Regarding the bands and bpms- (your comment made me laugh! :) ) One of our bands has a keyboard player and it's great- he can actually turn on a metronome beat right on his keyboard.
Another has a digital sound board that seems to keep track. For others, either the band leader or I bring up the simple google metronome on our phone right before the dance, and we snap/tap out the beat together with the phone, to ensure we're on the same page :) https://g.co/kgs/otM5T7y Kat k again Sep 5, 2024 10:19:13 AM Mary Collins <[email protected]>: > Thanks Kat for this bpm mention. I try to notated all my cards (as I > call/practice) with the type of tune and the practice tune (sometimes I call > to recorded so this helps) and the best bpm. Sometimes I note a start at and > increase to as well. > > I attended a workshop once where I was instructed to stomp out the bpm > instead of telling the band. Very difficult for me for a variety of reasons > but I was told bands don't know bpm which I (on behalf of musicians > everywhere) took exception to. My response was, "well, the bands I work with, > do." > > Good information re: beats vs measures too. I have tried for years to explain > to a dancer that more notes does not = more beats and more steps. > > Loving all the comments! > Mary Collins > > On Thu, Sep 5, 2024, 8:17 AM Katherine Kitching via Contra Callers > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I'm loving this discussion too! >> >> It took me a while when I started calling, to realize how the dancers and >> the musicians count differently-- >> In our group we always listen to a full added-on A1 as an intro- ie 16 beats >> of music-- and that's what I tell our beginner dancers: "We're going to >> listen to 16 beats of music and then start dancing" . >> >> But what the musicians seem to need to hear, if they are new to our group, >> is "We need you to play 8 *bars* of extra music as an intro" . >> Until I figured this out, I was asking the musicians for 16 beats, and they >> were playing 16 bars, and everything got messy! >> >> But Rich's comment below has got me interested in hearing from more people >> about their typical range of tempos- it's something I've recently started >> thinking more deeply about-- >> >> Now when I do my dance outline, I set a target tempo in bpm for each dance, >> to help our musicians select an appropriate tune for each (I went to a great >> workshop last summer where I learned that some tunes, like irish reels, >> sound fast but actually tend to be among the slower-tempo'd tunes -- and >> most of our musicians struggle to play them faster than 110bpm- making them >> a poor choice for a lot of the simple, high-energy dances that our group >> does.) >> >> Rich Goss wrote: >> "The sweet spot for most dances is 116bpm (beats per minute). The range is >> generally 108-120. For a one night stand, I would shoot for the low end." >> >> So I've been keeping track over the last year, -- asking my bands to report >> to me after each dance, whether we danced at the target tempo I had set, or >> something faster or slower than it... >> >> I would say in our group, our typical easy dances run with a tempo of >> 112-120 - even for total beginners.. >> >> and some dances in the middle of the evening get up to 125+, with all the >> high energy in the hall. >> >> It's actually our more challenging dances towards the end of the evening, >> (which are not very challenging for most of y'all, but we are a basic-level >> group!) that end up going slower- when we put in heys and other flowy moves, >> then we get into more groovy-feeling tunes in the 105-110bpm range. >> >> Would love to hear about other groups' tempo ranges! >> >> Kat K in Halifax, NS, Canada >> _______________________________________________ >> Contra Callers mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
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