#tradfolk
"Falshoods programmers believe about contra dances"
Many contra dance callers use The Caller’s Box, a phenomenal dance choreography database from Chris Page and Michael Dyck. For those of us who primarily call gender free dances, though, using it requires mental translation from gendered role terms to gender neutral ones. I’ve created a browser plugin, Caller’s Box Configurator, to fix this.
I've just wrapped up another year of calling dances. It's been an exhilarating, busy year. I'm planning some more verbose reflections for later, but I also wanted, this year, to go deep on the quantitative elements of calling.
https://chromamine.com/2025/01/dance-calling-by-the-numbers-2024/
I still haven't called a full evening of English Country Dance, but suddenly I'm booked to call five dances in 2025 and the year hasn't even started yet! I'm thrilled and anxious 
It occurred to me recently that I don’t think there are any contra dances that feature a set and link figure that's popular in Scottish Country Dance. So I decided to write some!
On my summer tour with Kingfisher the organizers of one dance told me that their group would tolerate Larks/Robins for role terms, but *preferred* Ladies/Gents. After talking it over with some other callers and dancers and weighing the factors (What will feel best for me? What will be best for the dancers? What will be good for contra dance in general?) I opted to call Larks/Robins.
https://chromamine.com/2024/07/calling-a-gendered-series-gender-free/
I just wrapped up a weeklong summer contra dance calling tour with Kingfisher (@jefftk and Cecilia Vacanti). This was my first time on tour!
We played six dances in six days with an extra day for travel at the start and an extra two days at the end, for a total of nine days on the road. We performed at these dances:
https://chromamine.com/2024/07/summer-tour-with-kingfisher-reflections/
In response to my most recent post about calling dances in Nantucket, Maia wrote to me:
> Harris, I have the world's stupidest bone to pick with you. Re the dance cards on your website: I don’t think “Duple Neutral” actually means anything?
Okay, I should explain myself.
#ContraDance #TradFolk #gender
https://chromamine.com/2024/05/how-should-we-notate-role-free-contra-dance-formation/
This week I called the Nantucket's First Community Contra Dance. It was an unusual gig. The organizer is starting a contra dance community from scratch on the island. There were a small handful of experienced dancers she knew, but aside from them, the crowd was entirely new.
#ContraDance #TradFolk #Nantucket #SocialDance
https://chromamine.com/2024/05/calling-the-first-dance-in-a-community/
For the second year in a row @jefftk invited me to call contra dances with his band Kingfisher on his porch for #Somerville Porchfest, for dancers in the street. I wrote a bit last year about some of the interesting challenges in calling at this particular event and they were the same this year.
#ContraDance #TradFolk #music #dance
https://chromamine.com/2024/05/calling-contras-at-porchfest-2024/
Called to a small but devoted crowd in Concord last night and as a rare treat it was spacious enough and with experienced enough dancers for me to call this beautiful dance composition by Erik Hoffman, titled “There is no Way to Peace; Peace is the Way” (after an A.J. Muste quote).
I’m typically not a star promenade and butterfly whirl fan, but for this dance I make an exception.
I got curious who else on Mastodon was using the #TradFolk hashtag and was somewhat delighted to discover @EFDSS runs their own server!
Gotta get some of our folks on this side of the pond on it.
(Though EFDSS folks, might I recommend that you link your account from your website so people can find it and also so you can perform verification https://joinmastodon.org/verification ?)
Had an amazing time at Youth Traditional Song Weekend. Despite getting some bad news mid-weekend, I came home tired and satisfied. (Bad news feelings deferred for a later time.)
If you like #TradFolk music, I can’t recommend it highly enough. 2025 details still tbd.
Irish whistles each play a limited set of pitches and therefore come in a particular key: you can have a D whistle, a G whistle, etc. If you're a whistler, you might have a number of whistles that you switch between. Over the past several months I've been working on a design for a portable 3D printed whistle stand, to hold all these many whistles, as a Christmas gift for my partner who plays the whistle.
https://chromamine.com/2024/03/3d-printed-irish-whistle-stand/
This whistle stand isn't perfect, but rather than wait until it is, I've published it on Printables as is! It's hard to imagine someone else taking the time to print this uncertain and very niche beast, but perhaps someone will.
If anyone needs parts generated with different parameters or advice on how to print it, let me know!
#3dPrinting #CelticMusic #TradFolk
https://www.printables.com/model/802190-modern-irish-whistle-stand
Also, I'll tag a contemporary #tradfolk #music recommendation on to this thread:
If you're looking for a modern artist in a similar vein, you can't do better than my friend Alex Sturbaum. They're an absolutely lovely guitarist and singer who writes modern songs that sound like they could be traditional classics—they're deeply steeped in the tradition—but often with a queer lens.
Sweet Mary Starbuck is a good place to start with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaJ_IsWF61U
After singing his songs for years I was finally inspired to read up on folk singer Stan Rogers's life and:
1. Who dies in an airplane fire?
2. His music has such perpetual old man vibes I just assumed he got old, but he was younger than me when he died 
3. That CHINSTRAP
Somewhere in the 'dream' section of my mind is a project where I get together with a trad folk musician or two, and we go out into the local landscape and weave songs and stories out of the stones and the air and the voices of people who were once there. And I guess film/record it, although don't ask me about the tech side, because I haven't a clue and I'm terrified of microphones...
Putting it here as a way to maybe manifest it somehow, someday.
Back in the early 2000s, I loved this band called #Dyad. Had their CDs, but lost them.
They're not on my streaming service, but I just discovered today that, even though they disbanded in 2009, their music is available on #BandCamp!
I cannot recommend enough if you like #TradFolk #DarkFolk or #OldTime from #Appalachia.
"Traditional Appalachian mountain music tainted by modern times."
"Old Appalachian songs of loss, prostitution and death."
https://dyadisdead.bandcamp.com/music (maybe start w/ "Who's...")