Re: AABB, or AB?

John -- Some of these things are not like the others.   The 16 bars of Nottingham Swing make up a standard-length dance, but hornpipes while typically notated in 4/4 are not reels (except for things like Morpeth Rant in New England, where they're played like reels), so the notation is 8-bar A, 8-bar B.  If you did it to a 6/8 jig you'd do AABB - 32 bars.  In any case, once through the dance is once through the tune.  So let's set that one aside. Your other examples are half-length dance sequences. I've never called "Canadian Barn Dance"  but it's kinda bitty, so I'd think landmarks in the tune would be helpful to the dancers. Schottische variation.   (Couples facing around the room. double-step forward (step-step-step-hop), double-step back, slide sideways away from partner, slide back, ballroom position).  Slide sideways along LOD, slide reverse LOD.  Polka around (2 full turns).  16 bars altogether).   I wouldn't call it for non-dancing crowds because it's unrelenting and because you need frame, etc, to get around in the polka bit, but I don't have any regular ceilidh-like dancing crowds and contra dancers mostly don't want to hippety-hop so much. My experience with La Chappelloise / Progressive Gay Gordons / All-American Promenade / Secessionist Reel, which I pretty much call only for non-dancing crowds, is that the non-dancers are barely listening to the music at all.  I have to teach step-step-step-pivot for the As, and then I have to keep prompting that (because I really want them all to be going forward or backward around the ring *at the same time as everybody else is* because of the chance for injury otherwise) and they're responding to prompts. That said: Can you trust the band to play a tune they'd usually play AABB as AB without slipping up? What about letting the band play a 48 bar or 64 bar tune they like and rarely get to play?  You don't have as much control on going out as you might want, but why do you even care with a round the room dance?  (I do have one band I work with where we do grand marches and sometimes play a five part tune and the leader is prepared to go out at the end of any part with about four bars notice, which is ideal for me, but if you don't have rapport and experience working together that's not a good thing to try.) There's less chance of things failing if you're signaling # of times through the tune, and you're not going to end with a couple out at the top if there's no top because it's a round-the-room dance.  It's not the end of the world if a mixer doesn't get you back to your partner, and in a big room it might take too long anyway.  "Scotland the Brave" is fine for Gay Gordons (and I bet Ragtime Annie would be fun). -- Alan