Long winded, personal, comments in line----> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Green" &lt;richard.a.green(a)hotmail.com&gt; To: "'Caller's discussion list'" &lt;callers(a)sharedweight.net&gt; Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:24 AM Subject: [Callers] Greetings from a new caller and some random questionsabout calling And to you!!! <snip history (nice to know, though)> calling a mixer at a scheduled another of. Other than that dances that I have found practicing calling way to become do much for the although I suppose that cadence does make Focus on the dancer's need and how to meet them. Any time that I am thinking about ME it really messes things up. Even if what I am thinking is something that is supposed to help. The only thing that is really important is what's going on between you, the dancers and the band. For me, if I am thinking about all of the really important things, then unimportant things like my own fear, recede into the background. If stagefright is significant, there are really good self-calming techniques available that can help. (Any professional counselor would know about this.) lined up to call. have been asked to dancing is going to pressure off the need calling these types teaching, as well In my, not so very humble, opinion, you have just given yourself the most difficult and most rewarding challenge a caller can have: non-experienced dancers. They need the finest calling and the best bands. Experienced dancers will fix your mistakes for you. Beginners will fail and blame themselves saying: "I just can't do this" when YOU mess up. So pat yourself on the back for taking these dances and enjoy the learning experience involved with calling the toughest gigs (and most rewarding gigs) there are. these family the big time and by how the callers that I know more about <Soapbox> Hah, almost anyone can call a modern urban contra dance for experienced dancers: pick a dance, walk it through once, call it two or three times and let the band do their thing. It doesn't take a whole lot of skill to do that. You can read right off the card and it will work. Your family dances and private party dances are what take real skill. (but I repeat myself.) </Soapbox> like to add a few generate any on the eight and others? For example, the call them together, little? And for to call that all at with a separation. Sometimes I see timing calls have to Think a little about what it was like when you first learned to play an instrument: you had to think about where your fingers went for each note, how to make the notes sound right, etc. etc. etc. Eventually these things became second nature and you could focus on other things. Right now, you are thinking a lot about things that with experience and practice will become second nature. One great way to get to know timing is to listen to what other callers do and imitate them. There are a fair number of recordings available of callers and you can do field recordings at any dances you attend. In all timing cases, you need to end the call just before the point where the action takes place. For an action that starts on the 1 beat, you end, of course, on the 8 beat of the previous phrase. For an action that starts on the 5 beat, you end the call on the 4 beat, etc. But, as with any instrument, counting is not as good as feeling it. I can think of dances where I started out figuring out exactly where the call should go, and counting. But after doing it a while, the counting needs to go away. Just like when people first learn to waltz they may count 1-2-3, but a good waltzer doesn't. (I suspect you know all of this, but I figure it is not good to assume. And other folks on the list may not know these things. <G>.) About imitating other callers: I worried about sounding too much like someone else if I did this, but you won't. You will have your own style even if it is influenced by another caller's. After 20 years of marriage (almost) I can tell when Tony is "channeling" another caller. There are times when I hear Ralph Page or Ted Sanella in his timing and tone (and even accent) but anyone who knew him less well wouldn't know. I, of course, worried about sounding too much like Tony. Hah, hah! Our personality styles are so different that even if my timing, phrasing, enunciation and words were the same, I would still not sound like him (more's the pity.) instrument at the same you do some longer needed. Any Don't try to call and play until you can call without thinking about it. And remember that you are always responsible for what is going on on the floor. Many callers at contra dances do the thing I said above: walk the dance, call it a couple of times and let the band have at it. Even if you do that (and it works well when it is working) you must continue to watch the dancers to see when they start having trouble. My experience is that dancers have trouble at first and then have trouble again after the dance has been running a while. The caller who jumps back in with a few choice words is doing his/her job. The caller who is busy playing an instrument (or sorting through cards, or chatting with people at the sides, or even dancing) is likely to not notice when the dancers start to have trouble (and you want to place those few choice words when the dancers are *starting* to have trouble, not after they are in full-bore meltdown.) If you can play and still have your full attention on the floor, great. Tony is a great contra dance piano player and just about the best caller around, but he doesn't do both at the same time. He will take over piano mid-dance, but only if he really knows the crowd and even then it is risky. end of the dance dance? I know Bill common thing to do. If do you just develop dances and I have Ending the dance with a different call is a style and taste thing. This is, after all, an art. Decide what you like as a dancer. I (very personally) am not fond it when a dance ends with me a long way away from my partner and with the focus on someone else. Therefore, I will change the last time through on such dance to end with folks near or focused on their partners. I think doing it all of the time is a bit much, a dance where the band gets to end things without warning is a nice touch too. I'm fond of a mix, so I try to have some with a changed ending, some with a "bow to your partner" ending and (at a contra dance) some with just the banding ending. that you use when words each time repetition, but on the consistently should you always call like the dancers would them better, but I caller. Again, it's your artistic taste, and it may depend on the dancers as well. Within a contra dance, diminishing calls are a good thing. Since the figure repeats and people will be learning it, a call that makes sense at first will be a call that prompts people too soon later. Example: Face your next neighbor, Balance and Swing is a good call for the beginning of a round early in the dance, but as the dance progresses people will know to face the next. Eventually they will, of course, know it all and you will drop out, but in between you may need to just say "New Neighbor, Balance & swing" and then "Balance & swing the next" and then "Balance & swing" and perhaps just "balance the next" etc. Again, listening to your favorite callers helps get a range. ability of the this something that observe, or is it How do you get to Carnegie Hall? (i.e., it is something you develop over time.) The best advice you can get has been given: it is better to underestimate than to overestimate the crowd. This especially goes for non-experienced (private party, one night stand, bandana dance, whatever you call them) dancers. Contra dance progression is not appropriate for most private party dances: you do best with whole sets, circles and squares. (Definition of contra dance in this context: a dance in lines where you keep your partner, but progress to a new neighbor each round. For purposes of this discussion, the Virginia Reel is not a contra dance but a whole set dance.) For an eveing of contra dancing, as Tony says in his book (Contr Dance Calling, currently out of print, second edition underway) "beware the dance camp romance." Dances you pick up at dance camps, festivals and other places where hot-shot dancers gather may seem easy in that context. Brought back to a mixed floor dance, however, they may just be hard and not so fun. There are many things that make a particular dance hard or easy: the experience of the dancers, the caller's choice of words, the quality of the music (honest, a tight band supports harder figures. A lesser band makes all dances more difficult.) Judging this is an art and there is a balance. If your floor is more experienced, the band is tight and hot, and you are feeling good, then you DO want to have those tricker dances available. But you also need to have the opposite: the dances you can swap in if any of those things don't come together. Ted Sannella's dance programs (which he maticulously crafted prior to an event) usually had two dances in each slot. The dances went to the same type of music, so he didn't need to ask the band to change in order to change his program on the fly. Even with that, however, there are times when, mid-evening, you are pulling out the cards and swapping dances. One of the things that I look for are dances that are interesting but "forgiving." That is, they feel tricky, but they contain a place where folks can repair confusion. So it's not just about judging the dancer's level, but also judging the dances level. And it's not just "easy" or "hard" but what the crowd likes. I've noticed that the younger dancers in Boston are not "into" figures that my generation finds very cool. So when I have a hall full of younger dancers, I may change to a different dance because it will be more satisfying to them. The opposite is also true, if my floor is mostly my own generation, then I have a different set of dances up my sleeve. And that knowledge comes from experience and paying attention. HTH, Beth Parkes