Articles -- Caller Resources

A Love & Passion www.wesquaredance.com by Jerry Junck reprinted from USDA NEWS October – December 1998: Square dancing needs a resumption of caller leadership to teach new dancers and provide a choreographically easy enough dance environment for those new dancers to succeed. From our leadership, we must have a love and passion for square dancing. In addition, we need to restore a mutual respect for each other, as well. We need to be able to motivate dancers as to the importance of recruiting, and the necessity of being patient and understanding with the new dancers we do teach.
Alternative Music www.ceder.net by Vic Ceder reprinted from Presented to Callerlab.: Suggestions on using Alternative Music with examples.
Alternative Patter Music fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker: Patter music can be less structured than singing call music, giving a much larger range of music from which to choose. Often our patter music is more drab and boring than our singing call music. Sometimes this is necessary so that the dancers won't get distracted by the music. However, sometimes it is nice to let accomplished dancers dance to a good piece of music. Music from outside the normal square dance arena is another way of providing variety, getting away from boom-chuck, certain instrumentation, and other constraints we impose upon ourselves.
Attitude Is Everything www.wesquaredance.com by Jerry Junck: Today's square dance activity is suffering form a great many more negative opinions than positive attitudes. Jerry asks callers, dancers, and even organizations to do some hard thinking about their current attitudes and what positive changes we all can make for the good of square dancing.
Beat Math fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker reprinted from Clark Baker (A Workshop presented at Callerlab 2009): This workshop will start with a brief review of timing. Next we will discuss a methodology for measuring how many beats a call takes and use this methodology on a few calls to see if it gets the same answer as our existing timing charts. Finally we will see if "beat math" really works. Can we simply stick calls together, adding up their beats, and expect the sequence to dance in that many beats? If not, how are we supposed to use our timing numbers?
Caller Judgment fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker reprinted from A Talk given at Callerlab 2012: A square dance caller makes many decisions while performing his job. Some of these decisions are easy and obvious, especially to experienced callers. Others are not so easy, and different callers may make different decisions when presented with identical situations. Usually the results of a decision are minor, or can be easily fixed. Occasionally the decision has far reaching consequences.
Computer Numbers, A History summersweet.org by Don Beck reprinted from The Call Sheet
Computer Numbers, What They Are and Why summersweet.org by Don Beck reprinted from Shop Talk
Creating A Teaching Order That Will Help Students Succeed fortytwo.ws by Don Beck
Dancing By Definition docs.google.com by Barry Clasper reprinted from Callerlab 2013 presentation: How the brain's memory and recall mechanisms work and how we can apply that to the way a dancer learns.
Do It Again and Again (part 1) www.ecta.de by Al Stevens: Repetition all over again.
Do It Again and Again (part 2) www.ecta.de by Al Stevens: Repetition all over again.
Extended Applications (for Callers) www.ceder.net by Vic Ceder reprinted from Presented to Callerlab: Standard applications are those combinations of calls and formations that are most frequently called, and which give a high dancer success rate. When a caller goes beyond this basic 'norm', dancers tend to break down because they are given unfamiliar positions from which to do the call. This article focuses on those Extended Applications, how and when to use them while keeping them fun and attainable.
Frequency Counts - Good or Bad? www.ecta.de by Al Stevens
Gimmicks fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker: I have always felt that there are more than a few types of gimmicks. However I have never taken the time to collect and analyze the various types. Making a presentation on this subject at the 2005 Callerlab meeting has forced me to collect my thoughts and write this paper.
Helpful Hints for Callers www.ecta.de by Al Stevens: Suggestions that have been made over the years at Al Steven's callers schools.
How I Get Square Dance Music www.all8.com by Rich Reel: One way to obtain square dance records.
My First CALLERLAB www.danceinfo.org by Allan Hurst: There's a myth that attending CALLERLAB is only for professional callers. In reality, it's a wonderful opportunity to meet other callers, and to get to know the square dance community at large.
Non-Destructive Testing summersweet.org by Don Beck reprinted from The Call Sheet
On The Rights of Call Authors fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker: Following some discussion on the square dance caller's e-mail list regarding what rights the author of a square dance call may or may not have, Clark Baker's writes his opinion.
Phrase Craze fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker reprinted from Clark Baker (a workshop presented at the 2010 CALLERLAB Convention): This workshop will explore the relationship of patter and singing calling to the musical phrase. We start with a brief definition of terms, and move into some dancing. Does a style of delivery in which the caller gives the dancers the first beat in a phrase better? How often can a skilled caller "hit the phrase"? How can you acquire this skill? What are some examples of strongly phrased music. This will be a laboratory in which we are counting on you, as dancers, to help determine which variables really matter.
Points for Better Calling www.all8.com by Rich Reel: Fundamental aspects of optimal square dance calling.
Sight Calling www.nwcustomwebs.com by Rob Scribner reprinted from The Oregon Square Dancer Magazine: A sight-calling primer.
Sight Resolution www.penrod-sq-dancing.com: Several callers have submitted their methods for sight resolution.
Smooth Dancing gero-teufert.de by Peter Höfelmeyer: Why should smooth dancing be one of our highest goals?
Some Thoughts about Body Flow gero-teufert.de by Jens Harms
Teaching Order Design Principles www.callerlab.org by Dottie Welch and Clark Baker reprinted from Callerlab Dance Program Documents
Teaching Principles That Will Help Students Succeed fortytwo.ws by Don Beck: Four phases to teaching, and goals of teaching.
Teaching Square Dancing to Grade 7 fortytwo.ws by Clark Baker: This talk will focus on my experiences in working with 7th graders, teaching a progressive series of classes, leading to a school-wide performance. Areas covered include crowd control, choreography, teaching techniques, handling reluctant dancers, dealing with attitude, a core vocabulary of calls and skills, teaching words, and learning speed. We end with a quick walkthru of calls that look good in exhibition (Stars, Allemande Thar, Grand Square, Dip And Dive, Heel & Toe, Star Promenade & Butterfly Whirl) which you could use in any ONS. Finally we dance the routine to phrased calling.
Teaching Techniques fortytwo.ws by Jerry Reed: Teaching is one of the most important jobs of any caller. We should be prepared to undertake this task each time we pick up our microphone. Teaching can be as formal as a regular class or workshop situation or as informal as a discussion of a particular move or concept over coffee after a dance. Teaching people to dance is not only one of our most important skills, it is also one of the most difficult.
TrashDance (What A Feeling!) www.danceinfo.org by Allan Hurst: As a caller ... what do you do when only 6 dancers show up? Get trashy! This article, on how to choreograph and call for 6 dancers plus two wheeled garbage cans, first appeared in the GCA "Call Sheet" Newsletter.
What Makes Choreography Difficult (and Why Should We Care) summersweet.org by Don Beck
What Makes Square Dancing Hard? -- Cognitive Psychology and Square Dancing (1982) fortytwo.ws by John Sybalsky reprinted from Square Dance Practice Vol. 1, No. 4: There are limits to what the human mind can do. Studying those limits---and how people cope with them---can tell us much about what makes square dancing easy or hard: The closer a call or sequence comes to pushing those limits. the harder it is to perform. Looking at how people cope with their limits can tell us much about how people learn square dancing. and thus provide guidance for setting up teaching orders and plateau progressions.
Working with Other Callers - Duets www.ecta.de by Al Stevens: Duets are a great tool to be used by callers, if two callers are compatible with each other, however a danger exists when two callers are non - compatible. Nothing sounds worse than to listen to two callers trying to work with each other - and can't.
Zeros callers.gero-teufert.de by Gero Teufert