Dance Technique:   The Music Will Tell You

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Sorry, I've started writing this section and then put it aside.  When I need it for a session somewhere I'll return to it.

Usually it's a cop-out on the part of the caller who doesn't know the dance well enough.  “How many steps for the circle left ¾?”  “Oh, the music well tell you!”  I've seen people wearing T-shirts with musical notation which goes along normally and then collapses in a heap, and the slogan “The music didn't know either”, and I sympathise with this view.  On the other hand, Cammy Kaynor who calls in the Boston area of the States is insistent that the music really can tell you — he claims that he can play the music on his fiddle in such a way that it actually says “Set and cast one place” and then play the same phrase in a different way so that it says “Two hand turn”.  I'm sceptical about this.  But it's certainly true that the music can set the mood for a dance, and encourage you to walk one phrase and dance the next phrase.  A good band will play the same music quite differently if it's for walking to the first time and dancing to the second time.  And I've seen dancers in the States change their dance style quite dramatically in Tom Cook's “Smithy Hill” when the band change to a smoky nightclub style with saxophone improvisation.