I will often ask the fiddle player to come out on the floor and play for a short circle dance. This is an opportunity to get them dancing right away, teaches connection (giving weight), phrasing (counting to 8), and swing basics.
Sometimes the whole band wants to play. Rich > On Sep 10, 2019, at 12:41 PM, jim saxe via Callers > <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'd like to hear from any of you who can share experience or advice about > making use of music during the introductory lesson (a/k/a "new dancers' > orientation", "beginners' workshop", etc.) that often precedes a regularly > scheduled contradance. > > What source of music do you use? (Recorded music played on a device that you > control? Live music played by a musician assisting with the lesson? Music > that you yourself can play on some instrument while leading the session? Your > own singing of song lyrics, nonsense syllables like "la la la", or dance > calls? Music that may happen to be coming from the evening's band doing their > sound check at the other end of the hall? ..) How--in as much detail as you > care to supply--do you use that music in your teaching? What do you > think/hope your use of music contributes to the effectiveness or fun of the > lesson? > > I tossed out a few ideas on this topic, with much uncertainty about which > ones were any good, in a message I sent on September 2 in the "Brain Dead - > Need Suggestions" thread. I'm re-raising the topic here under a more > descriptive Subject line in hope of getting responses from people who can > offer comments based on actual experience. > > Thanks. > > --Jim > > _______________________________________________ > List Name: Callers mailing list > List Address: [email protected] > Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ _______________________________________________ List Name: Callers mailing list List Address: [email protected] Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
