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→The Band and Caller: caption link
== The Band and Caller ==
[[Image:Rude_cider05.jpg|right|thumb|[[Rude Cider]], the in-house band for campus contradances, playing [[Dancing Folk]]'s 2005 [[Dancing Folk#Valentine's Day Dancedance|Valentine's Day dance]]. This incarnation of the band includes a [[piano]] (off left), 2 fiddles, a flute, a pennywhistle, 2 guitars, and a caller (far right).]]
Though there may always be 32 measures on the paper to play, good bands ''always'' tease and play with all of this. No good band plays the same tune the same way for the thirty repeats that a dance might last. Rather, they will often play a medley of two or three tunes, switching partway through the dance, and will riff and frolic within a tune, not at all unlike a jazz musicians might: passing a refrain from instrument to instrument, coordinating solos and dynamics, suddenly adding a new instrument, etc. There is no greater energy than what you experience at a good contradance, where the caller has set everyone solid on what they are doing, and leaves the rest to the constant bond of symbiotic energy flowing between the band and hall of dancers.