Re: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?

[Ron Blechner via Callers]

Indeed.

My original reply was merely speaking about relative difficulty of dances.
All of the subsequent posts have made good related points.
On Apr 20, 2015 6:13 PM, "Dugan Murphy via Callers" <
callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> Hi Maia,
>
> I used to organize my dance cards by difficulty, but currently, I use
> categories in my box that are largely based on dance-defining figures
> (Petronella, star promenade) and types of progression (slide left,
> circle-pass-through).  I find that system of organization to be more useful
> when writing out a program for an evening.
>
> Dugan Murphy
> du...@duganmurphy.com
>
>
> Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:53:01 -0400
>> From: Maia McCormick via Callers 
>> To: "callers@lists.sharedweight.net" 
>> Subject: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?
>> Message-ID:
>> > vlyv8g43fy...@mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> As I overhaul my contra deck and realize that my difficulty ranking system
>> is super incoherent, and most of my dance rankings are from way before I
>> had any idea what actually makes a dance easy or hard, I've been thinking
>> of scrapping this difficulty ranking system and just starting over. So I
>> was wondering: if you rank your dances by difficulty, what is your system,
>> what are your benchmarks for various difficulty levels, what sorts of
>> things do you consider when determining the difficulty of a dance? If you
>> DON'T
>> rank your dances, why not?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Maia
>>
>> ***
>>
>
>
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>

Re: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?

[Dugan Murphy via Callers]

Hi Maia,

I used to organize my dance cards by difficulty, but currently, I use
categories in my box that are largely based on dance-defining figures
(Petronella, star promenade) and types of progression (slide left,
circle-pass-through).  I find that system of organization to be more useful
when writing out a program for an evening.

Dugan Murphy
du...@duganmurphy.com


List-Post: callers@lists.sharedweight.net
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:53:01 -0400
> From: Maia McCormick via Callers 
> To: "callers@lists.sharedweight.net" 
> Subject: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?
> Message-ID:
>  vlyv8g43fy...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> As I overhaul my contra deck and realize that my difficulty ranking system
> is super incoherent, and most of my dance rankings are from way before I
> had any idea what actually makes a dance easy or hard, I've been thinking
> of scrapping this difficulty ranking system and just starting over. So I
> was wondering: if you rank your dances by difficulty, what is your system,
> what are your benchmarks for various difficulty levels, what sorts of
> things do you consider when determining the difficulty of a dance? If you
> DON'T
> rank your dances, why not?
>
> Cheers,
> Maia
>
> ***
>

Re: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?

[Lindsey Dono via Callers]

Alan wrote:"A caller can make any dance difficult, and a caller can put across 
an intrinsically more difficult dance with clarity, confidence, and precise 
prompting.  So some of that suitability of dance to crowd has to deal with the 
state of the caller.  This makes it hard to write down a rating on a card 
that's going to have meaning when you use it."

Alan: I completely agree. Occasionally, I've found myself bumbling through a 
walk-through for what seems like an especially boggling dance, only to have the 
caller announce the dance's familiar title (and on one occasion, the title of a 
dance I had called without trouble the night before). 
Another aspect to consider is the dance flavor of the local community. 
Depending on the main "crossover dance" (if any) of the majority, the same move 
can easily be taught to one group while completely flummoxing another. 
Communities that more frequently dance squares are much more comfortable with 
pull-bys, for example, while communities with many English Country dancers are 
less phased by mad robins, heys, etc. I've noticed this more and more as I've 
started calling dances further away from my home turf, and have begun asking 
organizers about other popular styles of dance within their community to try to 
get a sense of this beforehand.
The music is also a major factor in determining difficulty. Is the phrasing 
hard to hear? Does the phrasing match the dance? Mismatched choreography and 
music can subtly but profoundly increase the challenge level of a dance. 
Conversely, an excellent match can make a quirk of a "stretch dance" easier to 
remember. Matching seems to be especially helpful on dances with isolated 
balances on the 5th beat (Balance the Hey, for example) instead of the 1st (any 
dance with a balance and swing). More broadly, selecting dances that the band 
can't match well seems like an easy recipe for trouble. At one of my early 
gigs, I couldn't figure out why all of the slinky dances I tried seemed to be 
giving experienced dancers problems. During the break, someone pointed out that 
my band had two modes: "bouncy" and "barnburner." The elegant dances I tried to 
call didn't fit the strengths of the band, and I modified my program for the 
second half. 
-Lindsey DonoTacoma, WA
  From: Jerome Grisanti via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>
 To: callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> 
 Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2015 9:45 PM
 Subject: Re: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?
   
Erik and Alan make good points.
I also think it's worth the exercise to try to rank dances, and individual 
figures, by difficulty as a way of thinking about what makes a dance hard or 
easy.
For example:
Which is easier to teach (or to learn): chain, hey, right & left through?
That analysis is worthwhile, even if sorting your cards by such rankings is 
problematic.
--Jerome

Jerome Grisanti
660-528-0858
http://www.jeromegrisanti.com

“Dance like no one is watching... Because they are not... They are checking 
their phone.



