Now that I've been able to report that my relative is doing better, I thought I'd also talk about something I've been hoping to share with readers for some time.
Long-time readers of JA.O know that one of my hobbies is square dancing. It's something I started doing several years ago as a way of getting exercise, having something to do evenings and weekends, and enjoying the simple pleasure of moving to music that God built into human nature.
I also do other forms of dancing, such as round dancing (ballroom dancing with cued instructions) and a little bit of contra and line dancing, but square dancing is the form I enjoy most. It's dynamic, cooperative, social, and basically just good, wholesome fun.
It's also liquid geometry set to music.
And these days, it goes way beyond its country roots, using a blend of musical styles including rock, jazz, world beat, and others. (Maybe sometime I'll put up some brief, non-copyright-infringing samples so you can hear what I'm talking about.)
What I haven't talked about on the blog up to now is a project I've been working on for some time.
Basically, I've learned to call square dances.
This has been a very difficult skill to acquire. The only thing of comparable difficulty that I've ever tried is studying another language.
In fact, square dance calling is a lot like speaking a language. Depending on what what level you're calling at, you have up to 100-200 (or more) commands that are part of the square dance "vocabulary." You then inflect them by indicating which dancers you want to do them (similar to the way we change the form of nouns and verbs to indicate who or how many). And there is an overall "grammar" governing how the commands are strung together so as to make sense, the same way we have to put words together a certain way for a statement to be intelligible.
Another aspect of modern square dance calling that is language-like is that it is generative, meaning that you make it up as you go. Neither the dancers nor the caller tend to know what is coming next. Callers usually don't plan a sequence of calls rigorously in advance any more than speakers of a language rigorously plan their sentences in advance. Callers and speakers both generate meaningful strings of words in a spontaneous manner.
That spontaneity adds excitement and is part of what makes modern square dancing fun.
On top of the ability to generate meaningful choreography on the fly, square dance calling also involves a number of related skills, including being able to time the choreography to the music, showmanship, humor, and the ability to sing (something I didn't previously know if I'd be able to do; turns out I can).
So . . . learning how to do this has been something of an accomplishment, and I wanted to share it with readers.
To give readers a sense of the task, most people who try calling give it up without ever calling a gig.
A minority end up breaking through to the "working caller" level (meaning: you're doing gigs on a regular basis).
To attain full membership in the main professional association of square dance callers–CALLERLAB–one needs to call at least 12 gigs a year for three years.
I haven't been doing this for three years yet, but in the 2008 I called approximately 50 gigs, so about once a week on average.
I'm scheduled to do at least that number in 2009, because–and this is the reason I decided to talk about calling now–I've just crossed a new threshold as a caller. In addition to being a working caller, I'm also a club caller.
That means that a square dance club has asked me to call for them on a regular basis. I'm now calling the regular Friday dances for the Alpine Squares of Lakeside, California.
Being a club caller is considered the hardest job in square dance calling since you can't just have one "act" that you do. You have to be able to regularly come up with new material to keep the dancers entertained.
It'll be an interesting challenge!
As I've been learning this skill, I've been taught and mentored and given opportunities by some of the best in the business, and I owe them an enormous debt. I can't begin to thank them enough.
If anyone is in the San Diego area (or knows someone who is) who would like to see what square dancing is like, or who would like to see me call, my club is having a series of community dances in January (no experience needed, no partner needed).
LET ME KNOW YOU'RE INTERESTED and I'll get you the pertinent details.
Up next . . . answers to some questions from readers.
How is your low carb dieting going?
Congratulations…I think. 🙂
How much prep time do you need to get ready to call a dance?
You’ve indicated that there is a lot to learn to “adequately” call a dance, but once there, how much time do you need to prepare for an individual session?
Congratulations on your achievements. I hope that you will start partake in the dancing too.
Congrats!
Square dancing is actually imbedded in my nostalgic memory zone. For P.E. in high school during the colder months we did square dancing in the gym. And it was during these sessions that I fell head over heels for this tall girl. And she had a certain thing for me. Unfortunately I never worked up the courage to pursue it. Nonetheless there was something about those square dancing sessions that come back and sort of haunt me.
Jimmy, only you would compare square dance calling to grammar :^) Congratulations on quite an accomplishment! I’ll bet you’re great at it.
“To attain full membership in the main professional association of square dance callers–CALLERLAB–one needs to call at least 12 gigs a year for three years.”
It’s kind of like getting CEU’s?
Awesome! Very, very cool!
Also, you are now a very solid part of the oral tradition. 🙂
Liquid geometry!
Congratulations, Jimmy!
Congratulations, Jimmy!
