Playing & calling & not counting simultaneously
Dave Goldman
Just thought I'd merge a couple of threads...
Personally, I'm not crazy about counting, because I prefer for a dancer to
listen and dance to the phrases of the music that the musicians are
playing, rather than to a bunch of numbers that the dancer is mumbling to
him/herself. I do recognize that this is a somewhat ivory-tower position
to take, so I seldom mention it.
BUT...
I can think of at least two callers who play the phrases of the starting
tune while they _teach_ the dance. In other words, the caller tells the
dancers to do an allemande, and while the dancers walk through this figure
the caller plays the corresponding phrase from the tune. Then the caller
tells the dancers to swing their partner and, while this is walked
through, plays the next phrase.
At no time do these callers provide a lecture on the structure of tunes or
dances, nor do they use words such as "eight-bar swing", nor do they ever
mention the concept of a dancer counting from one to eight as they dance.
But they do a wonderful job of showing _just_ how the figures and the
music go together.
The two callers I have in mind both play concertina, which certainly is
ideal for this task. Other instruments could also work.
What about callers who don't play a melody instrument, or can't work their
playing into their walk-throughs? Something that might be worth trying,
though I've never witnessed it at a contra, would be to coordinate the
walk-through with a single band member, who would attentively play
snatches of the tune with their corresponding pieces of the dance. (I know
this is possible in theory, because I've both heard it and done it for
English Country dancing.)
-- Dave Goldman
Portland, OR
P.S. Now, we might make a Venn diagram of callers who play an instrument,
and of musicians who dance, and then...
Alan Gedance
>Just thought I'd merge a couple of threads...
>
>Personally, I'm not crazy about counting, because I prefer for a dancer to
>listen and dance to the phrases of the music that the musicians are
>playing, rather than to a bunch of numbers that the dancer is mumbling to
>him/herself. I do recognize that this is a somewhat ivory-tower position
>to take, so I seldom mention it.
Well, people certainly can manage to learn to whistle, sing, or pay an
instrument without any formal training in time signatures, musical
structure, or counting. But people who are serious about becoming
good musicians either are taught these things or study them on their
own.
After all, dance is music in motion. A beginning dancer who is taught
timing and the structure of the dance will become a good dancer sooner
and better than he would by the simpler method of trial and error.
I'm sure that the notion that counting will permanently make his
dancing mechanical is mistaken. Does anyone believe that concert
musicians, singers, and dancers perform worse because they've actually
studied what they're doing? I doubt that Ashkenazy always mumbles
"one, two, three, four" to himself as he plays a piano concerto, or
that Pavorotti is hindered in his singing because he can't mumble a
count while he has a mouthful of aria.
Well, I see I've been snide, and for that I apologize. But I do feel
strongly that counting is a useful tool. It _makes_ the beginner
listen to the music. It helps the dancer to pace his steps, and to
know _exactly_ when to make the transition to the next figure. It
helps the skilled dancer avoid mistakes when a benighted band plays
almost utterly unphrased music or stresses the back beat to the
complete exclusion of the downbeat. Telling the dancers that a figure
must be done in X beats or started on beat Y is giving them succinct
information that can't be misinterpreted, and can't be conveyed as
well in any other way.
Now, maybe it's true that some newcomers might be instantaneously
turned off by finding that other folks actually expect them to learn
something that requires the ability to count to eight. But, after
all, these folks are wielding instrument, their bodies, that generally
weigh 100 pounds or more. They can make it considerably more
uncomfortable for the folks in their vicinity than can a bad muscian,
unless he's a bass player who occasionally swings his instrument about
his head. There's nothing quite the same in music as turning in your
line of four to go back up toward the stage only to find that the
dancers in the line above you are still in full stride down the hall.
Teaching folks to count helps them to avoid becoming this sort of
problem.
I'm of the opinion that the dancers who can't abide a bit of
instruction in dance structure and counting are the same ones who
dance hardly a bit better after their hundredth time on the dance
floor than they did after their tenth. I've had several dancers
volunteer the information to me that they never hear the music.
More's the pity. %^(
Alan
(To reply by email, remove the r in my username, argedance.)
