[Callers] Using music in the pre-dance lesson

[jim saxe]

Thanks to all who have offered comments, on-list and off, about using music during a contra dance newcomers' orientation.

I have follow-up questions to some of the things people have said.  I also welcome anybody's additional comment on any aspect of the subject, whether or not they relate to my specific questions below.

Since a lot of this discussion is about using music to help teach dance skills, I want to acknowledge a couple points to keep things in perspective.  First, it may be urged with much merit that a contra newcomers' orientation should be more about attitudes and social skills than about dance skills.  We want to help newcomers have the confidence to get into the first few dances, to have them understand that they needn't be mortified about mistakes, to keep them from being surprised at the level of eye contact, to have them understand that it's not a show of displeasure when a partner thanks them for a dance and then goes off to seek a different partner for the next dance, etc.  Any teaching of dance skills that can be added in the available time is a bonus.  Second, I don't imagine for a moment that most new dancers will fully latch on to all dance skills taught in the newcomers' session, learning them thoroughly and retaining them forever, ready to apply as needed.  Rather, I fully expect to see situations where, to give just one example, a dancer has to work so hard at understanding or remembering a bit of choreography that the stuff they seemed to have learned about dancing to the phrase of music just goes out the window.

Now, to return to peoples' earlier comments and to my follow-up questions ...

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John Sweeney wrote

> The only thing I focus on with respect to music is getting them to hear the
> eights and be ready for the next "one".

John (or anyone who cares to reply), do you say anything in particular about the structure of the music or have new dancers do any particular exercises to practice awareness of "the eights" (for example, having everyone listen to a tune and clap on the first beat of every eight)?

> ... So I always spend most of the time on
> the swing.  Then [Circle Left, Into the Middle & Back (with a stamp on four
> so that they get used to working with the music ready for Long Lines Go
> Forward & Back), Swing your Neighbour]. Repeat until ...

Do I correctly understand that this is an exercise you have them do in big circle formation?  Do you say or do anything in particular to teach them hear the end of a phrase approaching and recognize when they don't have enough music left to swing another time around?

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Rich Goss wrote

> I will often ask the fiddle player to come out on the floor and play for a short circle dance.

and Adam Carlson wrote

> ... I'll usually do two dances. First a circle mixer to teach phrasing, build confidence and introduce the idea of progression (although with a person progressing, not a couple). Then I do a simple contra or contra-like dance maybe with some improvised steps to teach them progression, listening to the caller and resetting themselves. I enlist the musicians to play for these.

Rich or Adam (or anyone else who incorporates teaching of a complete easy dance into your newcomer's session), would you care to share examples of the dances you use?

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Woody Lane wrote:

> ... during the last 4 minutes or so of the lesson, I ask the band to play a single tune -- whatever the band likes, reel or jig. I want the tempo at regular dance speed -- 112-118 or so. The dancers are still in their foursomes. Then I call those moves to the music -- hash call so no one knows what move is next. The dancers dance to the music, do the moves at speed in the right tempo, finish the moves on time, and learn to listen to the caller. ...

Woody, could you give an example of part of a sequence you might hash call to music in this exercise?  Also do you ask dancers to put their foursomes in any particular orientation (e.g., couples facing each other with backs to the side walls as in a Becket contra)?

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While several of you wrote about wanting new dancers to learn to hear the phrasing of the music, I've only gotten one reply so far (off-list) that mentioned dancing with the _beat_ of the music, and that reply didn't go into much detail about how to teach dancing with the beat.

On the dance floor, I occasionally encounter new dancers who are not stepping to the beat.  Perhaps they think that in order to be "dancing" they have to do some kind of fancy footwork, and it wouldn't even occur to them to do something as simple as just taking one step to each downbeat. Perhaps they hear a highly ornamented/notey tune and think its telling them to take lots of quick little steps. Perhaps the newcomers' session leader or some other dancer showed them how to do a buzz-step swing and they somehow got the idea that they should use the same step for other figures, such as allemandes, courtesy turns, and circles.  Whatever's going on in their heads, I conjecture that at least some of those dancers may be paying attention to their feet in a way that distracts them from attending to other things, such as the phrase of the music, the pattern of the dance, the calls, or their interactions with partners and neighbors.

If any of you explicitly address the topic of stepping on the downbeat in your new dancers' lesson, I'd like to know the details of how you do it.

Thanks for anyone's comments on any of the topics above or anything else relating to use of music in a new contra dancers' intro lesson.

--Jim