Like Paul, as a kid I did square dancing in P.E. when we couldn’t go outside. It’s one of the few things we did in P.E. that I actually enjoyed. If I lived in the San Diego area, I’d definitely come to your events.
Someone has to say it, so I will:
YEE-HAW!
square dance calling also involves a number of related skills, including being able to time the choreography to the music, showmanship, humor, and the ability to sing
But not, in my experience, clear enunciation. (:
The first and only time I tried it, I couldn’t make out half of what was said, so I just guessed at what a reasonable next step would be after the previous one. As long as I didn’t end up moving in the ladies’ ring, I considered it a moral victory.
I really wish Jimmy hadn’t used the term liquid geometry. Today has been a really bad day. All sorts of things have gone wrong that just yesterday were working: suddenly, my modem on my laptop is adding letters to my password so I can’t log in; my harddrives on my desktop keep coming unplugged; all red lights on the way to church – things were going so much so that I told the cab driver it would happen.
Now, I thought I would google the terms, geometry of music, before I posted, here, because back in the late 1970s I developed the first way to represent music three-dimensionally. In the 1990s, I developed ways to reconstruct the phase space of music (won an award for doing so). You can actually watch the time-evolution of a piece of music in three-dimensions. I just didn’t want my identity to be given away that easily.
Now, I find out that a music theorist at Yale (and two other collegues at Princeton and the University of Florida) is being lauded for doing what I did way back when. I tell you, academics is not so pure as one would like to think. What is so sad is that I was developing a way to represent any kind of scale or chord that is much more general then their method for a competition in graduate school, but they wouldn’t let me enter because I had already won the competition three times. I was writing my dissertation at the time, so I let the research go. Now, these guys get lauded for something that I should have published back in 1994. My method is more general, but in academics, the first one to publish gets the recognition. I guess they deserve it, but since I work in the sciences, now, it is harder to get published in music, so my more general method will probably never get printed. That is a shame. I am grumpy today, can’t you tell.
This on top of everything else, hmmph.
In any case, Jimmy is correct. Music is processed in the brain in a region just behind Broca’s area, so it is, in effect a type of language. Dance is also processed as a language. In fact, there is a type of notation that can be used to represent dance movements called, Laban Notation.
One could, theoretically, develop a geometry of dance that would look really cool on a computer. All one would have to do is take the parameters of Laban Notation and use them as dimensions on a multi-dimensional axis. This would be a nice doctoral project for a dance major (if there are any in the crowd).
The Ego-wounded-and-Far-too Prideful Chicken
FWIW, I am more skeptical of those neurological interpretations. That two things are correlated with a like area in the brain, does not mean (A) that the two things are the same kind of thing (i.e. language) or (B) that there are no neurologically significant differences in what may be taking place even in that like area … just b/c the same area lights up doesn’t mean that the same neurological processes are being undergone each time it lights up … the significance of neurological activity cannot be measured merely by the quantity of various kinds of activity … to really make solid scientific conclusions we need an intellectual apprehension of the underlying neural network itself (enough say to in principle be able to simulate in computer hardware or software — by “in principle” I mean to be able to in principle conceive of such an algorithm whether that algorithm could practically be conceived and whether it could be implemented or not). And even if (B) weren’t an issue, I would say that the neurological signifance can’t be solidly interpreted apart from what else might be going on in the brain (just as in an algorithm, a counter that is being triggered and proceeding in the exact same fashion at one point in the algorithm as another does not mean that in the context of the greater algorithm that the significance of that counter need be identical — one can easily conceive of algorithms in which that identically constructed counter — or even a counter that occupies a single place in code — would depending on the internal state of the program be “counting” wildly different things or serving wildly different purposes — this doesn’t mean that brains could likely work in such a fashion of course)
But independently of neuroscience, I would say that music and language and dance, as those terms are commonly used, refer to things that are in some manner related to one another. I would be interested in more specific neurological findings as it relates to more specific uses of certain formal languages and what that might imply as to the nature of mathematics or that branch of mathematics as a human enterprise.
Chicken, I don’t know to what you are referring to but would it not be possible that those theorists presented work independent of your own? I’m not sure what you are referring to as regards them not being “pure.” I know controversies of plagiarism and so forth do exist in the world of academia, sometimes with some accusing one of plagiarism and others defending it as not plagiarism.
Dear Ruse,
See my note in the Israel thread. Pure in the sense of fair. I am not accusing anyone of plagiarism. I as much said they deserved the recognition. I was just belly-aching that I didn’t publish. first. Since that was my own fault, I suppose that sentence should not have been written. You can ignore that sentence.