Jonathan Sivier
arge...@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us (Alan Gedance) writes:
>On Mon, 05 Jan 1998 02:45:20 -0800, da...@rsd.rem-ove-this.com (Dave
>Goldman) wrote:
>>Just thought I'd merge a couple of threads...
>>
>>Personally, I'm not crazy about counting, because I prefer for a dancer to
>>listen and dance to the phrases of the music that the musicians are
>>playing, rather than to a bunch of numbers that the dancer is mumbling to
>>him/herself. I do recognize that this is a somewhat ivory-tower position
>>to take, so I seldom mention it.
[many advantages of teaching dancers to count the beats of figures snipped]
>I'm of the opinion that the dancers who can't abide a bit of
>instruction in dance structure and counting are the same ones who
>dance hardly a bit better after their hundredth time on the dance
>floor than they did after their tenth. I've had several dancers
>volunteer the information to me that they never hear the music.
>More's the pity. %^(
I quite agree with Alan. When I was first learning to contra dance 10
years ago I had no trouble hearing the beat, but I couldn't distinguish the
phrases in the music. Thus I had real trouble ending figures on time,
especially figures like swings which don't have a spatial ending point, and
I wasn't able to pace my dancing to be on time (not too early and not too
late) for the next figure. Someone suggested that I count (under my breath)
and it was a real revelation to me that figures were supposed to last a
specific length of time. I began to count to keep in time and after a while
I began to be able to hear the phrases in the music and so no longer needed
to count. Now when I teach new dancers I let them know that the dance
figures are to fit to the music and that they have a particular length. I
let them know that it is OK to count when they are starting out in order
to keep in time with the music and other dancers, but I don't insist that
they do or do not count. I leave it up to their own discretion. I have
had occasion to speak with dancers who have been dancing for many years and
have them be shocked by the revelation that 1) figures have a specific length
and 2) the dance is supposed to be in synch with the music. I think one
thing to keep in mind is that everyone learns things in different ways. No
one method is going to be right for teaching everyone. Some people seem to
pick up the idea of dancing to the music instinctively and some people have
to work hard on it. As one of those in the later category I can tell you
that treating everyone as if they should be able to dance to the music
without any effort is not going to work for many people. Playing parts of
the tune during the walk-through so the dancers can hear how the music and
the dance go together can be very helpful for many people, but not for all.
Jonathan
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KMsSavage
Thanks to all for your comments on counting. I recalled some of them on
Sunday during a not particularly easy (nor smooth, nor effective) dance. My
partner and I began to critique it after we both realized we didn't like it
much, and then I started counting out loud for each maneuver. Made it easier,
but didn't improve the dance much.
I'll be using much of the comments in this thread in a few weeks, since I'm
signed up to teach a series of beginners' workshops. Will let you all know how
things go with counting practice.
--Karen M.
Ann Arbor
Bill Martin
: Personally, I'm not crazy about counting, because I prefer for a dancer to
: listen and dance to the phrases of the music that the musicians are
: playing, rather than to a bunch of numbers that the dancer is mumbling to
I like to think that the dancers move in the same syncopated way that the
musicians play the melody. We fudge the beat and the phrasing a little to
make the parts fit together better or to jazz it up a little. Figures have
a laboratory-determined length which we play around with. But counting can
reveal cool things about some figures, such as the rythmic difference
between "down the hall four in line, turn as a couple" and "..., turn
alone". The music isn't necessarily going to tell you when to turn. When I
was breaking in as a contra dancer, counting really helped me to
understand the "short steps down, long steps back" feature of "down the
center, turn alone, come back and cast off." When was the last time you
saw any dancers get the phrasing of that sequence? Pretty rarely in my
experience, even at dance camps.
Bill Martin
Dave Goldman
In article <19980106021...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
kmss...@aol.com (KMsSavage) wrote:
> Thanks to all for your comments on counting. I recalled some of them on
> Sunday during a not particularly easy (nor smooth, nor effective) dance. My
> partner and I began to critique it after we both realized we didn't like it
> much, and then I started counting out loud for each maneuver. Made it easier,
> but didn't improve the dance much.
