Dance Musicians

Dance Musicians by Doug Plummer
Photo by Doug Plummer

This mailing list welcomes dance musicians and those interested in dance music for any form of traditional social dance. This includes contra, English country, traditional squares (e.g., Appalachian, New England, Quebecois, Cape Breton, etc), community/family/barn, ceili, Balfolk, and more!

Our goal  is to support each other by:

  • Asking and answering questions that are of interest to dance musicians.
  • Discussing issues that come up as dance musicians.
  • Sharing resources that are helpful to dance musicians.
  • Plan and announce caller gatherings and learning opportunities.

We discuss a wide variety of topics – the following are just a few examples to give you a taste!

  • Sharing notation for particular tunes
  • How to communicate among band members.
  • Discussion around reading tunes on stage or not
  • Sharing new resources that come out for musicians (e.g., websites; books; etc)

New dance musicians are especially encouraged to send questions to the group and learn from those with more experience -> we all started as beginners and even experienced musicians have lots to learn!

– Seth Seeger & Chris Weiler, list founders