As for the neuroscience, I don’t really have the energy to get into that discussion.
The Chicken
Chicken seems to have referred to Ian Quinn and Dmitri Tymoczko. I don’t know who the third person from U of F would be, but someone not from the University of Florida but from FSU, Clifton Callender, did co-write this in Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/320/5874/346
abstract:
Generalized Voice-Leading Spaces
Western musicians traditionally classify pitch sequences by disregarding the effects of five musical transformations: octave shift, permutation, transposition, inversion, and cardinality change. We model this process mathematically, showing that it produces 32 equivalence relations on chords, 243 equivalence relations on chord sequences, and 32 families of geometrical quotient spaces, in which both chords and chord sequences are represented. This model reveals connections between music-theoretical concepts, yields new analytical tools, unifies existing geometrical representations, and suggests a way to understand similarity between chord types.
Clifton Callender, College of Music, Florida State University
Ian Quinn, Music Department, Yale University
Dmitri Tymoczko, Music Department, Princeton University
I wouldn’t present myself as knowing personally these individuals but I would say that I know of some of them and that of that some that I do know of, I have not encountered any information that would suggest they are not pure or fair or what have you.
Some stuff I had written was unintentionally unposted.
I had added that in addition to exploring the mathematics (such as in that paper), it might also be fruitful (even in conjunction) to explore the more philosophical/theological musings by some on applying (the metaphor of) dance and music to God.
TMC, bummer on the unpublished work, so I’ll send over a bowl of chicken soup and mug of hot cocoa. btw, the suit was going fairly well until I had to rip out a few rows, then one arm was longer than the other, and well, by that time, it seemed you didn’t really need it….
Jimmy does dance. In fact, I gather that his dancing experience has played a big role in helping him develop his approach to calling.
That, however, would not be characteristic of Jimmy’s calling. :‑) I happen to know that Jimmy is recognized for the clarity and effectiveness of his delivery.
Good grief, chicken soup for The Masked Chicken? How insensitive can you get?! ;‑)
“Do you know what tuna is? It’s FISH! If I gave Pudge [the fish] tuna, I’d be an abomination!” – Lilo & Stitch
Congratulations Jimmy!
Dear All,
I apologize for my prideful and self-serving posts last Friday and Saturday.
Mary Kay and SDG,
As for the chicken soup, well, you are what you eat.
Mary Kay,
One can never have enough asbestos suits.
The Chicken
Howdy, folks!
Just thought I’d respond to a few comments/questions in this thread. Here goes . . .
BillyHW: “How is your low carb dieting going?”
Better, now that I’m doing it again.
Brian Day: “How much prep time do you need to get ready to call a dance? You’ve indicated that there is a lot to learn to “adequately” call a dance, but once there, how much time do you need to prepare for an individual session?”
It depends. At my current level, I am *able* to step in with no advance prep and call a decent dance. In fact, I’ve had to do that before. Last year I was at a dance and the scheduled caller forgot the gig and failed to appear, so I stepped in and did it on the spot.
(Fortunately, I have all my square dance music on my iPhone, so I just plugged it into the round dance cuer’s sound system and away we went.)
On the other hand, if one can spend more time “programming” a dance (that’s the technical term for it; i.e., developing the dance program you want to deliver), the dance will be better.
At present what I’m doing for the Friday dances is taking a couple of pages of notes with me (on my phone) as a memory jogger for the different choreographic things I was planning on doing that night. This material is selected from notes I’ve made during the week of different choreographic ideas I’ve had.
So there isn’t a lot of prep time there. I just snip the choreo tidbits I want to do and put them in a Word file that I stick on my phone.
There is also time practicing new singing calls, but that I do when I’m driving around town during the week.
E.g., today I was practicing the singing call version of “California Dreaming” for a dance I have to call this Saturday.
ChristopherY: “Congratulations on your achievements. I hope that you will start partake in the dancing too.”
As SDG pointed out, I *do* dance. And I intend to keep doing so. Many callers transition from being exclusively a dancer to being (almost) exclusively a caller, but I decided early on that I don’t want to do that, so I’m still going around dancing to other callers, though I don’t often the the chance to dance at my own gigs (it is quite a fun experience to call *while* you’re dancing, though!).
Phil Maff: “It’s [having to do 12 gigs a year for the 3 most recent years to have full CALLERLAB membership] kind of like getting CEU’s [Continuing Education Units]?”
Sorta. It’s a form of minimal quality control for the members who form the core of the group. If someone can’t or for whatever reason hasn’t kept up a fairly minimal level of activity for a decent period of time then it raises questions.