Just out of curiosity -- did you happen to notice whether the music was
well-phrased? Were the musicians experienced and generally successful as
_contradance_ musicians?
-- Dave (not against counting, just _preferring_ both
better dance music and more educated listening) Goldman
Portland, OR
KMsSavage
I said Thanks to all for your comments on counting. I recalled some of them
on
Sunday during a not particularly easy (nor smooth, nor effective) dance. My
partner and I began to critique it after we both realized we didn't like it
much, and then I started counting out loud for each maneuver. Made it easier,
but didn't improve the dance much.
Dave Goldman asked: >Just out of curiosity -- did you happen to notice whether
the music was well-phrased? Were the musicians experienced and generally
successful as
_contradance_ musicians?
The band was the Ruffwater String Band, led by Judi Morningstar.
This may not mean much to a Left Coaster unless you've danced/played
anywhere in the Midwest, or ever played or heard "March of St Timothy" or
"January Waltz." The caller was Glen Morningstar, so we can rule that factor
out as well.
It was a poorly-written dance.
--Karen M.
Ann Arbor
Mark Langner
As a general comment about this whole thread (re teaching new dancers to
count) I suspect that there will be people who will respond VERY well to
learning the phrasing and how to count, and also people for whom it is
the wrong approach. Different learning styles, skill sets, etc. I have
observed both in the past: a dancer who became MUCH better when he
figured out the phrasing in his head and began to count a little, and
another dancer who was doing just fine UNTIL someone explained the
phrasing to her and she began to count. Some people get it when "it
just gets in their body" as one dancer told me once. Others might
actually do better with totally different mental cues.
Great thread, and I hope y'all will continue to comment and share
experience and thoughts.
mark
JLR Snyder/J Williams
Bill Martin wrote:
> .... The music isn't necessarily going to tell you when to turn. When I
> was breaking in as a contra dancer, counting really helped me to
> understand the "short steps down, long steps back" feature of "down the
> center, turn alone, come back and cast off." When was the last time you
> saw any dancers get the phrasing of that sequence? Pretty rarely in my
> experience, even at dance camps.
>
I, perhaps arrogantly, think that I have stumbled upon the way to make that sequence
happen well - without changing the size of the dancers' steps as much. The key is in
the caller's timing of the calls.
You don't want to prompt the "down the center" on beats 7&8 and let the couple go four
steps down before saying "turn alone and come on back" on beats 5-6-7-8 of the next
phrase. In that case they have taken six steps down the hall before responding to the
"turn alone" instruction and then it's impossible to make it back in 4 steps so they can
have 4 beats left for an unhurried cast-off.
The timing that gets better results, I think, is to allow them to take only 3
beats/steps down the hall before prompting the "turn alone":
1,2,3,4,5,6,down/the,center
1,2,3,turn,alone,and,come/on,back
If the "turn alone" is delivered on beats 4&5, the action will occur (we hope) on beats
6,7&8. Maybe 3 beats is a lot to allow for turning alone, but it halts their downward
progress. They can take 2 steps to turn and have that next foot hanging in the air
ready to come down on beat #1 of the next phrase on the return trip.
Here's the prompts for the return trip:
1,2,cast,off,5,6,whatever's,next
I hope this is not insulting your intelligence. It's just that I've been frustrated
more than once at a caller's waiting too long to prompt the "turn-alone and return" and
thus requiring the dancers to scramble and catch up.
I ran into a similar timing situation with a becket dance by Ted Sannella, "Be My
Valentine" in which each couple promenades along their side of the contra set, turns as
a couple, and promenades back to their original neighbors and one place farther to new
neighbors. I allowed the couples to promenade for a full eight beats before giving the
prompt to "turn as a couple". This didn't allow them to make it back to their original
neighbors and past to the next in the 8 remaining beats. Al Olson let me know about it
:-)
Jim Williams
Topeka, KS
Jonathan Sivier
JLR Snyder/J Williams <sny...@cjnetworks.com> writes:
>Bill Martin wrote:
>> .... The music isn't necessarily going to tell you when to turn. When I
>> was breaking in as a contra dancer, counting really helped me to
>> understand the "short steps down, long steps back" feature of "down the
>> center, turn alone, come back and cast off." When was the last time you
>> saw any dancers get the phrasing of that sequence? Pretty rarely in my
>> experience, even at dance camps.
