The Tempo Question...enough to start religious wars, so please let's tread
lightly in replies! There are regional/style, complexity, and agility
components. Dances in the northeastern US, simple dances called to
non-beginners, and dances with more agile dancers tend to go faster.
These are tendenc
But don't make the mistake we did of trying to cross at a tiny border
crossing. If you're going in commercially they're likely to send you (as
they did us) to a larger crossing.
(Back when you could do Burlington-Ottawa-Montreal in a weekend we were
driving to Ottawa. Blindly following GPS direct
I’m late enough to the discussion this may not matter, but:
I started to write about the beginners’ class I used to teach, and while doing
so I saw significant differences from others' lists of basic figures. I
realized that they’re importantly different things.
My class was about teaching figu
Should not be a problem - NAFTA is good for US musicians/callers, but bad for
Canadian ones. Few restrictions that I know of unless you're going to make
thousands of dollars. In any case, I usually just say that I'm going to perform
for a folk dance in a church basement and they tend to lose int
Cross-posting to Callers and Trad Callers lists, please excuse the duplicates.
Friends and Colleagues,
I am seeking wisdom from U.S. callers who’ve recently crossed the border into
Canada to do a gig. Words to say or not say? Documentation of gig needed?
Problems or ease you have had?
thanks
We just did a caller-musician workshop where we talked a lot about tempos.
Our conclusion was that the tempo can really vary with the dance. We found a
simple line dance like Gallopede/Virginia Reel might be danced up to 125bpm
with a young energetic crowd our typical speed for most beginne
Hi Jeff! It does vary by community... If you played at 120 and up where I
dance, the dance would be empty and/or over halfway through. Even at
116-120, older/less fit dancers are getting frustrated, sitting down to
catch their breath, and leaving early.
In my experience, 112-114 is the sweet spot.
For me:
116-120: normal, hard to go wrong
110-122: usually fine, depending a bit on the dance and crowd
104-126: possible with the right dance and crowd, but on the edge of
undanceable
<104, >126: almost never a good idea
Younger or more athletic crowds generally do better with another couple
bpm
Just wondering what tempos your bands are playing for contra dancers.
Thank you!
Roberta Kogut
Western North Carolina
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