New subject: [Organizers] Open Bands

17 Jan 2012

I have two possible reasons for your success.

1)  Open Bands can help build your community by bringing in new people (stakeholders) with
enthusiasm.

2)  Peter Barnes and Debby Knight are masters at creating dynamic music from an otherwise
disconnected group of musicians.  I suggest it is not the quality of musicians in the Open
Band, but the quality of the band leaders that gives life to the band.

Mike 

--- jeff(a)alum.swarthmore.edu wrote:

From: Jeff Kaufman &lt;jeff(a)alum.swarthmore.edu&gt;
To: A list for dance organizers &lt;organizers(a)sharedweight.net&gt;
Subject: [Organizers] Open Bands
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:31:10 -0500

Open bands have a reputation for being less enjoyable to dance to.
I've heard dancers say they avoid open band nights, or that while they
understand the role of the open band in fostering musicians they wish
they weren't needed. Now that I'm helping organize them with BIDA,
however, I'm not seeing this. In fact our attendance is higher, people
have a great time, and I don't hear complaints. Afterwards a dancer
wrote that they had "never seen that much positive engagement between
the band and the dancers."

A video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MENiFoiMq5Y

I see two explanations: (1) open bands are not actually unpopular and
I was just listening to the small number of people who don't like them
or (2) BIDA is doing something right.  I don't know which it is, but I
figured I would describe what BIDA has been doing in case it's (2).

(BIDA has had four open band nights. I've only been involved with the
most recent three, so what I have below is about these three.) 

In scheduling the open band we first find a band leader. We've had
Peter Barnes twice and Debby Knight once, both have been great. They
both primarily played piano, but also can play other instruments if
someone else wants to take a turn on piano. This is the only paid
role; everyone else playing pays admission on a $0-$10 sliding scale.

We have two rows, sorting people by experience. We mic everyone in the
front row and most of the people in the back, though there are often
some who don't want to be mic'd or who need to take turns with limited
mics. It's helpful that we have a large stage. Everyone plays at
once. At our most recent dance we had: (front row) caller, piano, 6x
fiddle (back row) double bass, whistle, recorder, fiddle, octave
mandolin.

Reading through this, nothing sounds very different from other open
bands I've been to. Which makes me think it's not actually about how
we run the band and instead about the musicians who decide to
come. Maybe what's going on is that we're drawing from a different
group? I wonder if there's an effect where when an open band has been
around longer many of the best musicians move on and you have mostly
people who aren't interested in or aren't able to get booked for other
dances? If this were happening I would expect that in general open
bands that were newer would be better; are they?

Jeff

( Also a blog post: http://www.jefftk.com/news/2012-01-17.html )
_______________________________________________
Organizers mailing list
Organizers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/organizers

Re: [Organizers] Open Bands