>>
> The timing that gets better results, I think, is to allow them to take only 3
>beats/steps down the hall before prompting the "turn alone":
>1,2,3,4,5,6,down/the,center
>1,2,3,turn,alone,and,come/on,back
I call the turn on beats 5 and 6 as a rule, since I want to finish the
call on the beat before the figure should start. Thus since I want them to
turn on beats 7 and 8, I call it on 5 and 6. However in general I agree with
your point.
Dave Goldman
In article <68sri5$30n$1...@news1.teleport.com>, "Bill Martin"
<mar...@user2.teleport.com> wrote:
> ... But counting can
> reveal cool things about some figures, such as the rythmic difference
> between "down the hall four in line, turn as a couple" and "..., turn
> alone". The music isn't necessarily going to tell you when to turn. ...
Again, I'm not really trying to put down counting here.
However, if you have some _good_ dance musicians, then the music certainly
_should_ tell you when to turn. As a piano player, for example, I usually
try to play an ascending bass run to motivate the "turn as a couple" at
the correct time. I think that at least some dancers respond
(unconsciously, I presume) to this.
-- Dave
ElissaAnn
>da...@rsd.rem-ove-this.com (Dave Goldman) wrote:
>In article <68sri5$30n$1...@news1.teleport.com>, "Bill Martin"
><mar...@user2.teleport.com> wrote:
<snip>
>> The music isn't necessarily going to tell you when to turn. ...
>
>Again, I'm not really trying to put down counting here.
>
>However, if you have some _good_ dance musicians, then the music certainly
>_should_ tell you when to turn. As a piano player, for example, I usually
>try to play an ascending bass run to motivate the "turn as a couple" at
>the correct time. I think that at least some dancers respond
>(unconsciously, I presume) to this.
There seem to be some musicians that are carefully following the
dance and giving such cues, and others who just play.
I was wondering, all you dance musicians who care to comment,
what are your favorite ways to help the dancers with the dance?
And how do you learn the dance? Do you look at the callers'
card, listen to the walk-through, watch the dancers, or some
combination of things?
Elissa Weiss
NYC
David Elek Kirchner
JLR Snyder/J Williams (sny...@cjnetworks.com) wrote:
: You don't want to prompt the "down the center" on beats 7&8 and let the
: couple go four steps down before saying "turn alone and come on back" on
: beats 5-6-7-8 of the next phrase. In that case they have taken six steps
: down the hall before responding to the "turn alone" instruction and then
: it's impossible to make it back in 4 steps so they can have 4 beats left
: for an unhurried cast-off.
: The timing that gets better results, I think, is to allow them to take only
: 3 beats/steps down the hall before prompting the "turn alone":
: 1,2,3,4,5,6,down/the,center
: 1,2,3,turn,alone,and,come/on,back
One can also change the wording of the calls to emphasize timing as opposed
to the figure:
1,2,3,4,turn,NOW,come/on,back.
--
David
dav...@artsci.wustl.edu
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~david6
Alan Gedance
On 7 Jan 1998 16:11:32 GMT, j-si...@staff.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Sivier )
wrote:
>JLR Snyder/J Williams <sny...@cjnetworks.com> writes:
>
>>Bill Martin wrote:
>>> .... The music isn't necessarily going to tell you when to turn. When I
>>> was breaking in as a contra dancer, counting really helped me to
>>> understand the "short steps down, long steps back" feature of "down the
>>> center, turn alone, come back and cast off." When was the last time you
>>> saw any dancers get the phrasing of that sequence? Pretty rarely in my
>>> experience, even at dance camps.
Yes, and the problem can be viewed two different ways. A simplistic
way to view it is to say that it's an example of poor choreography. A
more positive way to view it is to recognize that the dancers can be
trained in the walkthrough to take small steps down the hall. It's
thoughtless to pop this problem on a roomfull of dancers with no
warning.
