Hmm. Having a caller assign the medleys could get a little... political? Even as a fellow musician I would feel a little weird dictating medleys; what if I play a tune a certain mellow way and this band does it zippier?
And just to check: was it the medley combination or the tunes themselves? Newer bands often do things that are "cool" but deadly.One is to pick inscrutable tunes -- so inscrutable that noone is quite sure where the A part is. I would probably encourage them to listen to some of the seminal Canterbury orchestra/Yankee Ingenuity type albums and start with the chestnuts -- there's a reason those tunes became "canon." Listen to how the tunes are matched -- what are the keys, the personalities? Why do those medleys work? There are newer dance-length CD's by longtime bands that are also excellent. If they already have their own favorite repertoire, have them at least screen out the old time tunes where the A and B parts are different by only one note -- and the Celtic tunes where they're different by all 64. A good dance tune should have a recognizable shape, be kindof singable -- have a good mix of note values, neither all sparse quarters or relentless machine gun sixteenths. As far as putting together medleys? That's hard, since it partly depends on instrumentation (flutes shine on certain tunes that don't ring out much on fiddle, and v.v.), partly on the group's personality. Tunes wake up differently with different players. Newer bands often put perfectly good tunes together into adventurous medleys -- New England jig into Celtic polka into French Canadian reel. This sometimes works... Pretty much safely true: pick three tunes of similar character ( put Old Time with Old Time, marches with marches, celtic with celtic, French C. w/ Fr.) That way the particular groove of that culture will have time to really establish itself, settle in. The band will find it and so will the dancers. Put the clearest, ringing-est, zippy-est tune LAST, put the other two before it in whichever order makes sense to you. By key? By range on the instrument? The tunes will either end up mellow-bigger-BIGGEST or big - mellower - bigger, and either is fine. Oh, and be careful: a spare/sparse tune (like a march) medleyed into a dense note-y tune will actually feel like a downer ( and newer bands will sometimes slow down to accomodate all those notes!) Right off the top of my head? A Red Haired Boy Shenandoah Falls Mason's Apron Joys of Quebec (careful which dance it gets matched to) Liza Jane Sandy Boys Robertson's Meeting of the Waters D Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine Forked Deer Waiting on Nancy Spotted Pony Gaspe Bouchard's Pays de Haut St. Joseph Old French Paddy on the RR Cuckoo's Nest Fisher's Vladimir's Steamboat G Green Mtn Petronella Farewell to Whiskey Mairi's Wedding Nail That Catfish Eddie's Saut de Lapin Reel de Montreal Crooked Stovepipe Far From Home Lady of the Lake C Dominion Say No More F Ross's #4 Am Lochlavan Castle Grumbling Man/Growling Woman Star of Munster Dm Julia Delaney Em Down the Brae Scollays Dancing Bear Jigs : MAKE SURE THEY AND YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DOUBLE and SINGLE JIGS, or Celtic vs. New England, or smooth vs. bouncy, or whatever you want to call them. (I personally think you're better off substituting a reel of the right character than getting the wrong kind of jig). Perfect ex. of smooth huhmanahuhmanahuhmana jig: Morrison's. Perfect ex of bouncy jouncy jiggity-bump type: St. Lawrence Keep the two kinds separate! And consider not messing around with jig-to-reel until you've got more gigs under your feet. Just my (2 cents) x 10 ! Cheers, Amy (PS: you could also talk me and Carol Compton into coming out and doing a big ol' weekend workshop on just that sort of thing...) On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 8:12 PM, Sue Robishaw <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > We have a group of musicians getting together a band for a new > contra series (hurray!). They are mostly experienced musicians (old > time, celtic) but not for dancing, and most (unfortunately) aren't > dancers. Does anyone have any tune sets of common tunes that they > particularly like? Having had the experience of calling to a rather > amorphous (phrase wise) tune set put together by wonderful musicians > but non dancers, I'd like to recommend for our group some good, solid > core tune sets for a starting repertoire. > Thanks! > Sue Robishaw, Upper Peninsula of Michigan > PS - Anyone know of a set dance musician's list similar to this one? > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers >