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Re: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?

[Jerome Grisanti via Callers]

Erik and Alan make good points.

I also think it's worth the exercise to try to rank dances, and individual
figures, by difficulty as a way of thinking about what makes a dance hard
or easy.

For example:

Which is easier to teach (or to learn): chain, hey, right & left through?

That analysis is worthwhile, even if sorting your cards by such rankings is
problematic.

--Jerome

Jerome Grisanti
660-528-0858
http://www.jeromegrisanti.com

“Dance like no one is watching...
Because they are not...
They are checking their phone.

Re: [Callers] Difficulty rankings?

[Erik Hoffman via Callers]

Some things that I think make dances easy are:

1) Stay within your minor set. Even easy appearing dances that leave 
your minor set add a challenge that is often confusing. It's can (I 
think) be slightly less confusing to do a simple double progression than 
leave and return to a minor set.


2) Use those plain English calls: ones that we understand without having 
to learn a figure: circle left, right-hand turn, swing your partner. 
Lines forward and back. Most people in my neck of the world (Coastal 
California) know Do Si Do...


3) A good story line. Getting into dances somewhat experienced contra 
dancers find easy: A good story line. A dance built in a way that flows 
in a way that fits into our concept of what comes next. This concept is 
a bit more mystical. It's easy to identify these dances: you can stop 
calling. A dance can have a lot of parts, but somehow fit easily into 
our brains and movements.


The things Alan mentions below are all worthy of consideration, too, as 
are Larry Jennings' discussion in /Zesty Contras/, as well as his 
rankings and marks in his transcriptions are worth looking at again, and 
then again.


~erik hoffman
oakland, ca


On 4/19/2015 1:27 PM, Alan Winston via Callers wrote:

Maia --

While you can assign a level of difficulty of dances in isolation, it 
doesn't really tell you the whole story.  Whatever intrinsic 
difficulty the dance possesses interacts with what the floor can do 
right now and what the caller can put across. A dance that's easy 
right after the break might have been fatally difficult as an opener.
A floor of relatively fit dancers with some level of experience and no 
hearing impairment can do things easily that others can't do at all.


A caller can make any dance difficult, and a caller can put across an 
intrinsically more difficult dance with clarity, confidence, and 
precise prompting.  So some of that suitability of dance to crowd has 
to deal with the state of the caller.  This makes it hard to write 
down a rating on a card that's going to have meaning when you use it.



So what makes a dance easy, intrinsically?
 - strong flow
 - Low piece count
 - few or no fractions (some people can't hear, don't process, or 
won't do the "and a half" part of 1 and 1/2;
this is recoverable if the next thing is partner swing but bad 
news if you need to do something else right

away)
 - no action outside the minor set
 - clear progression
 - symmetry (because if the roles are the same there's less confusion 
at the ends)

 - recovery point(s); moment of poise
 - sticking with your partner
 - straightforward end effects
 - familiar figures or figures that you can get without drill


When I'm calling for a dance society dance where I have a strong 
expectation that there'll be enough people for satisfactory longways 
contras through the whole evening and there'll be more experienced 
people than beginners and I know the strengths of the band, I make up 
a program with what I think is increasing intrinsic difficulty, figure 
variety, etc, maybe building up to a medley with all figures in it 
handled earlier in the evening if the organizers like medleys, 
cruising down to a satisfying low-piece-count strong-flow dance as a 
finish.  (If it's an old-timey band that doesn't phrase strongly - 
some do - I try to avoid dances that need tight timing; mushy 
Petronellas are annoying.)


But if it's something where I can't get a good read beforehand on 
attendance, I have a file of easier contras and a file of harder 
contras on my tablet computers and while this dance is running I'm 
flicking through the file and picking the next dance based on my 
current read of the floor, what figures they know already, what I now 
think the band can do, etc.


(You could just have twenty dances memorized and have all the bases 
covered, but I like to have a bunch of different choices for the same 
niches so that I stay out of the rut of only calling the same twenty 
dances in front of the same people, since people dance gypsy all over 
Northern California and you'll see the same ones 150 miles apart.)


As you can guess, I don't have a quantified difficulty scale for 
dances.  I might mark "good opener", and I throw them into the 
"easier" or "harder" piles.  I don't find it worth doing more than 
that because so much of the perceived difficulty is contextual rathe 
than intrinsic.


-- Alan




On 4/19/15 10:53 AM, Maia McCormick via Callers wrote:
As I overhaul my contra deck and realize that my difficulty ranking 
system is super incoherent, and most of my dance rankings are from 
way before I had any idea what actually makes a dance easy or hard, 
I've been thinking of scrapping this difficulty ranking system and 
just starting over. So I was wondering: if you rank your dances by 
difficulty, what is your system, what are your benchmarks for various 
difficulty levels, what sorts of things do you consider when 
determining the difficulty of a dance? If