Maureen: “you are now a very solid part of the oral tradition. :)”
Hmmm.
I’m still pondering that one. 🙂
Ed Pie: “But not, in my experience, clear enunciation.
The first and only time I tried it, I couldn’t make out half of what was said.”
This is a problem with some callers. Some, for example, have voices that are in a range that makes it difficult to hear over the music.
I’m fortunate in that my voice is easier to be heard over the music, and I make a point of enunciating clearly and (on the sound advice of some of my teachers) not using a bunch of extraneous words that could confuse the dancers.
Several people commented on my reference to calling being like a language, with its own grammar. TMC posted some fascinating stuff about this (and, Chicken, if you’ve got material on this that hasn’t been published, publish!–even if someone else got to press with some of it first; I had the central insight of trigonometry when I was ten; unfortunately, Hipparchus of Nicaea beat me into print).
The brain-related analysis of the language connection is fascinating, though what I was referring to was something external: As the caller issues commands to the dancers, they assume different geometrical shapes on the floor. While in those formations they are able to execute certain commands but not others. Thus there is an implicit rule system that governs what commands can meaningfully follow others. If you give a command that can’t be done from a particular formation, the calling sequence is jibberish and doesn’t follow the “grammar” of meaningful call sequences.
For example, the command “Linear Cycle” takes dancers from one formation (Ocean Waves) to another formation (Facing Lines). Another command, “Explode the Wave” takes the dancers from Ocean Waves to a different formation (Lines Facing Out).
The upshot of this is that if I had the dancers in Ocean Waves and said “Linear Cycle,” I could not then meaningfully follow this with “Explode the Wave” since the dancers would no longer be *in* waves at the end of the Linear Cycle. The call sequence “Linear Cycle + Explode the Wave” doesn’t make any sense.
I didn’t explore the idea in the post, but there are also parallels between calling and language in that, in both there are meaningful, grammatically-correct sequences that are smooth and flowing and others that, while legal, are jarring and unpleasant.
In English the latter take the form of sentences like “Up with this I will not put” rather than “I will not put up with this.”
In dancing smooth, flowing sequences are ones in which the dancers’ body flow is directed by calls in such a way that they have a smooth, pleasant dancing experience and aren’t being jerked around by being asked to abruptly change their direction of motion with no chance to recover or prepare for the shift.
Both language and calling thus also have the distinction between “grammatically correct but jarring” and “grammatically correct and pleasing.”
P.S. Yes, I have noticed that commands like “Linear Cycle” and “Explode the Wave” sound like things from particle physics.
Wow, Jimmy…a comment by you…
I’m afraid you wrote on that comment above more than you have written in the last two years on the blog!
Nice to see you again!
Dear Jimmy,
The description that you make of the “language” is very similar to the syntax construction of a computer language. One of the best introductions to computer languages (although somewhat old – he is updating it) is Donald Knuth’s three volume, “The Art of Computer Programing”. There is another two volume work that is also good, but the name escapes me.
What you have is a command structure with certain allowable operations in a state space. One could, conceivably, plot the motion in state space and get really cool three-dimensional (or more, depending on the number of control variables) plots of the paths of the dancers – not their movements, but their “control path”. In fact, if I had the right software (Matlab), I could build a control model.
Alternately. one could use graph theory.
In fact, the calling sequences in square dancing would make a really nice master’s thesis for some computer or mechanical or process engineer. Any takers?
The Chicken
Does this mean you don’t get to dance much anymore?
It means I don’t get to dance much on Friday nights anymore, but I can still go dancing any other night of the week that I want to. (You can do that in the San Diego area.)
TMC, thanks for getting me out of the fowl situation of SDG being a little too observant.
Jimmy, just tweaking you because so many of your posts have a language aspect. The language discussions are fascinating.
Although I have no experience at it, because of reading your descriptions of it there is literally nothing I can think of that sounds more fun. But I have two obstacles to coming out:
First, my wife has not only two left feet, but two lead feet: she just refuses to dance. I can pressure her into giving it a try once in a while, if we’re at a wedding or something; but it’s literally like dancing with a giant rag doll.
Second, I live in the L.A. area and it would be a long drive. It would be worth the drive though, if only my wife would cooperate. : )
Very interesting post, Jimmy. It greatly illuminates my last squaredancing experience.
My then-girlfriend said “don’t worry, it’s easy, just do what the caller says”. Yeah, right… he was using unfamiliar terminology, an odd accent, and his vocal qualities were EXACTLY the type least suited to be heard over the loud music. By the end of the first tune everyone was running from me…
For some reason I still married her.
Jimmy I hope you’re not evil like Dogbert…