Our current Fantasy Contra dance list to help callers with our music. 🙂
We’ve made this list for three reasons.
1. We’re quite possibly a little bit different to most contra bands and it’s good to know what we do.
2. We’re really tech heavy with loops and we rehearse everything a lot before a dance.
3. We tend to ask lots of questions to try to get everything right and if we don’t have a list early enough (roughly a week or a little bit more before) we panic we might not have enough of something or the speed is wrong.
Some of these videos listed below were made just after we’d learnt a tune/song and are beyond rough and ready as we just wanted to get an idea up so a caller can hear how it sounds and feels and really should never see the light of day. We’ve arranged it in a way that is fun for the music. It gives variety and feel in a way we think works nicely musically. But we can alter the order, we just like lists and this is what we’d do with this set list were the dancing not there!
Speed: We like to play at 120bpm for contra and as we use loops once we start playing we’re fixed at a chosen tempo. However – we can change the speed if you want it slower. (Not all the tracks are at 120.) We can change the speed on stage in-between dances.
Number of times: The numbers of times through are currently set as noted. These can be changed – but as we rehearse intensively in the week before a dance, to make any major changes to numbers of times you need to let us know a couple of weeks before so we can test and rehearse any new setup. If something is set, this is because the arrangement of the loops is a little bit inflexible. In general we have a jump to penultimate button, we have a panic stop button, sometimes we have a do it again button. These are set up on a track by track basis.
The Loops: It’s not live looping. Sometime it’s just a stomp. Sometimes you’ll hear more than just two of us. For contra/ceilidh we don’t bring the piano or flute, unless something is requested. So let us know!
Set Up on Stage: There’s a lot of cables to get in the right place, tracks to rack up and instruments to tune. (We can get a bit stressed). We use in ear monitors with a loop feed that only we can hear and we can’t hear what is going out front – let us know if something is amiss!
The critical thing is – we like to discuss the dances, speeds and repetitions a couple of weeks before so we don’t mess it up!
Key to the current setup:
Stomp – kick drum stomp going out front, click in our ears
Has Loops – you’ll hear more than just one each of us
Singing – there will be singing
—
13/11 = means we run the 13 times through version, but can stop at 11. To do this we need the instruction before the penultimate time (ie at the point of where the two more times instruction would be given.
flexible 13/11 = we’re just playing to a stomp/click. So we can stop anytime, but we will have an order in mind, so it is good to know in advance if we are doing 13 or 11 as the change to 11 ideally is something we do at the start. (ie tunex6 or tunex4)
fixed 11 or 13 = we need to know in advance. We have both options, but once we’ve started we can’t change
flexible = we run either 13 or 11 stomp and can hit stop at any time.
13 fixed = you get 13
—
Want to see our list of ECDs since January 2021? Click here
| 1. Marvelous Meg/Rocking Roquefort/The Darkside | 32 bar reels | 13/11 | has loops | Video Link Audio Link |
| 2. Growling Old Man / The Cuckoo | 32 bar reels | flexible 13/11 | singing/stomp | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 3. Andy Clarkes/Trip to Habertonford | 32 bar Jigs | 13/11 | has loops | Video Link |
| 4. Sleep Deprivation | 32 bar reels | 13/11 | has loops | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 5. New Contra Pair 1A and 1B | 32 bar Jigs | flexible | stomp only | Video Link |
| 6. Italian Pants / … | 32 bar square or reel (speed is altered for reel) |
flexible | stomp only | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 7. The Squirrel | 32 bar reels bpm 112 |
flexible 13/11 | singing/stomp | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 8. Hyde & Seek | 32 bar Jigs | flexible | stomp only | Video Link |
| 9. Jiggle the Old Bones / Doodle Oak | 32 bar reels bpm 117 |
fixed 11 or 13 | song/loops | Video Link |
| 10. Kindness of Thwaite | 64 bar waltz bpm 127 |
2x | free | Video Link |
| Break | ||||
| 1. Hawaiian Set | 32 bar reels bpm 114 |
13/11 | has loop | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 Video Link 3 |
| 2. Dance All Night | 32 bar Jigs bpm 121 |
fixed 11 or 13 | song/loops | Video Link |
| 3. Lightening the Load / St Albans New | 32 bar reels | flexible | stomp only | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 4. De’il’s Awa / Incognito Ian & JoLaine’s Jig | 32 bar Jigs | flexible | singing/ stomp | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 5. Tongue in Cheek/ Ankapoo | 32 bar square or reel (speed is altered for reel) |
fixed 11 or 7 | has loop | Video Link Reel Video Link Square |
| 6. NEW TWO / NEW THREE | 32 bar reel | flexible | stomp only | Video Link |
| 7. One for His Nob / Dancing out | 32 bar reels | flexible | stomp only | Video Link |
| 8. Grandpa Joe | 32 bar reels | fixed 11 or 13 | song | Video Link 1 Video Link 2 |
| 9. Hands Across the Pond | 64 bar waltz bpm 124 |
2x | free | Video Link |
| Spares (There’s more) | ||||
| New Contra Pair 2A and 2B | 32 bar Jigs | loop under construction | ||
| The Slip Contras | 16 bar slip jigs | Video Link | ||
| Caucasia Contra | 32 bar reels | 11x | has loop | Audio Link |
| Pyramid | 32 bar reels | 11x | has loop | |
| Female Sailor / Dr Who Pirate Jig | 32 bar jigs | 11x | stomp only | |
| Growling Old Man* / Gaspe Reel (note this is a slight repetition!) |
32 bar reels | 11x | stomp only | Video Link |
| Ryans Favourite / Connaught Man’s Rambles | 32 bar Jigs | 11x | stomp only | |
| New England Square | 32 bar square | Video Link | ||
| Anastasia | 48 bar jigs | Audio Link | ||
| Chapelloise – Don’t Drive Tired | 16 bar jigs | has loops | Audio Link |
(V2)
