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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
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Location: Canaan Jam Host
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 Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: Oct 05 |
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next waltz jam is Oct 05 ! 
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
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Location: Canaan Jam Host
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
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Location: Canaan Jam Host
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
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Location: Canaan Jam Host
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject: Try a couple from Waltz Book II |
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Let's try a couple from WALTZ BOOK II (#2) on Jan 4th ...
| Quote: | "Captain Henry O'Kain" and "Give Me Your Hand" are a couple of tunes
from Waltz book II that I think most people could easily site read.
There are some other that I think would work also." -Wash
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:53 pm Post subject: Hoorah! Let's start on time :-) |
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Hi all,
In 2008 I would still strive to start the music at 7:00 pm sharp. There sometimes is a relaxed attitude in volunteer bands that it's ok to show up late. Well, it is, we sure wouldn't ask anyone to leave! But it makes us as a group look more professional if we arrive and start playing on time. I think both the waltz jams and summer Monday nights would benefit from starting on time. Who knows ... the dancers might take us more seriously and get there on time too? Crazier things have happened! We will start playing music 15 minutes after we get in the building to allow time to set up, tune up and warm up. Ted is hoping to get there at about 6:45, but apologizes in advance as he gets held up sometimes.
Please update your availability regularly by going to GigKeeper at www.gigkeeper.com
Mike
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:57 am Post subject: Next Waltz Jam is .... |
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Feb 1st is the next Waltz Jam
Generally we are shooting for once per month, the forst Friday of the month.
-Mike
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:52 am Post subject: Next Dancing Waltz Jam is the first Friday of the month ... |
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=
"Wow! As a musician, it is really an incredible musical experience to sit in a jam circle with your new and old music friends in the middle of a dance hall and be surrounded by your group's pure acoustic sound and simultaneously have dozens of dancers swirling around you. I've never experience anything quite like it. I hope the dancers had as much fun as the musicians! I really thought it was a successful experiment!" - from the first ever Waltz Jam January 2007
I've discovered that many of the dancers are NOT on any of these list-serves, so please pass the word to your dance friends. If anyone wants to join my email list, please send me a hello and I'll set you up: I send out a lot of emails about music and jams and dances (about one per day, sometimes more, sometimes less) and there is a digest mode available.
Next Dancing Waltz Jam is first Friday of the month 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm at Bethel Grove
Musicians: 6:45 please! bring your portable music stands and your Waltz books and your instruments and arrive at 6:45 pm. The plan is for the musicians to again set up in the center of the dance floor and dancers may waltz around us. This way we will be out of the way of the stage as the contra dance musicians sets up for the dance.
Dancers: bring yourselves and your friends we will start playing music at 7:00 pm!
Q: "Is this an open band?"
A: Yes, open waltz band -- anyone can play, however there will be no electricity because we are in the center of the dance hall and thus no extention cords! Acoustic (or battery power?) only.
Q: "Where do I get those Waltz Books?"
A: I have extra copies available, so email me if interested. I will bring some extra copies for sale to the waltz jams. There are 3 books now -- they are all great, we will play mostly from these. One exception: we had a request last time for Sage Hen Waltz by Tim Ball there is a pdf of that here on last summers waltz thread: http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusic/viewtopic.php?p=274#274
Q: "Are there too many females at [Bethel Grove]?"
A: In most cities this is true I hear, but in Ithaca there are often too many guys at the contra dances! Go figure.
Q: "I can't come tonight, will you do this again?"
A: If this works tonight, yes. We need musicians and dancers for it to work though ......
Q: From a dancer: How much does it cost?
A: This waltz event is FREE and was organized for fun - the musicians are random volunteers who play for the fun of it and there is no charge for the waltzing (although donations are accepted to cover cost of renting the building). This dancing waltz jam is preceding a regular dance event that happens every Friday at Bethel Grove Community Center. There is a $5- fee for the regular dance which starts at 8:00 -- a very reasonable fee and contra dancing is a ton of fun. There are really excellent professional musicians playing every Friday at Bethel grove -- so come dance. Come early and jam or dance, then just dance! Waltz musicians I hope will stay and pay and dance.
Thanks to Ted Crane for once again giving this a try. Thanks to all the musicans and dancers who came on such short notice and made our first public open waltz jam a success. See you on the 26th!
More questions??? email me! michael at canaaninstitute dot org
If you are a musician and have not registered on Robbert's site, please check it out! And if you are registered, then check your availabilty box so we know we can count on you!
http://www.gigkeeper.com/gigs/index.php
-m
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:26 am Post subject: |
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Ted and I are trying to maintain a predictable schedule of once per month. The first Friday of the month ...
So for for 2008:
March 7th
April 4th
May 2nd
more upcoming events here http://www.ludgatefarms.com/mus_upcom.html
==
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Last edited by Mike_L on Tue May 06, 2008 11:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:46 am Post subject: Waltz jam - follow up for the April 4th Waltz Jam ... |
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Waltz jam follow up for the April 4th Waltz Jam ...
What a great Waltz Jam! Thanks to all for a great open band event. Ted let us in promtly at 6:45 so we had time to get chairs ready in the center of the room and etc as the other musicians arrived. We started playing right at 7:00 pm with a nice balance of musicians. It is always mystery just how and when the dancers arrive, but always it seems to me, I suddenly notice that the room is filled with swirling waltzers dancing around us when a few moments before it was not! By the time the room was this filled with dancers a few more musicians had snuck in to join the band, including Anna who conceived the notion of "dancing-to-a-waltz-jam". Rafe was there visiting from out of town and the composer of one of the waltzes we played (High Clouds), David Kaynor, sat in with us for a little bit ... mostly he danced! And Laura Lamash from Binghamton played guitar with us while waiting for the rest of her band to arrive (City Fiddle).
