When and Where to Practice

Deborah said to practice in the car.

I, myself, practiced on the back patio, listening to music through ear buds so I wouldn't notice that the neighbors could probably hear me. I've done it a bit on my walks in the morning, too, but there I'm a little more afraid they'll call the men in the white coats to take me away.

I just read this, in the trad-dance-callers list (a Yahoo group Deborah told me about - highly recommend signing up.) "Jim" is a new caller, whose first dance was for beginners - talk about starting at the top!

I think it helped a lot that I started practicing in May in the truck on the way to and from work and was able to teach every dance and call the entire evening to my wife as we drove out to Massachusetts and back on vacation the week before the gig.
Jim

But seriously - where can we practice?

M
E

Calling Party August 29, 2007

I love having people over. I read every article in the grocery store checkout line on removing clutter, but it's only when people are coming over that I can see what needs to be done at my own house. And today? The house looks and feels great.

We fit eight dancers, a caller and a fiddler into the family room. Perfect.

Let's see. We had Don and David and Wade and Bob and Mac and Kay and Judy and Sue and Jeanne and Martha.

• The group helped me work out a style point in the English Dance I've been working on, then danced it beautifully.


• Bob called his improved version of XYZ (inspired by Beneficial Tradition) and Mac added a suggestion which fixed the one remaining small awkwardness. I'd say it's ready for prime time if the dancers are experienced!


• Mac then tried out a move in a contradance which looked weird on paper, but which worked beautifully in practice. The ladies had to roll away their neighbor, then chain to their partners. We tried it with the men rolling the ladies away instead, and though it worked, it wasn't nearly so beautiful a move as when the ladies rolled the gents away, even though that's the more usual thing to do.


• Sue called a lovely modern English Country Dance, and I played fiddle. (I've really got to start building my collection of recorded ECD music.)


• Kay called a contra, which went off without a hitch. We're still using the Kimmswick CD Face the Creek for most of our practices, since it has lots of dance length tunes, in mostly old-time style.

It was great fun, we sat around afterwards and talked about calling, and dancing and problem dancers and...

M
E

Is there an echo in this hall? Echo in this hall?

I attended a dance last weekend in another city far far away, and learned a thing or two about calling. The caller was good, the band was my band with Jill Allen, Summer Lightening, and there was a wooden ballroom floor to die for.

Unfortunately, there was also an echo in the hall, and the dancers were less experienced than expected. Here is what the caller wrote to me:

I've thought of a new name for [deleted] ballroom: Caller Humbler Hall. But hey, it's just a dance.

Here's what I wrote back:

The hall is very kind to musicians, and hell on callers. We had the same problem at Kimmswick and solved it (sort of) with quilts.

I did pay attention, though, and learned a lot about calling. When a caller is as good as you are, things should just go off without a hitch. Unless, of course, the dancers can't HEAR the caller. Unless, of course, the dancers are [deleted].

So, note to self: when the dancers can't hear you because you are speaking basically into a large stadium sound system that echoes long enough that a violinist can play a duet with herself, you use fewer, precisely chosen words and you say them very...far...apart. And when the dancers are that [deleted], well - paddle dance, anyone? Patty cake polka?

On the extremely bright side, however, you got contra dancers to do an English Country Dance without them even knowing it, except for the teenager, who, somewhat unaccountably, loves ECD, and thought the dance was "awesome".

Jill, herself a really excellent caller, offered this:

I know totally what you are talking about. For me it's that feeling of "why did I choose this dance? ...but...it should be fine... it's normally fine..."

I know it must seem obvious, but one of the lessons for me was to think even more carefully than even I thought possible about the exact words one uses to teach. In fact, it might not even be "thinking" that is necessary. To draw from my own profession, web design, where usability issues are a big part of what we think about all day long, the only way to find out if your words work is to test them. You try hard to figure out what will work, but if it fails in the doing, or even just causes mild confusion for a moment, then it's NEVER the dancer's fault, no matter how [deleted] you think they are. It's back to the drawing board.

M
E

Teddy Bears and Salt Shakers redux

Who needs salt shakers when you have saucy little fruits lying around the house?

Kay and I worked out another dance from George Washington's Birthday Ball called "Portsmouth". It's a fairly simple English Country Dance, with a lovely tune, and it widened my understanding considerably (given how little I know, that's not too hard). It introduced me, for example, to the marvels of the "triple minor" set, and to a lovely move called a "crossover hey."

We worked it out with a lemon, two limes and three tomatoes, but realized we really needed another couple to be able to see the progression, so another tomato volunteered, um, his services, and a tarty red pepper was invited in as well. You could just feel the lemon and limes disapproving, but we got the dance figured out. What you see in the picture is the end of the second time through the dance. I'll put the dance in the comments.

M
E

Sugar Hill and Dance Books

Well, several of us were at one of the best Sugar Hills in recent memory. Even the Friday night bands were good (and plentiful) and Saturday night was amazing. I apparently missed the best one, which was the combination of the Cosmic Otters and U4 at about 3:00AM Sunday morning. Apparently, it was, ahem, Cosmic Euphoria.

Don and Kay and Bob and I worked out a couple more kinks in the Hay Makers, so I'd like to try it again at our next meeting.

I found a copy of one of the Dance A While books that Ted mentioned at our last meeting on Amazon, and ordered it. I also downloaded a couple of the Ralph Page Legacy Weekend Syllabuses from the University of New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music and Dance - they are great!

