin/Ruffles and Beaus for that first Amateurs Night 20+ years ago! ________________________________ From: Aahz Maruch &lt;aahz(a)pobox.com&gt; To: callers(a)sharedweight.net Sent: Tuesday, October 1, 2013 12:08 AM Subject: Re: [Callers] Scheduling/programmer Question On Mon, Sep 30, 2013, Colin Hume wrote: "Expect"?  Definitely not, but for a variety of reasons, it's something I certainly could have done if that had been my focus.  ;-)  (Too late now, since I started calling eleven months ago.) I think, though, based on other comments in this thread, that you are referring to something different for "gig" than I thought you meant; I was referring to any scheduled calling, whereas you were referring to larger-than-local events. -- Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6                        http://rule6.info/                       <*>          <*>          <*> Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

Twice I have seen groups encourage new callers, then put them on the local dance schedule. It was bad. The new callers only got a chance to call once every 2-3 months. They never improved. The community was saddled with several less-than-stellar callers for 2 years. Just something to consider. ------ Lindsay Morris 859-539-9900 On Oct 1, 2013, at 1:18 PM, Aahz Maruch &lt;aahz(a)pobox.com&gt; wrote:

Folks on the list may find an article in CDSS News by Mary Wesley to be very helpful. She offers a great way for new callers to improve and have places to call: Here is the link: http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/newsletter_archives/news/CDSS_News_fall_2… Linda On Oct 1, 2013, at 1:24 PM, Lindsay Morris wrote:

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Greg McKenzie &lt;grekenzie(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I think you're broadly right: the dances that require a lot of skill to call for are low status, the ones that require less skill are higher status. But there are also some skills you need in order to be an excellent weekend/festival caller that won't get much practice calling at dances with lower experience levels. Jeff

Thanks to Woody, Colin, Jeff, Don, Kalia, and Jim for the responses to my original query. Of particular note is this portion from Woody, who wrote: From my perspective, as a caller, I am really reluctant to make a calling commitment a year in advance for a nearby community dance. Six months is no problem, but committing in May to calling a small community dance the following April -- I am not comfortable with that. Too many conflicts can arise, either in the dance/calling world or professionally, as I travel a lot for my work. True, I may miss some calling opportunities, but that can't be helped. (In contrast, I am not talking about caller/band tours which are often booked 8-12 months or more in advance.) I feel exactly the same way, and I am so glad to know that there are other callers out there who prefer not to schedule so far into the future. Linda

On 9/12/2013 12:16 AM, Colin Hume wrote: It's true, I haven't had the time to mess around with it for months. It looked really promising, though. I've been keeping dance logs in a variety of different ways, an Excel spreadsheet for my contra programs and a Word document for my ECD programs, and it mostly works ok. I'm starting to feel a need for a searchable database for the dance notes themselves, though, and since I call both ECD and contra I need something that can speak both languages. Caller's Companion is very well set up for contra but doesn't (yet) have the vocabulary for ECD (though I know Chris Page re-tooled a copy of it for that purpose). I need to spend some time getting past the learning curve for Dance Organiser, and will report back. Thanks for the reminder, Colin! Kalia

On 9/15/2013 8:41 PM, Aahz Maruch wrote: As a programmer, as a member/organizer for our local community, and as someone who'd like to encourage new callers both in contra and ECD, I'd love to hear more about your experiences with this, either here in the list or offline. When you have the time... Kalia