... waiting to arrive ... to make things a little more interesting ... Ted Crane came over at about 8 pm and whispered in my ear to keep playing waltzes (we usually quit at exactly 8) because the rest of the band still wasn't there! We played more waltzes ... then Ted invited us up on stage to play for the contra! Great fun - Monday nights revisited! As we were finishing up the first set, the fiddler finally arrived looking quite embarrassed ... apparently Phil and his wife Gretchen had car clock troubles related to daylight savings time swithc ... they thought they were running early! They were REALLY surprised to arrive at a full dance hall (they could not even find a place to park!) ... but the waltz jammers filled in the gap :-|
So, I know had fun, and I think the other waltz musicians and dancers did too!
See you all at Fiddlehead Frolic today! Right? See http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusic/viewtopic.php?p=1529#1529 for details ...
-Mike :-)
==
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 11:18 am Post subject: Feedback needed: Waltz Jam |
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Feedback needed: Waltz Jam - I have put a lot of energy into this in
the last year and a half. Right now (at this moment in my musical
career) it doesn't really feel like there is much interest from the
musicians, the dancers or the venue organizers. Tell me what you
think: keep it going or bail?
==
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 11:52 am Post subject: feedback |
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some replies ...
| Quote: | | I think it's one of the best things to have happend to the Friday night dance in a long, long time and I very much appreciate all of the energy you've put into it. |
| Quote: | | It seems to me that the last two Waltz Jams were sparsely attended, by dancers and musicians both. Before that, it seemed self-sustaining for many months. Did something change 2 months ago, to cause the sudden drop in attendance? I'd agree that continuing like the past 2 months would not be worth the effort. |
| Quote: | | I enjoy the waltz jam, and getting a chance to dance waltzes with multiple people (the during contra waltzes being more reserved, and fewer). I would definitely miss the waltz jam if it went away, but I also know that you do a lot and that you have a finite amount of energy to devote to this type of thing. So know that it is appreciated, but you have my sympathy if you bail on it. |
| Quote: | | As far as the waltz jam is concerned, I like it. I would like to learn some of the Texas style waltzes. My vote is keep it going. |
| Quote: | | I have thoroughly enjoyed the waltz jams. I look forward to them each month and make an effort to be there. |
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Mike_L
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 9:58 am Post subject: more feedback ... |
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| Quote: | We did have an off night...few dancers, most musicians not to mention the organizers, late arriving. So it would be easy to conclude that the series has run it's course and could be abandoned. But eventually enough musicians did show up to make a decent sized group. Spring weather cut into attendance.
The jam does have some problems.
A. the acoustics in that room really suck. They could be improved by hanging sound absorbing material, but that would be an organizational ball of wax.
B. the jam often gets too big...too many musicians to be able to hear well. There is tendency for this to happen to all good jams, and it kills some of them.
C. the repertoire is stuck on the same tunes at the same tempos.
D. there is some dis-association between the shoot-from-the hip players and the fluent sight readers forming monolithic attitudes.
I personally have often enjoyed these sessions and appreciate what you've done putting them together. I do think their success is partly seasonal. The weather turns fine and people want to be doing other things. I think it may do well to leave this jam for the summer and pick it up again in the fall after putting some energy...not necessarily a lot...into expanding and diversifying the repertoire. Tom Fredrick's Waltz of the Week (Monday nights a couple summers ago) was a good idea which lost momentum but maybe could be revived. |
| Quote: | | Well, I've never played at a waltz jam, for a number of reasons, but I do like to dance to them. What I've discovered is that dancing a whole series of waltzes is very tiring, so I've been showing up late, on purpose. This last time, I showed up at about 7:30, only to find that there were just a couple of women there and lots of guys. I ended up dancing one waltz, and, believe it or not, was not tired as a result, but a bit frustrated. If you thought that nobody was interested in dancing, well, the room had a lot of guys around the edges, wanting to dance. I'm in favor of continuing the waltz jams, if you have the support. I'll almost always come to the second half. Thanks for your energy. |
| Quote: | | I'm still into those waltz jams, but schedule conflicts make it hard to attend at times. |
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
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Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:03 pm Post subject: Next waltz jam June 6th 6:45-8:00 pm |
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Next waltz jam June 6th 6:45-8:00 pm
We will play waltz music 15 minutes after we get in the building.
We have been invited to play for the contra! Open band for that too!
-m
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Mike_L
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 4996
Location: Canaan Jam Host
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:30 am Post subject: Contra band too!! :-) |
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Open Waltz jam Friday!! - It would be REALLY nice to have enough musicians to start playing waltzes on time (7 pm) this time around!? Hopefully we can get in the building at about 6:45 so we have time to set up chairs, unpack instruments and tune up ...
Open Contra Band 8-11 pm - We have also been invited to play for the contra this week! Yeah, I know not everyone is able to or will want to play the whole 4 hours, but if you are bailing on the contra early, maybe you can come to the Waltz jam on time? Or if you can't make the Waltz jam, stay 'til the end of the contra?
Any more suggestions on tunesets? We will most likely stick the the ones we know well and have worked on Mondays in the past, it is probably a little early in the season for experimenting on stage, we need to sound pretty together on Friday ... by the way: last night sounded great, don't you think? I am posting tune suggestions here http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusic/viewtopic.php?t=578
Generally I have moved all the open band "YFN" type stuff to that section of the forum http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusic/viewforum.php?f=6 along with upcoming workshops such as Randy Miller and Matt Brown ...
Some Open jams: Watkins this weekend June 7 & 8 http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusic/viewtopic.php?p=1778#1778
And Ithaca Festival all day Jam http://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusic/viewtopic.php?p=1678#1678
Facebook group "Open Dance Bands" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2378078998 join it, just for fun!
Mike
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