Square Dance Music Quest Continues

[bjarvis]

I subscribe to Hanhurst's square dance music service. Every month, I get a cassette tape of music samples which 60-90 seconds of the instrumental version & another 60-90 seconds of the called version, along with the label ID for ordering. Overall, it's a relatively efficient way to scan through a stack of new releases, listening for music which appeals, especially if you're a newbie like me looking for gems which (a) aren't already beaten to death by other local callers, and (b) have an appealing style (good production, good arrangement, non-sucky/lame lyrics, etc.).

Sean C. of Philadelphia is downsizing his household in preparation for a possible move. When he offered a box of older sampler tapes, I jumped at it. Once I get through the lot, I'll add my own copies --I don't need to listen to them more than once-- and pass them along to anyone else who might be interested, or perhaps hold them in trust as part of a GCA library of materials.

I'm averaging about a tape per day so far, listening in the car during my drive to & from work, as well as to occasional calling gigs in DC and Baltimore. At this pace, I anticipate being finished with the entire lot on or about March 1.

As one can imagine, some of the samples are downright frightful. Still, I've identified three pieces so far which are candidates. If they're still available for sale and my budget allows, I'll check into them again when I'm done with the lot to see if I feel the same way.

Comments

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

You're doing extremely well getting through a tape a day. I had to listen to mine on trips to Santa Fe, or go hide in a back room and listen to them. But of course I was only getting the one a month.

I haven't had a subscription to Hanhurst now for about 8 years, and I only marginally miss it when I hear a good new piece some caller is doing. From time to time, I do go to www.dosado.com and link into Hanhurst and listen to the .mp3s they have available, or just go ahead and order one that a caller has recommended.

But yes, it's the time consideration and the fact that 80% of the VOCAL sides of the records were unlistenable that made me finally give up my annual subscription. Can you imagine dancing night after night to some of those off-key, off-tempo voices? Yikes.

Early on, that was my key source of Mainstream and Plus singing calls. There were some pretty good figures in there. But the pro callers, like on Royal, really only used a couple of figures that were done to death, like Heads promenade 1/2, square thru, swing thru, boys run, ferris wheel, square thru 3, swing and promeande. Over and over and over.

Fast forward helped a lot. :-)

Toward the end of my annual subscriptions, I usually only listened to the instrumental portion and ignored the vocal side altogether, unless it was a song I wasn't familiar with.

Now that Palamino owns Hanhurst (which once upon a time was it's own company before it was bought by Supreme Audio), I wonder if it's just going away period.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Fast forward helped a lot. :-)

Oh, yeah. Most are benign, some are memorable only for being horrifically.

Getting through a tape per day says a lot about the length of my daily commute (and having a cast iron stomach). I'd cheerfully trade commutes with you.