>> The timing that gets better results, I think, is to allow them to take only 3
>>beats/steps down the hall before prompting the "turn alone":
>
>>1,2,3,4,5,6,down/the,center
>>1,2,3,turn,alone,and,come/on,back
>
> I call the turn on beats 5 and 6 as a rule, since I want to finish the
>call on the beat before the figure should start. Thus since I want them to
>turn on beats 7 and 8, I call it on 5 and 6. However in general I agree with
>your point.
Starting a turn-alone on the fifth beat is just too darned early,
unless you're doing it back to back with your partner. After all, it
can be done reasonably gracefully in just one beat by pivoting on the
ball of one foot.
No, I think that solution is to teach the dance in the walkthrough
well enough so that the dancers understand what they must do.
As an afterthought, some dances are particularly bad in this problem.
In Lady of the Lake the active couple finishes its swing below the
inactives just before the trip down the hall. This adds about two
steps to the distance that must traveled back up the hall to cast
off,making the problem just that much worse. It was called the other
night and no warning of the problem was given to the dancers, who
generally danced it poorly.
I think that Lady of the Lake would be substantially easier in this
regard if it were turned into a double progression dance, the actives
casting off with new neighbors after their return up the hall.
Bill Martin
ElissaAnn <elis...@aol.com> wrote:
: I was wondering, all you dance musicians who care to comment,
: what are your favorite ways to help the dancers with the dance?
: And how do you learn the dance? Do you look at the callers'
: card, listen to the walk-through, watch the dancers, or some
: combination of things?
Some callers and musicians really get stressed about picking exactly the
right tune for a particular dance. I don't look at the caller's card -
leave the poor caller alone. In general, almost any dance tune will work
for a contra dance. As Dave Goldman stated earlier, its up to the musician
to tweak the music in a way that cues the dancers. Finding a tune with the
right oomph at the spots where balances occur seems to be the latest
craze, but a good dance musician can take about any melody and add
ornaments, bass runs, or dynamics to adapt the tune to the dance. (My
preference is for the more traditional contra tunes because they have all
the phrasing and cues built in.) Though you may put much frantic work into
picking exactly the right tune, it's not always apparent what the
personality of the dance is going to be until bodies begin to move. It
takes awhile for the dancer and fiddler to start paying attention to
each other.
As for practicality, I try to pay attention during the walkthrough.
Sometimes that is not possible. I don't like to have a caller tell me what
kind of tune to play or to ask for a particular tune. That cancels some of
the fun and sponteneity for the musicians. (What a hypocrite I am - when I
call a dance I pester the band for the music I think will work best for a
particular dance. Go figger.) But once the dance begins, no matter what
tune was chosen for no matter what reason, the musicians can and will
change it to fit what's happening on the dance floor.
As for "helping" the dancers, it may not be "help" but I like to play
tricks on the dancers, like having the band go completely silent during a
balance. Are there any dance tunes that do that? That's the kind of stuff
that you organize on the fly. If its planned ahead it loses spontaneity.
Bill Martin
Dan Pearl
The smooth execution of the "turn, return, cast-off" figure is perhaps
the
most difficult to do correctly the first time. There are just too many
variables to keep track of:
* How fast the figure has you moving at the beginning of the
figure.
* Where you are when you begin the figure.
* How crowded the sets are.
* How the people in front/back of you are executing the figure.
* Is it turn alone? As a couple?
* Is my partner twirling madly/movement impaired?
One can attempt to over-intellectualize this issue, but I suggest that
is counter productive. Me, when I dance, I just observe: did I arrive
late, early or on time for the cast-off, and make adjustments the next
time, so my movements comfortably fit the phrase of the music.
You can adjust almost anything to get the effect you want:
* When you turn
* Speed of turn
* Speed going down/up
* etc.
There ARE dances where special PROMPTING is necessary. In Hillsborough
Jig,
for example, it is beneficial to PROMPT the turn "early" because the
dancers are already progressed when then begin their trip.
In 94 South Street, for example, it is best to DELAY the prompt to turn
because you want the dancers to return to the next couple in line.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Pearl ** Stratus Computer, Inc. **
IGNORE_T...@sw.stratus.com
I represent the views of my employer. [*WHAP!*] NO HE DOESN'T
Alan Gedance
>The smooth execution of the "turn, return, cast-off" figure is perhaps
>the most difficult to do correctly the first time. There are just too many
>variables to keep track of:
>
><..snip..>
>
>You can adjust almost anything to get the effect you want:
> * When you turn
> * Speed of turn
> * Speed going down/up
> * etc.
