USDA Callers' Clinic

I took Thursday off work to attend the callers' clinic at the US national singles' square dance convention in Alexandria, VA. Originally, it was scheduled to be a two day session but there were only four registrants so they reduced it to a single day to save money & time.

I'm always nervous in caller workshops: it's not a great feeling, submitting oneself to be judged like a slab of beef and paying for the privilege. Still, coaches Tom Miller, Ken Ritucci and Mike Callahan (with part-time assistance from Butch Adams) are old pros at caller clinics and all have a fantastic sense of humour so we were all at ease fairly quickly.

We had four students initially: me, Dave (Bowie, MD), Tim (Virginia and a protégé of Butch) and Chuck (upstate New York and a protégé of Mike). I was the most experienced of the lot although the other three solid intermediate level. Joe Harr (DC Lambda Squares) was a surprise fifth student: he had never called or held a mic in his life and has only been dancing for 11 months. There was a broad range of experience and skill level.

As expected, the first exercise was to have everyone call a small portion of patter so the coaches could see what we could do and offer suggestions on posture, microphone technique, body flow, etc.. All did well: some were prodded about posture or having their hands in their pockets, but I had been beaten trained well on this particular point so I escaped largely unscathed.

We had a session on breath control and singing from the diaphragm. Thanks to prior caller schools and sessions at CALLERLAB conventions, I pass that exercise easily too.

Under voice maintenance, we were told to stay hydrated 24-48 hours prior to a calling gig and to avoid dairy products, chocolate, caffeine, coffee, soft drinks, etc. the day of the gig as these tend to coat one's vocal chords. We then broke for lunch where we were served pulled pork sandwiches, a creamy macaroni salad, large chocolate brownies and Coke Classic. Oops.

Putting me on the mic after woofing down two huge, rich brownies was probably a mistake: after sugaring up, I was calling far faster than I did in the morning but we had a good laugh on that.

Our last major exercise in the afternoon was formation & arrangement recognition. Each student was asked to just call extemporaneously, moving the dancers around the floor. At random intervals, a coach would shout out, "What's that formation?" and the student had to identify it as a quarter tag, parallel right-handed ocean waves, completed double pass thru, etc.. For bonus points, they were asked the arrangement of boy & girl dancers --not an obvious task for some callers when we only had one or two women in the square.

And then it was my turn. There was a special exercise arranged for me.

Instead of identifying the formations & arrangements, the coaches would shout out a formation & arrangement which I then had to create. I had to generate right-handed point-to-point diamonds with the boys as centers, inverted lines with girls facing out, three-and-one lines with a boy looking out, a right-handed quarter box with girls in the middle, a magic column, etc.. And while it wasn't the smoothest and easiest calling I've ever done, I succeeded on this one too.

I was pleasantly surprised how well newbie Joe did on the mic. He didn't make any of the same errors or mistakes I did in my first several weeks. Sure, he doesn't have the call lists memorized by program yet and needed time to think of a valid call for each formation, but that comes with time & work. His enunciation, vocal projection and mic technique were all excellent and he had good stage presence and confidence. I definitely want to bring him on board for our next in-house caller workshop: he'll go far.

My list of to-do items is largely unchanged from my prior quarterly goals: I want to work more on cadence and singing more of the calls in singing figures. I'm happy to report that during the clinic I solidly nailed giving the first note to the dancers, one of my other goals for this quarter. Yay!

The next caller workshop I have on my schedule is a two hour mini-clinic with Deborah Carroll-Jones on Sunday, Sept. 26... I'm looking forward to hanging out with Deborah, if only for a while.

USDA Callers' Clinic

I took Thursday off work to attend the callers' clinic at the US national singles' square dance convention in Alexandria, VA. Originally, it was scheduled to be a two day session but there were only four registrants so they reduced it to a single day to save money & time.

I'm always nervous in caller workshops: it's not a great feeling, submitting oneself to be judged like a slab of beef and paying for the privilege. Still, coaches Tom Miller, Ken Ritucci and Mike Callahan (with part-time assistance from Butch Adams) are old pros at caller clinics and all have a fantastic sense of humour so we were all at ease fairly quickly.

We had four students initially: me, Dave (Bowie, MD), Tim (Virginia and a protégé of Butch) and Chuck (upstate New York and a protégé of Mike). I was the most experienced of the lot although the other three solid intermediate level. Joe Harr (DC Lambda Squares) was a surprise fifth student: he had never called or held a mic in his life and has only been dancing for 11 months. There was a broad range of experience and skill level.

As expected, the first exercise was to have everyone call a small portion of patter so the coaches could see what we could do and offer suggestions on posture, microphone technique, body flow, etc.. All did well: some were prodded about posture or having their hands in their pockets, but I had been beaten trained well on this particular point so I escaped largely unscathed.

We had a session on breath control and singing from the diaphragm. Thanks to prior caller schools and sessions at CALLERLAB conventions, I pass that exercise easily too.

Under voice maintenance, we were told to stay hydrated 24-48 hours prior to a calling gig and to avoid dairy products, chocolate, caffeine, coffee, soft drinks, etc. the day of the gig as these tend to coat one's vocal chords. We then broke for lunch where we were served pulled pork sandwiches, a creamy macaroni salad, large chocolate brownies and Coke Classic. Oops.

Putting me on the mic after woofing down two huge, rich brownies was probably a mistake: after sugaring up, I was calling far faster than I did in the morning but we had a good laugh on that.

Our last major exercise in the afternoon was formation & arrangement recognition. Each student was asked to just call extemporaneously, moving the dancers around the floor. At random intervals, a coach would shout out, "What's that formation?" and the student had to identify it as a quarter tag, parallel right-handed ocean waves, completed double pass thru, etc.. For bonus points, they were asked the arrangement of boy & girl dancers --not an obvious task for some callers when we only had one or two women in the square.

And then it was my turn. There was a special exercise arranged for me.

Instead of identifying the formations & arrangements, the coaches would shout out a formation & arrangement which I then had to create. I had to generate right-handed point-to-point diamonds with the boys as centers, inverted lines with girls facing out, three-and-one lines with a boy looking out, a right-handed quarter box with girls in the middle, a magic column, etc.. And while it wasn't the smoothest and easiest calling I've ever done, I succeeded on this one too.

I was pleasantly surprised how well newbie Joe did on the mic. He didn't make any of the same errors or mistakes I did in my first several weeks. Sure, he doesn't have the call lists memorized by program yet and needed time to think of a valid call for each formation, but that comes with time & work. His enunciation, vocal projection and mic technique were all excellent and he had good stage presence and confidence. I definitely want to bring him on board for our next in-house caller workshop: he'll go far.

My list of to-do items is largely unchanged from my prior quarterly goals: I want to work more on cadence and singing more of the calls in singing figures. I'm happy to report that during the clinic I solidly nailed giving the first note to the dancers, one of my other goals for this quarter. Yay!

The next caller workshop I have on my schedule is a two hour mini-clinic with Deborah Carroll-Jones on Sunday, Sept. 26... I'm looking forward to hanging out with Deborah, if only for a while.