Laurie, I started getting the feeling that we've been over this subject before, and I found thread about "Beaumont Rag" started on 2022/04/27 either by you or by some other "Laur" with the subject line "Need help fitting to a tune". I'm forwarding below a message I sent on 2022/04/28.
In my message I included links to recordings of several renditions of "Beaumont Rag" that I thought were quite suitable for contra dancing and also to several versions that I said didn't fit the standard structure of a contra dance. About the latter group, I wrote: > ... If you listen to any of them and try counting along from 1 to 16 over and > over, you'll find that at some point you get to "8" or "4" and the music > signals strongly that it's time to start again at "1". Did you ever try that? If not, I *strongly* recommend that you try it now and let us know what you think. If your local band is playing a version of "Beaumont Rag" that includes 12-bar or 10-bar parts, then it not only won't work well for the general run of contra dances, but it also won't work for the specific dances that some folks here have recommended based on the tune title. If you can determine for sure that (as I'm guessing) the phrase lengths in your local band's version of the tune are the problem, or if you can definitely pinpoint some other reason that what they're playing isn't working for you and for other local callers and dancers, the question remains whether there's anything you can do about it besides ask them not to play the tune for dances you call. Perhaps you could try getting advice from some other local musician(s) whom you trust to have a solid understanding of what works for contra dancing. (Ask them nicely; thank them profusely; offer to pay their gas money and/or treat them to dinner; ...) A solid dance musician might be better able than you to identify specific things about the band's rendition of the tune that are causing problems. The members of the band might be more receptive to advice from a respected fellow musician than from a caller. And your musician friend might be able to advise you about how to approach the band in a tactful way that won't immediately ruffle their feathers and put them in a mood where they just don't want to hear whatever anyone wants to tell them. Or they might know enough about the personalities of the people involved to recognize whether any attempt to broach the subject would be like walking into a minefield and you might as well forget it. Good luck. --Jim > Begin forwarded message: > > From: jim saxe <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Callers] Need help fitting to a tune > Date: April 28, 2022 at 12:49:37 PM PDT > To: Contra Callers <[email protected]>, Laur <[email protected]> > Cc: Bill Olson <[email protected]> > > Laur, > > It's hard to describe stuff about music in words and be sure of being clear, > so I'm going to illustrate my remarks by citing some recordings. > > First, there's at least one version of "Beaumont Rag" that's a perfectly fine > contra dance contra dance tune. Check out these videos. (Times in > parentheses tell when the band switches into "Beaumont Rag" from another > tune.) > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG0i8NTYGvc (4:08) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlOk-UULmVc (1:43) [Note added 2023/04/15: The preceding video in no longer available. I believe all the others I've cited in this message still are. --js] > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOYAMcYVBg (5:28) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynafcljHXhk > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13PQT9ubOdc > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArLulDsc-fg > > All the music in these six videos strikes me as quite suitable for contra > dancing. In the ones that give a good view of the dancers, they don't seem to > be struggling. Even when you can't see the dancers, you can tell by the sound > that things are going well. In particular, you won't hear any callers who > sound like they're sweating bullets trying to keep the dance together. > > The versions of the tune in the videos above certainly aren't note for note > identical, and some bands put in a fair amount of variation from one round of > the tune to the next, but they all stick closely to the same basic phrasing. > > If your local band plays "Beaumont Rag" and it doesn’t work for the dancers > and it’s agonizing for the callers, then I wonder what they're doing that's > different from what's happening in the videos above. > > Bill Olson wrote: > >> ... there are SO many ways Beaumont Rag is played. Not all of them are 32 >> bars long. and it is often played as a "show off' tune at Bluegrass >> festivals, i.e. REALLY FAST!!! > > > The tempos in the videos above range from about 111 to 127 beats per minute. > Illustrating Bill's point about people sometimes playing real fast, here's a > recording I found at a beat or two above 140: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3HxHClfJso > > And here are some examples, at various tempos, illustrating Bill's point > about not all versions being 32 bars long: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNhcKJTW9Hg > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2IRu8quLRs > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NB8IPHdiXo&t=1347s > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WRCyqaNxas > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQeNPeQpZJY > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdAupCMDPw > > In fact, none of these six is entirely in 8-bar (16-beat) phrases. If you > listen to any of them and try counting along from 1 to 16 over and over, > you'll find that at some point you get to "8" or "4" and the music signals > strongly that it's time to start again at "1". > > If your local band's version of "Beaumont Rag" is like any of those last six, > then regardless of the tempo it won't be a good fit for any standard-length > contra dance and it won't be a good fit for "Balance the Star" or "Anna > Turn's Five" or other dances that people have been suggesting, either. > > Another thing that could be going wrong is that there's something about the > band's style of playing for that particular tune that somehow obscures the > phrasing. Take a listen to this guitar version of "Beaumont Rag" played with > undeniable skill by Mark O'Connor: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJuXNiybth0 > > I _think_ it's mostly (perhaps entirely?) in 8-bar phrases, but there are > places where, at least for me, it's a struggle to keep track. And I don't > think it's just on account of the high speed. It's something about the > ornamentation. That sort of playing could be great for a concert, but at a > contra dance, I think that even if the dancers could dance to it, a lot of > them would find it more work than fun. (Possibly, however, it could make all > the difference in the world if another band member were giving the dancers > rock-solid phrasing.) > > Bill also wrote: > >> the tune is pretty much fun if played AABB at a reasonable tempo. ... > > Returning to my opening observation > >> It's hard to describe stuff about music in words and be sure of being clear, > > > let me offer a final word of caution. If the issue turns out to be that the > band plays a "crooked" version of "Beaumont Rag", then even _if_ your > relationship with the band is such that you could appropriately suggest that > a different version would work better for contra dancing, and even _if_ you > could get them completely sold on the idea, and even _if_ they were not > merely willing but eager to try it (all VERY BIG "if"s), I can almost > guarantee (without going into the details) that saying "AABB" would _not_ be > an adequate way to describe the version you're suggesting. > > I hope some of this is helpful. > > --Jim _______________________________________________ Contra Callers mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
