[SCA-Dance] Rant: I want beats. I wants steps. I don't want measures.

[Mary Railing]

I don't think there is an easy, consistent answer to this problem. (The old dance masters weren't too good about this either, which is one reason their instructions are often hard to interpret.) Sometimes on my handouts I include notations like "bar=6/8" to let people know which note I am counting in my instructions, especially for dances that change tempo.
--Urraca
 

     From: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
 To: SCA Dance <sca-dance at sca-dance.org> 
 Sent: Saturday, February 7, 2015 1:43 AM
 Subject: [SCA-Dance] Rant: I want beats. I wants steps. I don't want measures.
   
I'm doing a dance-step cheat sheet at the last minute, of course.

I'm refreshing my memory with on-line cheat sheets ...

and I'm getting frustrated with the counts that are next to the steps.

I'm not a musician.  I don't see the music.  I don't see the measures.
The musicians have their sheet music, and they play from that, and of
course they should use whatever notation works best for them, and more
power to their elbows.

As a dancer, I hear the beat.  I do steps to the beat.

"Double forward".
The music goes dum dum dum dum.
I do step step step step (or step step step close or whatever).

Four.

Not two, dammit.  Not one.  Two and one are useless and confusing
to me as a dancer.

FOUR.

Earl of Essex Alman?  Couldn't give an expletive deleted about the 6/4
time signature.  Ooze left for 3 beats, ooze right for 3 beats,
3 beats/steps forward, 3 back.

If you're writing instructions with STEPS for DANCERS, please, please,
by the blessed memory of John Banys I implore you, I want the count of
BEATS, and any counts based on the time signature be blowed.

And now I have to go back to writing up Heart's Disease, the common
dance I loathe the most.  And back to multiplying other people's
counts by 2.

DAN iel de LIN coln is RANT ing a GAIN
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com
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