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First time playing for dance class
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Ailsa
Posts: 2277
Joined: Apr. 17 2007
From: South East England
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 First time playing for dance class
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I played on my own for a dance class for the first time last night. I'd been to sit in and play along with a more experienced player a couple of times before. When it was something I didn't know he just told me what chords to use and I copied the rhythm.
When they started to learn bulerias he said, 'you can play this on your own', so I did! He said they wouldn't want any falsetas, so I just played endless variations on basic compas. I thought it would be really dull just playing the same or similar things over and over, but it was fine because it was what they needed. When she taught them a particular step emphasising 7, 8, I just included that in the rhythm too.
However at the end when they wanted to do a 'cool down', he suggested I play some Solea, and I couldn't remember very much!! OK, lesson learnt - next time I'll be prepared 
But generally it went OK. I'll have a chance to do some more, but I think I need to have some regular 'standards' prepared. I only have one Sevillanas!
So those who play for dance classes, what do you always have ready? What are the things that always come up in the classes you have played for?
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Date Apr. 2 2009 5:54:00
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xirdneH_imiJ
Posts: 1891
Joined: Dec. 2 2006
From: Budapest, now in Southampton
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RE: First time playing for dance class (in reply to Ailsa)
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mostly it's enough if you have a good sense of compás and know a couple of chord variations...when playing for beginners, sevillanas, tientos/tangos and rumbas come up most often, later bulerías, tarantos, alegrías, maybe a seguiriya or soleá por bulerías...i've never played a soleá in the last 2-3 years for dance, except when we had a spanish guest teacher here...
if you learn a couple of simple falsetas it helps, but if you're accompanying, either you do the music yourself or are given a recording which you're supposed to copy...
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Date Apr. 2 2009 6:55:19
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Mark2
Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: First time playing for dance class (in reply to Ailsa)
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Sooner or later you will be asked to play everything that is danceable. But solea, sig, bulerias, tangos, alegrias, tientos, sevillanas, solea por bulerias, and guajiras probably cover 90% of what you be asked for.
The teacher I played for always wanted solea while they stretched , then she went right into SpB for ten minutes or so. Then it was whatever they were learning. There never was a cool down that I can remember. I had no problem with the warm up bit, cause that's when I could play all my falsetas or try new stuff, and if I blew a tough one, it didn't matter.
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Date Apr. 2 2009 15:55:37
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Andy Culpepper
Posts: 3023
Joined: Mar. 30 2009
From: NY, USA
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RE: First time playing for dance class (in reply to Mark2)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark2
Sooner or later you will be asked to play everything that is danceable. But solea, sig, bulerias, tangos, alegrias, tientos, sevillanas, solea por bulerias, and guajiras probably cover 90% of what you be asked for.
Don't forget fandangos, pretty popular palo for beginning dancers.
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Date Apr. 2 2009 16:01:49
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Florian
Posts: 9282
Joined: Jul. 14 2003
From: Adelaide/Australia
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RE: First time playing for dance class (in reply to Ailsa)
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Thats excellent Ailsa congratulations
there are no standards besides the really common ones...buleria, tangos alegrias, solea por bulerias, seguirillas, sevillanas etc.. the rest is what ever your school decided to do at that time...
but if you have those prepared you should be fine...really all you need for the time beeing is the llamadas and about 3 or 4 variations of rithm for each..thats it ...later on to make it more fun for yourself u can add falsetas, runs etc...as u are more comfortable playing in front of this people
quote:
However at the end when they wanted to do a 'cool down', he suggested I play some Solea, and I couldn't remember very much!! OK, lesson learnt - next time I'll be prepared
lol yeah that happens...feel free to play repetative chords and arpegio falsetas there too..or just do different litlle rithm variations...or cante chords etc..anything..but you have to make sure you are 100 % aware of were the compas is at all times...so better do simple stuff u are comfortable with and know for sure the compas is 100% then pretty falsetas that sound good but the compas is shaky..infact use that formula for the whole lesson
noone cares if a note is nice and clean but its out of compas....better an unclean in compas note...i am sure u dont but just to be sure...dont compromise the compas for anything..really compas is what you are there for..
in time you learn how to get the most out of the lesons for yourself..and use them for your own practice...when they do repetative footwork i practice my picado timing and volume over it ( or a falseta, or a variation i made up) ...it dosent matter what you do if the accents and volume is there for them to hear...but it took me about 9 years to learn how to do picado in class and wich ones.. that helps and not distracts....so dont rush that.,.
but in time i think its important that you take full advantage of the situation and use it for your own practice, push yourself..dont just go on auto pilot because they are repeating the same steps...they might be but you dont have too...u can create, push yourself...try it double time..try diff things.. if its something slow and simple do a picado run with your M and A..( when they practice sevillanas..i play the simple picadoish traditional ones with my M and A amd than I and A fingers) and try to do the volume so that noone besides me knows
make it work for you and take full advantage
good stuff, congratulations again..i hope you find some of my suggestions helpfull..some of it is stuff u can worry about in the future ..for the time beeing just keep it less complicated for yourself...but i wanna make sure u dont fall into the trap or thinking that :oh its repetative and slow so its boring" it dosent have to be...theres a million ways u could be using that time to better your playing
everything you know should work with everything they do..if it dosent its not because its the wrong thing for dancing...its most likely because you are doing it wrong...practice that and find out for yourself why it dosent...technically all falsetas should work with dancing too..its just a question of accenting to go with the feel of the dancing instead of against..
**** i just looked at how much i wrote..i talked too much !! stop now ..... 
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Date Apr. 2 2009 23:37:19
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srshea
Posts: 833
Joined: Oct. 29 2006
From: Olympia, WA in the Great Pacific Northwest
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RE: First time playing for dance class (in reply to Ailsa)
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Hey Alisa,
Congrats on finding a class to play for. I think it’s definitely more satisfying than playing alone, behind closed doors!
Plenty of good advice from the others as to what to work on and get under your belt, so I don’t have anything to add there (Though you’re definitely gonna want more than one sevillanas!). One thing I would recommend is to talk to the teacher and try to find out, in as much detail as possible, what she plans to work on in the class. It could be that she just works with a small handful of styles with the beginning students, so you might not need to know a wide variety of stuff just yet. I’ve spent a lot of time busting my ass all week to learn something for class, something I though we would be working on, only to show up and end up working on something else entirely, something that I hadn’t been preparing for. So if you can get as much specific info about what you’re going to be working on from week to week you can put your practice time to the best possible use by working only on what you need at the time, instead of trying to build up a full repertoire all at once.
I’ve only been doing it for about five months now (though it feels like it’s been a looong five months). It’s gotten easier in some ways, but it also still feels like a non-stop hustle to get things worked out, and I always, always feel like I’m way behind where I need and want to be in what I can play. So, I think Jason’s advice about not feeling pressured to know everything all at once is really important (I wish I could follow that advice, myself!). Always try to remember to enjoy yourself and see the value in the experience even, and especially, when you hit some rough patches and make mistakes, get frustrated with yourself, etc. (I just realized that you might not be as neurotic as I am, so maybe this last bit of advice isn’t necessary.  )
Oh, one other thing that I’ve learned is that it’s a good idea to have a lot of really easy-to-play default stuff to fall back on, simple stuff that you can play in your sleep. If your hands get tired, or if that bulerias compas that you can play comfortably at 150 bpm starts to fall apart when the teacher unexpectedly asks you to play it at 190 bpm, it’s good to be able to revert to some super-basic strumming or tapado patterns as a fail-safe.
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Date Apr. 3 2009 16:05:44
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