Then there are those copies of Larry Jennings' books Zesty Contras that I bought from the CDSS bookstore at the Cumberland Dance Week. I hadn't realized they would be full of such wonderful commentary as well as dances! For example:

If getting your dance across take you more time than it does other callers, do not make the excuse that you are being more thorough; admit that your words are not well chosen. Or, conceivably, you are not being sufficiently authoritative. This is a marvelous example of addressing a fake problem (that the dancers need extensive help) instead of the real problem (you have not prepared your words and/or your delivery of them).

And this:

A large amount of encouragement and help is available to you if only you undertake your project with confidence.

M
E

Why We Don't Need to be Afraid to Call

Mac told me an astonishing thing today. He said that quite a few people told him that the dance a couple of months ago with all the newbie callers was one of the most fun dances in a long time.

Go figure.

It was probably the band (the Mound City Slickers), but it might have been that the crowd felt that little thrill you get when you're just a little worried on someone's behalf - the way watching Triple A baseball can be more fun than watching a major league game, because it is simply not assured that the outfielder is going to catch the fly ball.

What this means for us is, of course, that we should tell our fears to go take a hike, at least long enough for us to actually get up and call a dance. Just one dance. The fans, apparently, will think it's fun.

M
E

Calling get-together Wednesday, 7:00

Hello,

Here are directions to get to Ted and Judy's house for our calling discussion at 7:00 on Wednesday evening:

Prerequisite:
Locate University City on an area map

Option 1:
Take Hanley Road to Delmar Blvd.

Option 2:
Take Delmar Blvd to Hanley Road.

The final approach:
From Delmar and Hanley, proceed one block north on Hanley to Gannon Ave.
Turn east (right) on Gannon, to the end of the block (or nearly so). Look left.
The second-from-the-end house on your left is 7421 Gannon. Look for the flag flying over the driveway.
Park and come on in.

We'll expect you around 7:00 pm. Bring your calling cards, notes, ideas, and (if you wish) an eatable or drinkable to share. (We'll have some, too.)

We'll be dancing on a wooden floor in the living room, so we'll ask for no shoes. Thanks.

Ted & Judy

We Did It!

We did it! We had a calling party. We called, we danced, we talked, we ate and drank and we want to do it again. Next week!

We danced for a while on Kay's back deck, but soon abandoned the 100-degree temps for the coolness of the living room. The deck was later taken over by a troupe of raccoons wondering why they felt like doing California twirls.

Once inside, we held a sort of caller's circle, and discussed lots of the basics: how to call at all, what to say at the beginning, the importance of the teaching, how to deal with bands, how to use a microphone (and how to breathe to project), the differences in calling English and Contra - and other things (commenters please fill in here). Ted was our true expert, but lots of people contributed really helpful observations.

We tried group calling. Won't do that again.

We tried the Lisa Harris trick, where each person in the couple out at the top calls a line or two. That was promising.

Bob tried out a new dance he's writing. It'll be terrific when the kinks are worked out. I tried calling an English Country Dance. That was...instructive. I'm kind of like a person who has had a semester of High School French trying to speak French in France, or maybe in Sweden (since we were mostly contradancers). Thank goodness Sue was there to help straighten things out. I have much to learn. But we knew that...

Many thanks to everyone who came - Kay and Larry and Marianne and Bob and Martha and Ted and Judy and Chrystal and Don and David and Wade and Sue!

Next week we'll meet on Wednesday (August 15) at 7:00pm at Ted and Judy's in University City. Anyone who wants to will bring a dance to call, and we'll try to fit in as much actual calling as we can.

M
E

Welcome to Mac and Ted and Don!

Welcome to three new dancer caller-bloggers! We're so glad you're here.

We're going to have a sort of official first meeting on Wednesday (August 8) at Kay's house. Write to me or Kay for directions if I haven't already sent you some.

Come any time after 6:30pm. Well, within reason.

M
E

Back from Cumberland - Let's get together!

I'm back from the Cumberland Dance Week, tired but happy. Fabulous musicians, wonderful dancers, and a great intergenerational community spirit make this a very special week. My buddy (and Eric's) Ben Schreiber absolutely outdid himself - Beau of the Ball, I'd say. Spectacular fiddling.

Eric and Bob and I all called dances at the Late Night After Dance, and I will say this: it sure is easy to call dances to really good dancers. I'm beginning to realize that the truly excellent callers are the ones who can call for beginners and children. With this crowd I had the feeling I could have simply read them the card and they could have done the dance. These friendly folks also helped remind me to tell them the basic things I would forget (hands four, ones cross over, things like that)... What a treat!

I called Kay's debut dance, Delphiniums and Daisies, and The Nice Combination, a Gene Hubert lovely. Very simple dances. I wrote out the calls on my specially prepared scratch paper and asked Eric and another experienced caller about a call I wasn't sure about. It ended up as "Face down the hall, go four in line," and the suggestions were "Four across, go down the hall," and "Walk down the hall in a line of four". All would have worked well, but I was worried about getting people going in the right direction after a Swing, so settled on "Face down...etc".

Bob invented a terrific new move for his dance "Gypsy Camp", called (gosh, can you imagine?), "the Flirt and Twirl". It's a gypsy contra-corners thing - not a beginner move, but the momentum is perfect, and it feels really good to do.

So. The time has come for us to find a time to get together. I can do any night but Sundays and Mondays, and I'm kind of thinking Saturdays might be good to aim for, or Sundays some time before the contra dance. What's good for you?

There's a Flash Dance at the Botanical Gardens on August 12. Maybe we could do a group calling thing or something.

M
E