>
>There ARE dances where special PROMPTING is necessary. In Hillsborough
>Jig, for example, it is beneficial to PROMPT the turn "early" because the
>dancers are already progressed when then begin their trip.
>
>In 94 South Street, for example, it is best to DELAY the prompt to turn
>because you want the dancers to return to the next couple in line.
Are you saying that you believe that the dancers should start back up
the hall at some time other than the first beat of the phrase? As a
dancer I implicitly feel that that moment is cast in concrete, and
shouldn't be messed with, and that figures should not be slurred over
from phrase to phrase. Down the hall and turn is a figure, and return
and cast is a figure. Both should take eight beats. The one should
not sponge time from the other.
I'm not familiar with the two dances that you mention, but it sounds
like Hillsborough Jig has the same problem as Lady of the Lake. If so
he problem is inherent in the choreography. The only solutions that I
see are doing a slow turn and/or taking small steps down the hall.
Making the figures steal time from one another doesn't seem like a
good answer to me. Please correct me if I've misunderstood what
you've suggested.
Dan Pearl
I wrote:
>You can adjust almost anything to get the effect you want:
> * When you turn
> * Speed of turn
> * Speed going down/up
> * etc.
In article <34b520b3...@news.abs.net>, Alan Gedance wrote:
>Are you saying that you believe that the dancers should start back up
>the hall at some time other than the first beat of the phrase? As a
>dancer I implicitly feel that that moment is cast in concrete, and
>shouldn't be messed with, and that figures should not be slurred over
>from phrase to phrase. Down the hall and turn is a figure, and return
>and cast is a figure. Both should take eight beats. The one should
>not sponge time from the other.
I essentially agree with Alan, that the moment that one charges back
up is invarient, and should fit the music. (Actually, I believe that
people should begin back slightly in advance of the phrase; that the
*footfall* occurs on the first beat of the phrase, but by then you are
virtually at full speed.)
When I said "When you turn", it is asking the question "How far in
advance of the phrase do you begin the turn", which is equivalent to
"how fast do you turn".
For better or worse, there are some dances out there that work better
if the figure is executed as:
Promenade somewhere = 8 beats
Turn somehow, return (and maybe no cast off) = 8 beats
(I haven't seen any recently composed dance that features this
somewhat different timing, but then when was the last time you saw
a new dance feature a cast off? Cast off is becoming an endangered
species!)
Do you want to outlaw dances which feature unusual timing or
figure placement? We'd have to erase from our dance books
"Jed's Reel" (6-count dosido), "Elegance and Simplicity"
(8-count 1/2 stars -- now THAT'S unzesty!), "There's A
First Time for Everything" (Zakon-Anderson, which puts a 1/2 hey in the
middle 8 beats of a 16-beat phrase), and countless others.
Some of these timings feel good and natural (6-beat dosidos are easy
for today's rush-rush dancers), and some feel VERY strange (like those
1/2 stars), but they feel strange to us, today. The contra dancers of
yesteryear did stuff like that all the time; it felt NORMAL to them.
Slurring is not a characteristic traditionally associated with contra
dancing. ("Well-phrased" would be more like it.) More contras are
being written that feature slurred movements. It is interesting that
these dances seem to emminate from regions where the prevailing music
is not well-phrased.
JLR Snyder/J Williams
Dan Pearl wrote:
> For better or worse, there are some dances out there that work better
> if the figure is executed as:
> Promenade somewhere = 8 beats
> Turn somehow, return (and maybe no cast off) = 8 beats
>
This makes me think of Chorus Jig, where the couple promenading down the center starts
from above the 2's rather than from "progressed position" (below the 2's - about 2
step/beats farther down the set). I haven't called Chorus Jig much, but I soon realized
that if you didn't let them go down the center a full 8 beats, they would get back to
their neighbors early for the cast off. They're walking down about eight steps but only
returning up about six to meet their neighbors.
Jim Williams
Topeka, KS