I have a disk, Tina, of four old time tunes played at a jam. Each one lasts 10 or 11 minutes. I could send you a copy. You'd have to figure out how many times through the music you had to work with, but I use this often for practice as it doesn't cut off after a few minutes. When Tom Hinds asked for this kind of thing, I was told that the ST. Louis group had a disk of longer numbers. You could write to Martha Edwards (she will see this post, though). Her e-mail is meedwards(a)westendweb.com Jo Mortland Chicago

"Well, my usual fee is X, but calling to CD's is not the way real dances work, so hmm, I'm happy to buy CD's, go through them to find dance-length tunes, compile them, practice calling to them, bring a CD player, set it up, run it while I call, and learn a whole new skill of working with recordings -- which I figure is about four times the amount of work a gig usually takes, plus the expense of buying the CD's -- but I know your budget's small so let's say I give you a discount and charge you 2X. Or I could bring my friend the fiddler along with me, and the two of us together will have more fun than just me working alone, so instead of 2X we'll give you a break and only charge 1.5X " ;) (ps -- to the folks who are lone-voices-in-the-wilderness, calling to CD's because there's no other choice, trying mightily to plant the seeds of a dance community where none heretofore existed? Your dances are very very "real" . Pardon my use of a loaded word. People who ask for too much of a compromise make me crabby.) (pps if this is a 45-60 minute session of dances following a potluck/ceremony/meeting, is supposed to be more of an "hors d'oeurvre" or "dessert" of dance rather than a full evening's meal, and is for less than fifty people, I retract my snarky comment. Get a copy of Any Jig or Reel here http://www.dancingmasters.com/store/CD_any_jig.html and go to town.) Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> writes:

I call many events with recorded music. There are advantages to using recorded music. The advantage is that you can pick exactly what music you will use for a given piece. It's especially great for novelty dances that would be difficult to do with most contra dance bands, but which are awesome for a one night stand. Things like the Bunny Hop or getting just the right music for singing calls or Cumberland Square. While live music is usually best, recorded music can be great for private parties. As David says, if you call squares (which are better for one night stands than duple-minor contra dances) you may know how long the dance is and can fit it to the music. And there is nothing wrong with simply turning off the piece. As long as you do it at the end of the phrase, while you are calling, the dancers won't notice it wasn't the end of the piece. HTH, Beth