This episode, Julie invites Anna Patton, clarinetist from Elixir and other bands, to sit down on her porch and talk about life as a gigging musician, groove and beat placement, the clarinet as a contra dance instrument, and much more!

Julie takes to her porch to talk with Everest Witman, guitarist, mandolinist, and foot percussionist from Nova about his experience growing up in the contra dance scene, DADGAD guitar, contra vs. session playing, and they have a good old rhythm player geek out session about ways that rhythm players can support the dancing. They also talk about Everest’s current interests in Scottish music and bal folk, and the way that those scenes are similar to and different from the American contra scene.

The second part of Julie's conversation with Charlie Pilzer about how he accompanies tunes, how that's changed over the past few decades, what makes a great contra tune, music theory and more!

Julie interviews Charlie Pilzer at the NEFFA, the New England Folk Festival, in 2019. They talk about this history of the contra dance scene, Charlie's diverse musical experience, and even dive into some music theory on what makes a great contra dance tune!

Julie interviews Dudley at Maine Fiddle Camp – filled with classic stories from Dudley’s long career as both a contra dance caller and musician. Diving into what makes the perfect contra dance band sound, tune. And medleys? Who needs ’em.

Check out a video excerpt of the interview below! Full audio above.

Click to download the transcript

[Intro music]

Julie Vallimont: Hello and welcome to Contra Pulse, I’m Julie Vallimont. In this podcast series we’ll be conducting interviews with contra musicians and talking to them about their craft. What kind of music do you play for contra dancing? Why do you choose the tunes that you do? How did you learn to play? What, in your mind, makes the dancers move? How do you think contra dance is changing? What’s your idea of perfect contra dance music? We’ll be exploring all those things, hearing stories from their experiences, stories on the dance floor. And we’ll begin to get a sense of what’s happening and how the contra scene is changing. Thanks for joining us.

Today we’re hearing from Dudley Laufman. I was very happy to be able to find some time to sit down with Dudley in the woods at Maine Fiddle Camp last summer along with his daughter, Linsday Holden. Dudley is often at Maine Fiddle Camp in the summertime. He comes to teach accordion and share stories and he also leads the evening dance. The barn dance is a big hit, there’s always lots of people who come and the stage is full of musicians who sit in with him, as is tradition – so many folks that they often don’t all fit on the stage. Dudley has been playing and calling dances for over 50 years. He’s been the leader of the Canterbury Dance Orchestra which has several recordings. Dudley helped keep contra dancing going, and Dudley Dancers, as they are called, went to his dances in the 60s and since then have spread them throughout the country. Many of our contra dances today around the country day can be traced back to Dudley Dances.

He is the recipient of a 2009 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the NEA which is the United States’ highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. We’re very happy to talk with him today and hear some of his stories and experiences over the years. Thank you so much, Dudley, for joining us.

Dudley Laufman: Okay, fire away!

Julie: Fire away! Okay, thank you so much. So I’m curious to get a sense of how contra music has changed over the years, and the tunes that you’re playing then. I know you’re still calling now. So where do you want to start? Do you want to talk about the kind of dances that you call now versus then, and the tunes that go with them, or how do you pick tunes–?

Dudley: Oh, all right. I’ll answer that. For a whole evening, I like to make a more or less even arrangement between jigs and reels.

Dudley: So one dance will be for a jig, the next one will be for a reel or a hornpipe, and I try to vary that.  And then when I’m working with people who don’t dance very much, I very seldom do squares.

Dudley: Takes too long to get ‘em in the squares, particularly at a wedding. You get them all in there and then somebody says, “Oh, I gotta say goodbye to the bride,” and they’ll leave.

Julie: [laughs] And then the square can’t–

Dudley: Yeah. So I don’t usually do the square dances. But when I choose a tune, like I said, either like a jig or a reel–but I also like to arrange the keys, although I’m not too fussy about that. But if that’s something–if I’ve got a whole bunch of tunes in the key of G, I’ll try to find something that’ll go into D,  just to give it a little variation on it. But in the regular–no, not regular, but the contra dance, from what I see of it, they use three tunes per dance–

Dudley: –called “medleys”?

Dudley: I never do that.

Julie: Hm.

Dudley: I never have. The only time that I did medleys was the original Sir Roger de Coverley Virginia Reel. It was done to–the first part where the corners come, that