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Thoughts from a Musician -- and some from the Syncretist

5/18/2011

 
Recently I ended up sitting in for a little bit at a dinner with the members of traditional contra dance band Morning Star (Brendan Taaffe, Garrett Sawyer, and Geordie Lynd) and caller Anna Rain when they played and called the FSGW Sunday Night Dance. In the course of this, I told them about this site and we got into a little bit of the ongoing dialogue about what techno contras mean for the tradition. Brendan made a point that I think is worth considering:
He said that as a musician who performs live music for dances, one of his key concerns was dancers being aware of the band and the people who made it sound so great -- that he'd had the experience at a traditional contra when he'd been playing his heart out for the first half and then went for a drink of water, someone would stop him and ask him for the next contra as though they had no awareness that he was a member of the band and had just been providing that wonderful music they'd just been dancing to for the last couple of hours. This expanded into his view that using recorded music -- like a lot of techno and crossover contras do -- is a move in the wrong direction because in his mind it takes the dancers one more step away from the live music and appreciation of the people who make it. He said that personally he would like to see more awareness of the presence of the live music, rather than less as he sees happening when using recorded music.

I'm not sure what I think of that myself, to be honest. I appreciate that he was able to express his view to me and allow me to mention it here, and as he is a musician I could easily understand his bias, but given that I don't necessarily see recorded music taking the place of live music in the contra community as a whole (and many of the people I've talked to about this seem to agree that the two branches of the contra dance tradition can exist in parallel to each other) I'm not sure I see the same level of concern being necessary. I'm also not a musician, which may make a difference here as well.

I can, however, understand his concern about having the producers of the music be overlooked while dancers are caught up in the dance, which I will admit I've been guilty of in the past. Since talking to Brendan I've been trying to make a particular effort to show my appreciation for the music-makers, be they playing on instruments or mixing recorded tunes.

How about you all? What do you think of this? Does Brendan have a point?
Perry
5/18/2011 12:00:14 am

Dear Syncretist,

You KNOW I have opinions on this. Of course, from a musician's point of view, they are afraid that the rise of recorded music will mean lack of gigs for them. That's first and foremost.

But one thing about live music has that you can never get out of recorded music, no matter how hard you try, is the feedback loop between dancers and musicians. Let me try to explain.

Dancers love to feed off of hot music. When they whoop and holler and give appreciation to the band, the band feels energized to play that much better, faster, harder, whatever, and that builds even more excitement in the hall.

As I have said many times, I too don't want to see techno contras going away, but live traditional music is and will always be better for contra dances. The day that I see that techno contras have overtaken traditional live contras in popularity and frequency will be the day I walk away from contra dancing. I don't think that will happen for many, many years - but I can see it happening.

Diana
5/21/2011 04:04:17 am

Brendan has a point about live music in general, from my experience.

Everything Perry just said is correct. There really is no substitute for live music, when it comes to the overall experience of dancing. I do hope dancers appreciate this, and I think many (maybe even most) do. I could see someone who perhaps gets introduced to contra through recorded music may not know what they're missing until they have the live experience (of a good band anyway -- there are certainly groups that play like they're just a recording... topic for another day).

In this day and age, when so many people are accustomed to recorded music, I think there really can be a lack of awareness of the human element. I don't know how much this applies to the contra community, but I've certainly experienced it in other areas where I've been a performer being treated like a CD player that can be turned off and on at will.

Andrew
5/22/2011 11:38:56 pm

I would go one step farther and say that, even though ContraSonic uses recorded music, there is still a human element; a live DJ who is watching the dancers, mixing music and adjusting the mood accordingly. This is completely different than a caller who brings in a CD and presses play.

It may very well be the case that dancers don't appreciate the live DJ anymore than a live musician, but at least he can play the crowd the same way a band would.


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    I dance with abandon. I play with glowsticks. I look for music that is conducive to one or both. I play behind cameras.  I write about all of the above. I'm based in Glen Echo's contra dance community outside of Washington, D.C., but I'm happy to go dance afield when I can. Lather, rinse, repeat. Always repeat.

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