Send Callers mailing list submissions to callers(a)sharedweight.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to callers-request(a)sharedweight.net You can reach the person managing the list at callers-owner(a)sharedweight.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Callers digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Card boxes and Dance ending (David Giusti) 2. Re: Card boxes and Dance ending (Peter Amidon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:30:04 -0500 From: David Giusti <David.Giusti(a)oberlin.edu> Subject: [Callers] Card boxes and Dance ending To: callers(a)sharedweight.net Message-ID: <f951c77935ce.35cef951c779(a)oberlin.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii 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 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:25:05 -0500 From: Peter Amidon <peter(a)amidonmusic.com> Subject: Re: [Callers] Card boxes and Dance ending To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Message-ID: <p06230950c1d02f6221db(a)[192.168.1.100]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" David Giusti wrote: 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 ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers End of Callers Digest, Vol 29, Issue 1 **************************************