I love that Joe remembered the edge-notched sorting system I told him about and also really love Jeff's suggestion of getting spiral-bound cards and removing the spiral! I've drilled holes in index cards before as Joe described, but the results weren't clean.
*I don't remember who I first heard about this sorting system from, but I recall that they said some well-known caller/choreographer organized his cards this way. Anyone know who this was?* I've always wanted to rediscover this knowledge! For my cards, I've only in the last year developed a system I'm happy with after a decade of prototyping: - First, my box is divided into five sections (I, II, III, IV, and V) according to *difficulty*. Dances in the I section are easiest and won't even include a courtesy turn. Sections II and III are my most-used; a typical regular dance evening will pull from these sections. IV is for tricky dances — you could get away with one or two at a regular dance with a competent crowd, or you could save them for Advanced Dance events. V is really wacky hard stuff. Advanced as it gets. - Second, each card has a colored sticker (something like these <https://www.webstaurantstore.com/avery-5796-1-4-round-assorted-removable-see-through-color-coding-dot-labels-pack/15405796.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=freeclicks&utm_campaign=GoogleShopping>) to give a sense of the dance's *disposition*. Pink is very balance-y, orange is moderately balance-y, yellow is moderately smooth, green is very smooth. The important distinction here is that I'm not wed to how a particular bit of choreography should be danced (i.e., a band could successfully play a smooth tune to an orange-coded dance) but my coding does give a sense of where to look for certain moves: if I want petronellas, I look in the pink dances first. - *The stickers are placed along the top edge of the cards and positioned according to difficulty, with dances in Section I having stickers on the left of that edge and dances in Section V toward the right. This makes sorting and identifying dances very easy.* - Finally, within each colored section I alphabetize. Occasionally I know the name of a dance I'm looking for (though not always!) and in those cases I usually remember enough about the dance to guess where in my box it will be. I've been really happy with this sorting system. Programming is easier. It means that if I need to change plans, I can select dances very quickly. It also means I can replace dances and re-sort my box at the end of the evening without trouble. I used removable stickers so that I could change my mind if needed, and this is the only thing I'd do differently so far; these stickers fall off too easily, even when folded over the top edge. Bonus: My box looks like rainbow stripes from the top. And another mechanic: - I always add a tally to the back of a card after I call it... - Regular at the top left, medley inclusion at the bottom - This allows me to turn my box around and select for favorites ("I need an old stand-by") or newly-collected ("I'm bored") - ...and I also add dance titles to a google spreadsheet before I re-sort the cards back into their categories - What did I call last time I was at this dance? What worked and what didn't? - I can also pull an old program from a comparable event if I don't have time to program from scratch On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 11:26 AM Michael Dyck via Contra Callers < contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > On 2023-01-11 12:44 a.m., Joe Harrington via Contra Callers wrote: > > > > I heard recently (I believe from Angela DeCarlis) of a mechanical > sorting > > system based on the Jacquard loom concept that became the Hollerith > punched > > card system. I've never seen it in use. Does anyone do this? > > See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge-notched_card > > [Ah, Jeff Kaufman beat me to it.] > > > Figure out the ten or so characteristics you might want to sort on. For > > example, easy, medium, hard, bouncy, flowy, separates partners, > sweetheart > > (keeps partners together), etc. Take a stack of cards and drill holes > near > > the bottom edge, one per characteristic (you can drill a stack of cards > if > > you sandwich them between wood and clamp them). Now, on a given card, > punch > > out the rest of the paper between the hole and the edge of the card for > each > > hole the card DOESN'T match. > > Alternatively, you could punch out the margin when it *does* match (which > would probably be less work). Then in the selection procedure, the cards > that fall out (as opposed to the ones that stay on the needle) are the > selected ones. > > > [...] > > > > Good hole alignment and clean punching would matter, I think. If you > are a > > real dance sorting fanatic, you could get like 30 holes around the card > > edges, but that would limit the writing space. > > Back when I was young and had lots of time (and no computer), I made a > deck > of edge-notched cards to 'play' the game Mastermind: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_(board_game) > > (4 pegs of 6 possible colors, so 1296 cards, each with 24 holes and 4 > notches.) As I recall, during the selection procedure, cards with a notch > at > the selected hole (which *should* fall out) would sometimes 'stay on' the > needle just from friction with the neighboring cards. So I'd have to > jostle > the deck a bit to shake those loose. > > Also, V-shaped notches increased the chances that a card would fall out > when > it should. > > One way to avoid these problems is to have two opposite sets of holes, > with > complementary notches. In the selection procedure, you use two needles, > placed in complementary holes, and you pull them apart to separate the > cards > you want from the ones you don't. > > -Michael > _______________________________________________ > Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net > To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net >
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